MERE PSEUD BLOG ED.

Hours of Darkness Have Changed My Mind

2006-10-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

One of the more remarkable releases of the year may well end up being Little Lost Blues, an EP-length CD attached to indie store copies of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's The Letting Go. Collecting some single sides, unreleased tracks, and other material already classified "bonus," it serves as a de facto Lost Blues 3, a title that's been murmured under the breath of obsessed fans for years. In the perverse manner that listeners have come to demand from the artist, the CD only partially collects some singles, and leaves off several key tracks. Nevertheless, given the quality of the material, its reappearance, however truncated, is more than welcome.

Appearing in the summer of '98 on Chicago's All City label as part of their geographic 7" series (All City Nomad, natch), the debut single from Will Oldham's latest pseudonym opened up a new chapter in his wayward ouevre. "Black Dissimulation" and "No Such As What I Want" were originally recorded as part of the abandoned Palace Rose project (Will Oldham + Dirty Three). What Little Lost Blues does not reproduce, unfortunately, are Oldham's own comments on the songs, found on each side's label. The notes for "Black Dissimulation," the track chosen to represent the single here, read as follows: "this is as close to as I'll ever get to Nostalgia hopefully: the events portrayed are alternately terrible and good but I've tried to rose them all up for you equally." This is typical abstruseness from Oldham. I think he's gotten increasingly soft (lyrically and compositionally) with the continued reign of BPB, and in retrospect, this note seems to indict much of his future output. Of course it's only one side of the coin -- flip over to the single's b-side for one of his classically terse lines: "this portrait of a cold bitch was spurred on by the question who has time for tragedy" (see also: the UK-only Palace EP, An Arrow Through the Bitch).

Now, I always liked that b-side, "No Such As What I Want," and all its thorny implication, a whole lot better, but listening to "Black" now, I see a little more in the way of genuine risk-taking. The song wheedles its way around like something off Astral Weeks, cascading verses threatening, but never establishing, a conjunctive chorus. Within, Oldham finds subtle gradation of light, shading lines with a stark exposition here, a gentle reflection there. Oldham's strange and sometimes tortured syntax ("to find a young dog has swolled a ball") only enriches his cadence. By paying attention to his voicing from line to line -- a gift from his acting career -- he automatically sounds more interesting than most indie singers out there.

"Black"'s warm, simple melody -- a frequent accompaniment pre-'Prince,' and an often bitched-about artifact of his sophmoric guitar skillz -- only helps belie the song's subject matter: concealment, denial, and ignorance. Both the black and the dissimulation are keenly felt throughout. It is the sentiment of one who finds himself acting automatically, reacting to instead of receiving the world around him ("whether it is to protect or deny / one is not told and one asks not why"). The response is not amoralism, but a ramped-up ethical approach, all knee-jerk politics and blowback, "ignoring the stupid and hating the silence / disliking the prurient, disdaining the violence. " The experience of life turns into a game; as one becomes bound to predetermined methods of processing information, an open mind reverts to a closed system, a feedback loop. Realizing the mean cheapness of this approach, contempt becomes limitless, even self-directed ("take it whenever you get it -- you think / you're unlucky ever to get it all").

While Oldham no longer approaches his material as freshly as this, it's good to see that he recognizes that it still deserves an audience.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Black Dissimulation

Take his job and shove it

2006-06-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on the current situation, from an online Jungian:

Evil itself is a power, or principality that transcends the merely human dimension, as it is archetypal in nature and thereby is a content belonging to the collective unconscious. Bush is simply a deluded human being who is dangerous because of his position of power, which allows him to act out his pathological process on the world stage. We do not want to make the mistake of attributing evil -- an archetypal content of the collective unconscious -- to Bush as a person.

Or how about this, from one of those funny e-mails that loved ones are always forwarding to your inbox:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to former Texas governor, George W. Bush and his elevation to the White House. The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle." The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb bastard get down."

From Lee "Scratch" Perry's Arkology, further assessment:

The Heptones feat. Jah Lion - Mr. President

2006-06-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Public Image Ltd - Poptones

Trawling YouTube has reintroduced me to this song. Taken from the Old Grey Whistle Test, this performance is about half the length of the album cut and yet somehow has considerably gained hypnotic power. The way Rotten draws out his words is less shrill, but there's some synergy between the players that really beguiles -- it's not punk, it's not prog, it's not pop or jazz, so what is it? Today we know the answer is, regrettably, "post-punk," but the inventiveness and, dare I say, magic of music like this really belies the dull utility of that term.

On the Beeb, and along the same lines:

Public Image Ltd. - Poptones (BBC version)

Decoration Day

2006-05-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

The sixth track on the Byrds' 1966 LP, Fifth Dimension, "I Come And Stand At Every Door" was, like "The Bells of Rhymney" before it, an adaptation of an adaptation, sourced by Roger McGuinn from folk troubadour Pete Seeger (who in turn got it from a translation of a poem by the Turkish writer Nazim Hikmet). A first-person tale of a seven-year-old at Hiroshima, it seems an unlikely cover choice for Mark E. Smith and the Fall, until you remember that their albums have featured a wide range of weird cover choices (i.e., bit actor Steve Bent's novelty number "I'm Going To Spain," William Blake's "Jerusalem"), and they've often sounded as good, if not better, than their original material.

MES should be well aware of the song's pedigree; however, the album credits merely "Anon/J Nagle," Julia Nagle being the keyboard player who came up with the blithe faux-piano backing. Smith's soporific reading, which usually points toward the influence of an adjacent pub, here sounds more depressed by the subject matter at hand. As sedate as it is, his performance is by no means phoned in, though his shuffling of the lyric sheet is audible throughout. Seeger fiddled a bit with the words, and Smith does as well, though not to his usual ironic effect: "I woke one day to ashen life" waxes more poetic than the line it replaces ("My hair was scorched by swirling flame").

And lest you think MES is getting sentimental in his old age, an instrumental version of the track, which pointlessly appears later on Levitate, is entitled with an epithet -- "Jap Kid."

The Fall - I Come And Stand At Your Door

Jack Frost was a collaboration between Steve Kilbey of The Church and Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens. They put forth two albums: a self-titled debut in '91, followed, after a time, by Snow Job in '96. I haven't heard the second, but I can attest that the first occasionally plays to their strengths. "Civil War Lament" is no "Cattle And Cane," but it is satisfyingly wistful.

Jack Frost - Civil War Lament

The Adventures of Arvo/Part III

2006-05-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

-…and that is how I play “mic stand trick” on foolish British conductor!

-Ha! It is quite unbelievable how credulous the English can be. With that sense of humor, you quite deserve today’s honor. How does it feel, Arvo, to have a station on our city’s underground named after you?

-Yes, is fine, but to say of parliament intrigue -- MI5 uncover: old Pope, Sir Pius, strangle, but hush. (I know from double-spy.) Base on glove found by secret agent man in lonely Vatican alcove. But, dress as Swiss Guard, wear restrict Opus Dei garment, cannot bend to reach! So, he have use spear to hoist, examine. Knuckles spell Estonian word “premeditate murder,” also one letter change to get “archconspirator Kremlin.” However, Britain hate Catholic, so they dismiss! Instead lift pint, say, “Cheer!” -- but how fun, willed ignorance?

-I see. Arvo, I must tell you that we had a devil of a time finding a printer who would exercise the umlaut, trace as it is of Teutonic oppression.

-Yes, well! I no ask, put me graven on depot.

-We hadn’t anticipated a problem. It’s a tendency that feeds upon itself, a snake eating its tail. Every time your name has appeared in print here, the umlaut is always left off. One would have to intuit it from its absence. A curious notion --

-Ahem! On all work! A, umlaut! A, umlaut, like halo!

-Granted, but why waste two extra dots of ink? Who could afford such extravagance? Our economy is still recovering from Communist rule. Perhaps in the future --

-Why think future, O man? Or present? Know ye past? Time now, present; mind, in sepulchre -- cohere? Example, thyself: ye goggles obsolete -- mirror ugly brain trap, O fetid ruin! Jesus say: bring forth out ye, called, choosen. Ye not called, eh! And so not choosen: are millstone, please. Is metaphor, mean: millstone gravestone also, for Judas bones.

-I can see very well out of these glasses, Arvo, and I can also see that I’ve provoked one of your religious manias. For that I am truly sorry. Let’s wrap things up here, folks --

Arvo Part - Da Pacem Domine

Some Assembly Required

2006-05-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

The motto, "where there's a will, there's a way" is the superstition of modern man . . . . with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food--and, above all, a large array of neuroses.

- C.G. Jung, "Approaching the Unconscious"

The Terrors - Assemble Not Thyself

This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or humans has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever will be an ever-living Fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out.

You will not find the boundaries of soul by traveling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it.

- Heraclitus

Funkadelic - You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure

The Adventures of Arvo/Part II

2006-05-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

- Last night I dream Paraclete. He came as crow, to-sit on sill of window. On feathers, white stave. Notes, also much white (situation opposite life, yes? Bird so black): a score, music. I creep, wanting much to read wing-tune. Then, its holy head turn to me. My feets freeze. Thing open now mouth. I gasp profane. Beak so wide; I think, is not possible. In maw, I peer at galaxy, star, and out-space. I knew immediate: bird eat universe.

- His mouth, did it open like this, Arvo?

- Quite!

Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel

The Adventures of Arvo/Part I

2006-04-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

- A stunning performance, Arvo. The orchestra is playing with such quiet intensity--

- Heh! More quiet than know.

- What do you mean by that?

- See microphone, at height empyrean? Last night, I did. Quiet, like mouse, sneak with lantern, no person see. Caretaker, hear, but scare -- I boo! He reply, haunted? Shit! (And more.) Inside no go. So no see Arvo find twenty-foot ladder in vestibule, adjust mic stand, cackle like witch.

- I don't see your point. Why sabotage a recording of your own music?

- Eh! Conductor bad man! That why we hide behind pillar.

- Really? I assumed that you thought of him more as a respected colleague.

- Help me, no! Is enemy, like Devil to Luther. Mock, scorn. Big different, I no own inkpot. So, attack record process. Is OK.

- You are a strange one, Arvo.

- I not strange. You mullet strange.

- I'm sorry, the music drowned you out for a moment. What was that?

- Oh, not-ing.

Arvo Part - Polyphony - My Heart's in the Highlands

He just came from over there, the grass IS greener

2006-04-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

MADVILLAIN "Great Day (Four Tet remix)"

I used to think of MF Doom as not quite deserving his considerable hype. While he’s obviously talented, I found that his lyrics tend to dissolve into word salad. Not that such a flaw disqualifies a lyricist from critical success – witness Elvis Costello, who's taken both heat and praise for it – but I like a little narrative arc to direct the possibilities of sheer flow. Listening to the infectious Four Tet remix of Madvillain (his Madlib collab) - all glitchy acoustic guitar and live beats – I think I’ve gotten in touch with the poetics of Doom. To wit:

Looks like it's gonna be a great day today
Get some fresh air like a stray on a straightaway

(To genuinely individuate, one must ignore traffic and wander apart. This masterless freedom necessarily entails loneliness. Jesus exhorted his followers to leave the inherited worldviews of their mothers and fathers; similarly, Doom knows that having a “great day” is impossible if one remains actively leashed.)

Lookee here, that's just the way the cookie tear
Prepare to get hurt in angle like Kurt Angle, rookie year

(One must accept outcomes unconditionally; concurrently, even approaching life as a fake, predetermined game, one can be deeply wounded by unforeseen events.)

Hey you, got a light?
Nah, a Bud Light

(Modern man, lacking the self-knowledge to discern what he truly needs, will settle for free market placebos. A culture that offers false hope in product will always leave one wanting: the paradox of living in a “free world” of vast and ever-multiplying choice.)

Doom, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
"Yes."
Why would the darn thing be wandering?

(Shared beliefs do not guarantee group identity. Concepts are tenuous when formulated outside social constructs. One must be brave enough to follow arguments beyond acceptable conclusions.)

She was dumb fine, but not the kind of type you might wanna wine and dine

(See: earlier light/Bud Light binary.)

It's easy as pi, 3.14

(Discerning between what one wants and what one needs is a difficult task. Attaining an elevated view [pi is a "transcendental number," according to dictionary.com] allows one to see beyond mundane distinctions to larger patterns of cognition. It is from here that efforts towards the greater good can be accomplished.)

[Apologies in advance: Yousendit now only allows 10 downloads before the file expires. God knows if I have enough traffic to warrant this, but if somebody does find a broken link where the song should be, please alert me.]

Ashes to Ashes

2006-03-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

The flickering flame of a beach campfire, the dull orange at the end of an urban cigarette – both stand as synecdoche to our own timed ends, if one would read it that way. The kids still listening to Rage Against the Machine might vibe the heaviness behind a grainy b&w of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk mid-auto da fe (who got licensing for that shirt, anyway?) but otherwise, immolation is low on the radar these days. Still, it lingers on the edges of our consciousness, occasionally surfacing in disturbing reminders (i.e., Moussaui's rendition of "Burn in the USA").

“Ashes and Dust” locates a post-breakdown Lee Perry at Channel One, not so much rising from his recently-burned Black Ark studio as sifting through the cinders. “Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is ashes and dust,” the chant begins, expanding into a paranoiac’s bad dream about conspiracies both high and low, leavened with its fair share of pointed humor: “I don’ wan’ be baldhead like Bob Marley.” All this on top of a dub of Augustus Pablo’s infectious “Vibrate On,” made more ominous by dissociated outbursts from other Perry productions (the spoken-word intro to “Water More Than Flour” gaining a particularly surreal edge in its new context).

Scott Walker’s luridly lush 4 holds more smoldering gems than any other release in his back catalog. “Boy Child,” which I’m not posting, has to be the best song of 1969 that doesn’t sound like 1969 (please, soulseek 1 through 3, but this album is worth every import penny). Taking some time off from his Jacques Brel worship, “Angels of Ashes” hitches its train to Leonard Cohen’s tin star, easily fitting with that troubadour’s “Sisters of Mercy.” Singing that “the angels of ashes will give back your passions again … and again,” Walker’s battlefield of love (apologies to Benatar) takes on poignantly cosmic overtones. Phoenix-like, the lover renews himself from romantic disappointment, only to perish in another, suffering both the burden of failing agape’s high standards and the shame of settling for mere eros. Walker insightfully imagines a middle way -- “There’s no starting or stopping where there is no right or no wrong” -- that is to say, devoid of genuine standards, one has no honest choice but to wander, practicing discernment while suspending judgment (“If your humbleness shows, then I’m sure that they’ll take you along”). There is no coming in under the shadow of any steadfast Rock here (sorry, Eliot). A handful of dust is ultimately just that, and nothing more (forget the early 90’s New Zealand free noise band – I have). Even the religious threat shrivels from this light, where there is nothing to fear more than fear itself.

Broken Flowers

2006-03-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Lilys records have always afforded a new chance to re-evaluate the band, as two are never made in the same mold. The gap between the austere shoegaze of Eccsame the Photon Band (1994) and the Kinks-inspired speed rush of Better Can’t Make Your Life Better (1996) was only two calendar years, but it represented a paradigm shift of sensibility. Lilys founder and former-wunderkind Kurt Heasley has been able to find support for his ideas, but the players don’t always hang around for the next one; his turnover rate approaches that of Mark E. Smith (“if it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s the Fall”). Such dramatic moves are all part of Heasley’s frequently-fascinating vision. Lately, however, things have fallen a bit flat.

Case in point: the new Lilys album, Everything Wrong is Imaginary. The title lands with a thud, presaging the clumsy reshuffling of the back catalog that follows. Given Heasley’s cornucopia of propensities, however, the result is still pleasantly varied. It’s just that, in the light of past success, the new stuff just doesn’t sound that fresh or inspired. The strange 80’s-production fixation of 2003’s Precollection has been thankfully curtailed a bit; however, it’s replaced by some heavy-handed production touches. The developing groove of opener “Black Carpet Magic” gets smothered in keyboards halfway. Other choices are just as puzzling -- the credits list three drummers, but programmed percussion dominates. I can’t say that this kind of music benefits from such synthetic textures, though it is used to great effect on the funk-vamp “A Diana’s Diana.” That song has already proven to be a blog favorite, so I’ll forego posting it for one of the more palatable pop numbers, “The Night Sun Over San Juan.” It's unfortunate that personal issues in Heasley’s life prevented him from spending time in the studio, ceding that input to collaborator Michael Musmanno. I have to think that the album would sound more fleshed out had things gone differently; I get the sense that these are demos with some other mentality superimposed on top of them.

For comparison, I offer you “Who Is Moving” and “More Than That Is Deserved” (both from Better Can’t Make Your Life Better). “Who Is Moving” is Heasley at his prime, an infectious stomper with great darting guitar work and an infectious melody. “More Than That Is Deserved” is a bit of a bonus track, having been featured only on the UK version of the album, which came out two years after the domestic release and in a totally different stereo mix (the US original was in something called “double mono”). It’s a bit of a mess, too, with Heasley slurring the vocal as backwards-tape effects clash with strings, tablas, and an otherwise punchy chorus; nevertheless, it still impresses, its sum greater than the parts. And if you’re wondering what I meant by “austere shoegaze,” here’s “The Turtle Which Died Before Knowing,” Eccsame’s unassuming centerpiece.

We, the People

2006-03-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

A few years back I was drawn to a reissue called, clunkily enough, of the people/by the people/for the people from – The Common People, the only LP put forth by an otherwise undocumented psych-pop group. The CD's on an Australian label, Ascension Records, though the record originally came from the opposite side of the Pacific Rim: L.A., more specifically, the late-sixties L.A. of Love and the Byrds, a dissolute cocktail of idealism and abuse that drove the old hippie flag down.

Googling The Common People yields defiantly irrelevant results, but perhaps the lack of back story is just as serviceable as the truth. Simply put, The Common People sound wholly imitative of the sounds common to their place and time. Besides the aforementioned bands, there’s the organ-driven languor of the Doors, and singer/guitarist Denny Robinett sounds like a hoarse Roky Erickson. The distinguishing characteristic of the album, then, is the presence of composer/arranger David Axelrod (most notorious for dragging the Electric Prunes to church for Mass in F Minor). Although this was the selling point of the reissue -- it neatly coincided with Axelrod’s own brief resurgence -- it sounds as if he wrote only a few charts on songs that pad out the album’s front-end.

The liner notes are worth quoting in full, as they do full service to the lyrical dippiness going on:

We share wines of a different world
we share minds too far apart
our dreams will never meet in reality
the follies of our past
never will bring the light of death
to the others
of whom we are all brothers
a man has the right to be a man
his soul is only for those who wish to
understand his mind
the beauty of his words makes the
listening something that
comes from his environment
and forever will your world be
in peace.

“I Have Been Alone” is one of the better strings-soaked numbers. “Girl Said – Know” was only a year after “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star,” and it shows.

The Other Talking Heads

2006-03-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

Television Personalities are, through their various lineups and sounds, the vehicle of dedicated pop fan Dan Treacy. They’ve got an album due soon on Domino, but their true relevance is behind them (and whose isn't?). TVP started in the late 70’s, when the punk explosion suddenly encouraged legions of bedroom enthusiasts to not worry about technical talent. “Part-Time Punks” was the single that enchanted John Peel, and helped to hasten their lasting popularity in the UK. It stands as a classic scenester-diss song: “They pay five pence on the buses, and they never use toothpaste, but they got two-fifty to go and see the Clash tonight!”

From 1981, their first LP …And the Kids Just Love It remains a mod-pop benchmark. Recorded in three days, the LP is a scrappy but endearing gem. “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” is too twee for its own good, but songs like “This Angry Silence” and “A Picture of Dorian Gray” demonstate a compelling mix of introspection with youthful vim and vigor. It’s hard to believe that it’s still unavailable domestically. If Secretly Canadian can throw down the cash to reissue all the Nikki Sudden solo records, why not the more listenable TVPs?

After the stopgap demos/re-recordings of They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles and the dayglo acid pop of Mummy Your [sic] Not Watching Me, Rough Trade passed on The Painted Word, which, in the estimation of Creation Records’ Alan McGee, ranks with Sister Lovers and “any one of Nick Drake’s LPs.” An unexpectedly dark, unmelodic album, The Painted Word showcases a more complicated, diffuse mentality. Songs range from sounding like the Velvets (the sweetly devastating opener “Stop and Smell the Roses”), Jonathan Richman (the stark but earnest “Someone To Share My Life With”), to straight-up post-punk ("You'll Have To Scream Louder"). I have to think that the presence of Swell Map Jowe Head helped muddy the waters, at least musically. The bleak slice-of-British-life lyrics, which Treacy indulged in as early as "Diary of a Young Man" from the 1st LP, occupy the entire canvas this time around. Billy Bragg, or a clinically-depressed Ray Davies, would be proud: there isn’t anything that could safely be called twee here. The former wide-eyed depiction of Sixties starpower has shaded into the harsh 80's reality of dependency and depression. Case in point: “The Girl Who Had Everything” which also, curiously, features a rather Richard Butler-esque vocal from Treacy. TVP has hovered close to this tone ever since, with Treacy behaving increasingly erratically between disappearing acts.

Time, pt. 2

2006-02-22T17:39:00.000-08:00

JOHNNY CLARKE
"Time Will Tell"

Reggae artist Johnny Clarke scored a massive hit in '76 with his cover of "No Woman No Cry," a song that Bob Marley had allegedly passed on as a single in order to drive album sales. Clarke's second Wailers cover was less successful commercially, but nonetheless packs an emotive punch in its pained, drawn-out delivery. There's no clear indication just what exactly time will tell; however, the chorus, "You think you're in heaven, but you're living in hell," sums up the general sense of persecution. Cut in the late 70's, "Time Will Tell" features the ubiquitous Sly & Robbie holding down the rhythm and Bunny "Striker" Lee flinging his cymbals at us from behind the boards.

Time, pt. 1

2006-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

PLURAMON feat. JULEE CRUISE "Time For a Lie"

Maybe it's just the drumming but I'm reminded of "I Wanna Be Adored." Remember that funny hat the drummer wore in the video? Or better yet, Ian Brown's dance? I blame ecstasy for both. I have no idea what vice Pluramon claims, but this track was feels like it's copping a contact buzz off Loveless.

What Fun Music Was

2006-01-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

Better late than never? A list of '05 musics--

The Year, Reviewed:

SPOON - Gimme Fiction
This has become popular enough for me to not have to go into details, but let me just say that Gimme Fiction is the most solid top-to-bottom rock album that I've heard this year, from songwriting to production. Britt Daniels hits all the wrong notes right, leaves a lot of blank space, and makes it work wonderfully.

MY MORNING JACKET - Z
Another indie version of a Southern-fried jam band goes into the studio with a legendary British producer and out pops intriguing hybrid wizardry. Soaring, echoing vocals, with grand sweeping (I almost said emo) instrumentation -- and yes, occasionally the jam rears its wooly head too. The Flaming Lips did not put out an album this year, thank you very much, but it does neither band a disservice to say that Z fills that hole nicely. Most Improved Player.

THE WARLOCKS - Surgery
Even though it's become increasingly fashionable to bash this cobbled-together band of strung-out misfits (is using Gibsons really a capital offense?), I thought they did a great job of emulating their influences. Dear Pitchfork: It's sometimes OK to be obvious.

AKRON/FAMILY - s/t and Akron/Family and the Angels of Light
Embodying the phrase "promising debut," the self-titled full-length weds some fairly middle of the road singer-songwriter stuff to heavenly keyboard overdubs and communal clamor. The EP shows more range, including a tendency towards wild skronk that's almost mathy; that is, if they weren't in the same song throwing both fay British folk vocals and field hollers on top (see: "Raising the Sparks").

VASHTI BUNYAN - Lookaftering
A legendary folk lady has returned after a 30+ year absence from recording. She's got a good excuse, having spent that time raising a family (as is referred to in the title, and in many of the lyrics). Her light, airy voice and delicate acoustic guitar does not make for good driving, headphone, or party music, but set up an empty room, hit play, and have this album reward you with its winsome enchantment.

1st Encounters:

HORACE ANDY - Dance Hall Style
From 1980, on the Wackies label, reissued with money gained from the sale of German techno (!). "Dance hall style" means that songs and dubs are seamlessly strung together into hazy, tripped-out rhythms reminscent of the best of Black Ark, as sung by one of the more distinctive voices in reggae.

KONONO NO. 1 - Congotronics
This is showing up on a lot of year-end lists, but my CD clearly gives an '04 copyright, so I'm listing it here. The first track is a little too "world music" for me, but from there the trance is induced, and any argument I may have with it falls away.

SCOTT WALKER - 4
One of the more incongruous great 60's albums (and yes, that's saying something), 4 finds Walker singing an entire album of his own songs for the first, and last, time. Finally the orchestral tendencies of his earlier solo LPs have been reined in to enhance, not detract, from his lovely, syrupy voice, and strikingly cracked lyrics.

BILL FAY - Time of the Last Persecution
Wherein the weary young folkie of the self-titled debut turns into apocalyptic prophet, having seen Kent State as a signal towards the Antichristian forces of totalitarian government. Despite the doomy tone, shafts of light do illuminate some beautiful compositions. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this album is that it's so listenable, and with most songs clocking in around three minutes, almost radio-ready. Gone is the overbearing symphony of the first album; enter the fret-shredding of jazz player Ray Russell.

As Seen:

WIRE - On the Box 1979
I could never figure out how they pulled off the first three albums live. Now, I know: they didn't. Who knew that Colin Newman made such a convincing frontman? Or that the band, while they were busy nailing the post to post-punk, spent as much effort in concert erecting the latter term?

Arvo Part: Twenty Four Preludes For A Fugue
Shown at the Sound Unseen music documentary festival in MPLS this year, this quiet, austere film slightly illuminates the homespun orthodoxy of the composer himself. I don't have a better understanding of Part's signature "tintinnabulist" method after seeing this, but the recording of his adaptation of the Robert Burns poem, "My Heart's In the Highlands," leaves an impression that lingers long afterwards, a peace that passeth understanding.

Heavenly Soles

2006-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

FIRE "Magic Shoes"

From the same Fire (UK) who rose above Nuggets II with the unknown single, "Father's Name Was Dad." Their sole album, The Magic Shoemaker, showcased some surprisingly operatic vocals and attempts at proto-prog grandeur, while attempting to illustrate the titular concept by splicing between tracks a poorly mic'd recording of the singer rambling loopily to a group of schoolchildren. A total letdown, in other words, but this track, with its precocious piano and cooed vocals, is pleasant enough.

FRED NEIL "Travelin' Shoes"

Fred Neil was one of the Great Dropouts of the 60's explosion, an uncompromising combination of outlaw and wounded poet. His legend fired the brains of the obsessed for decades before news leaked a couple years ago that he had quietly passed away in Florida. This track is from his heralded Bleecker & MacDougal album. A jaunty, not quite raucous, track that could be lazily held up next to early Dylan, but that would only remind the listener that Dylan didn't have recourse to this casually seething kind of menace until, say, Time Out of Mind. Neil tosses off a line like "Some people say I'm goin' to hell -- and they're right," while sounding totally off the cuff, and totally right.

Status Is Hood

2006-01-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Richman "New Kind of Neighborhood"

Featuring the most lovable VU fan under the sun, and at full gallop. I like the urban cowboy flava the backup singers provide, and how it manages to redeem the goofiness of the Travolta version. This song's so Jonathan. It's all about finding another way of being different and yet being accepted: "And the neighbors said, but they didn't frown/'New kind of neighborhood'".

Express Rising "Neighborhood"

Sample spotting: That placid, stoned guitar line is the showcase of Moby Grape's "Sittin' By the Window," from the good Moby Grape album. I really appreciate the fact that the DJ starts in one mood and stays there throughout the LP's duration. However, this languorous approach also resulted in people literally sleeping on the album. It's called Express Rising, but No Dancing would've worked just as well, if not better; there's not much on the rise here -- a winter fog, maybe? It's just two turntables and a pine forest, cold rockin' it. Holla, evergreen!

Faith Tests

2005-11-15T06:58:00.000-08:00

KEITH HUDSON Testing of My Faith

This track is by the deeply-missed Jamaican producer Keith Hudson, unofficially known as the Dark Prince of Reggae. He also plied his trade as a dentist, though his level of achievement in that department must be considerably less spectacular than his dank productions of heavy dub low-end menace. His mid-70's work, for the most part neglected on Trojan's recent The Hudson Affair, ranks with the best of classic-era Jamaican analog productions. The album on which this track appears, Flesh of My Skin Blood of My Blood, is perhaps reggae's What's Going On, its political balance more tipped to the personal than the usual Rasta chant-downs. From start to finish it's full of aching soulful singing and midnight melodies, a shadow companion to Marley's more popular positivism. (Also recommended: Playing It Cool, which features some versions of these tracks and is, almost unbelievably, a darker, more disturbing listen.)

TAPPER ZUKIE feat. KNOWLEDGE Make Faith (12" version)

This track is just fun. Tapper Zukie is another famous Jamaican producer from the golden era, but outside of In Dub, I don't think his stuff necessarily stands above. This track is an exception. I think it sounds like The Selecter in its resolute bounciness. The second half is the dub and unlike some extended mixes it doesn't feel superfluous in the least. The guitar part gets reverbed into space, the tempo kicks up, and some guy named Knowledge toasts about faith: good stuff.

Belief Systems

2005-11-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

SPOON I Can’t Believe That Kurt Cobain Is Dead

I don’t know if this can be claimed as an actual Spoon song – it sounds like it predates Telephono, and is probably just Britt Daniels. The charm of the tune extends only as far as the title, and its smirking rejoinder in the chorus; there’s no indication that this is the same songwriter who’ll pen “The Beast and Dragon, Adored.” Think of it as a rather goofy yearbook photo, shot at his parents’ house, an issue of Spin tossed on the carpet, a four-track on his closet dresser, a practice guitar on a stand with a skinny tie lazily strewn over it, and Risky Business sunglasses on the nightstand (if you want to go ahead and complete the image of Daniels rocking out in his underwear, that’s your prerogative – just don’t follow through and make him a Scientologist).

WILLIAM AND VERSEY SMITH I Believe I'll Go Back Home

From American Primitive Vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel, on John Fahey’s Revenant label. In league with this collection’s “I’m Gonna Cross the River of Jordan Some O’ These Days,” “This Time Another Year You May Be Gone,” “I Am In the Heavenly Way,” ad nauseam, it’s a song about death, not as an unfortunate end (see above), but rather a much-welcomed return journey. Popular music still hasn’t gotten over its death-obsession, but then again, neither has the culture. At least they had a mitigating mythos then. Those were the days…

Boo! Hello!

2005-10-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

THE HUNCHES Two Ghosts

Given the fact that they’re signed to In the Red, The Hunches should be easy enough to pigeonhole, but on last year’s Hobo Sunrise, the sounds aren’t always coming from the garage. I can hear equal doses of new wave and indie rock, through a speaker screely: this is where the label affiliation comes into play, letting loose wraiths of white noise and scraping high frequency threshholds. Somewhere in the static, there’s a dark pop heart beating. I think that when they let the hooks coalesce into recognizable pop songs, like on “Droning Fades On” or “Two Ghosts,” they’re most successful, though also susceptible to lazy Archers of Loaf comparisons. Towards the end of the album they put forth their most propulsive rocker, “Frustration Rocket,” complete with fist-pumping rallying cry (“It’s hard when you’re so young!”), but instead of going out with a bang, they choose to close with “A Flower in the Ending,” which evokes the Pixies better than bands who’ve devoted their entire careers to the practice.

ROKY ERICKSON If You Have Ghosts

Recorded during Erickson’s post-breakdown, post-cred major label days, “If You Have Ghosts” is as good a song as any to represent the cartoony/scary Halloween formula. The sound is 80’s hard rock; the production, dinky (and so more acceptable to indie-trained ears). The psychedelic sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators are pretty well out of the mix, though the strange pinging sound the engineer puts on the guitar might count for something. For all the bluster the band puts up, there’s a palpable sense of disconnect between Erickson and his backing. It just makes his ghost story, seesawing as it does between bloody-minded imagery and poetic turns of phrase, even spookier. Coherence is a little much to ask from his narratives, but there are plenty of lines left deliciously open, beginning with the chorus, “If you have ghosts/Then you have everything.” Then there’s the incantation that he runs through really quickly, “The moon to the left of me is a part of me, is me/Forever is the wind, is a part of my thoughts, is a part of me, is me” which looks pretty intriguing written out; as sung, its complex structure’s obscured by a ranting delivery.

The going assumption is that cheap horror flicks now serve as Erickson’s muse, and lingering mental illness has almost totally obscured the guru. It’s hard to argue either way on this. As John Darnielle pointed out in his liners for the institution-recorded Never Say Goodbye, “Great poems have always been about trying to scare you out of your pants.” The haunted house he explores could just as easily be a haunted head; either way, a lonely road to tread. The wasteland of dissociative disorder could find its metaphor in sympathy for the ghost (“In the night, I am real”). But hell, even in the Elevators he sounded tortured by unseen forces; remember the blood-curdling shrieks in “Roller Coaster”. The previously-espoused mysticism wasn’t all Tommy Hall putting words in his mouth; in the chorus of his most famous composition, an accusatory “You didn’t realize” -- by dint of repetition made to sound like a call to mindfulness -- pointedly receives emphasis over the payoff, “You’re gonna miss me”.

Murder, Incorporated

2005-10-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

KALEIDOSCOPE

The Murder of Lewis Tollani

One of the more neglected 60's UK pop bands, Kaleidoscope put out one great album, Tangerine Dream, before dirtying their hands with prog on their second LP, Faintly Blowing. A dramatic, grandiose showcase, that material has not aged as well as their ebullient psych-pop origins. Overshadowed in their time, the band splintered and reformed as Fairfield Parlour, which suffered the ignominy of not having their best album released until twenty years after their breakup. Screwed over by a hit-seeking label, it's doubly disappointing to see them denied from charting singles off Tangerine Dream. They had energy, a strong vocalist, and an inventive but raw approach to instrumentation. They deftly avoided the plague of twee with a dark sensibility that comes to the fore on this track. On "The Murder of Lewis Tollani," there's a definite hint of fall in the air, a chill wind rusting the leaves, someone on somebody's heels in the night. It's deliciously creepy the way singer Peter Daltry stumbles over his words, making his appeal to innocence not at all convincing. It's only a matter of time before someone'll stick a song on a soundtrack (paging Wes Anderson) and the reissue campaign will begin in earnest. Until then, Dive Into Yesterday contains most of their recorded output (and all of Tangerine Dream but two tracks); but for that you'll have to get your import on.

EDAN

Murder Mystery

I have given up trying to read the face of the hip hop times; online, it isn't too hard to find incidental images of the game. Just know that Boston, like most American metropolis in 2005, has a vibrant hip-hop scene. Mr. Lif has the highest profile, with product on the critically-acclaimed Def Jux imprint. Edan's latest, Beauty and the Beat, mixes old-school rapping with even older-school psych-pop sampling. I can't say he comes off an Elephant 6 rapper (shudder at the thought), but the backing tracks do pleasantly dislocate the proceedings, going easy on the standard sources to unearth some still-potent faerie dust. Edan gets enough of a whiff to spin out some serious daydreams, travelling the spaceways like Kool Keith on "Promised Land." For "Murder Mystery," though, the focus is on the street. It's pretty much one straight verse, with spooky sound effects and striking tape-effected feedback, with some big band horns thrown in for effect. The story eschews narrative arc and gives the lie to the entitled mystery. Any aspiring gumshoe would get quickly lost in this maze. There are some cinematic, evocative lyrics -- "The chauffeur in the van with the globe in his hand" -- leading to less clear impressionism -- "The author was typing / The water was icy" -- to simple declaratory -- "His father's name was Michael / He shot him with a rifle." The mystery is less whodunit than framing a random sequence of events, with shadowy characters and even less coherent motivation. The flow ends when it hits its target, gang affiliation given credence to the cause. The apparent senselessness of the crime is treated as just another fact in the recurrent violence of modern urban reality. Who did it doesn't solve anything, providing no good answer to the bigger questions that loom. Crime goes on; the forces involved are bigger than the individuals in thrall to it. Unconscious society cannot speak to this, except to move on to the next case -- the next track -- in a search for the satisfying click of an easy solution. Edan's brief attempt at holding up a mirror reveals fragments shattering edges, reforming into new wholes, broken apart as the world turns, a kaleidoscopic vision of a world on the brink.

The Real New Tall

2005-10-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

Sign the Dotted Line
Life Is Strange

David Bowie quipped that only 100 people bought The Velvet Underground and Nico when it was originally released, but every one of them started a band. The same event must have been duplicated some years later in New Zealand. Aside from some elusive, creativity-fostering element in the water table, it remains an open question as to how a vibrant pop underground took foothold in that breakaway republic. Local radio loved catering to middling Australian tastes, and NZ didn’t possess the press-fed frenzy of the British scene. There were universities where the like-minded could meet, and a few record stores to score product, but distro on the other side of the world was less than ideal -- case in point, there were no Joy Division records available until after Ian Curtis’ suicide. New Zealand pop stands, then, as another example of how widespread indifference paradoxically inspires winning performances from of the unlikeliest contenders.

Warm, intimate, and often cracked, the music fostered by the Flying Nun and Xpressway labels churned out an impressive body of work in the 80’s, the quality of which often transcends its continued obscurity. The kiwi contingent labored over their home recordings, keeping an eye on both economy and artistry, adding just the right amount of scuzz and sneer to acknowledge punk rock’s paradigm shift. Years before Pavement and Guided By Voices deconstructed pop songs in their hovels, the New Zealand underground produced the same results with surprising consistency. The Clean got the first local hit, but still never made it beyond critical nods and a small fanbase stateside. They had their brief revival a few years ago when Merge threw together two CDs’ worth of back catalogue highlights as Anthology, garnering college radio attention and inspiring a US tour. These days posthumous acclaim spreads as fast as a couple of mouse clicks. Cloud Recordings aims to reproduce that reissue's success for the Tall Dwarfs, this month reissuing their first two LPs, Weeville and Fork Songs.

Tall Dwarfs started in ’81, the same year as Flying Nun, and were comprised of two members from the New Wave band Toy Love, Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate. They recorded everything at home on TEAC four track and put together their own record covers and promotional materials. Guitars, some drum sticks (if not actual drums), and a Casiotone are all they needed to string together melody and lyric into pop songs, sneering satire, and genre-stretching experiments.

-- Here are the young men. The picture suggests the mien of Tall Dwarfs to be variously uncomfortable, defiant, self-aware, and oblivious. Bathgate looks like Lance Armstrong fielding testicle questions from hostile French sportswriters. To his right stands Knox, looking unamused for once. He usually resembles Richard D. James' older brother (see: the photo at the beginning of this post). Here, he seems to want to evoke Lemmy, and not merely ape him, as so many others have. Like Knox’s music, the ‘stache idiosyncratically conjures something from the storebin of cultural awareness, made even more estranged from its already marginal source.

The Tall Dwarfs had been plying their trade in EPs until 1990, when the Weeville LP was released. Given that background, the odds-and-sods nature of the album’s flow is understandable. As an example of this kind of dichotomy, “The Winner” weds Superchunk pogo to a string of nasty putdowns, culminating in one of the Dwarfs goading the listener into a barfight over the song's fade. This is followed by “Rorschach,” an oddly affecting ballad of delicate guitar and creeped-out keyboards. The track offered above, “Sign the Dotted Line,” is an anthem for the year punk broke, when the nascent indie rock met mainstream and only a few got a lasting deal (Sonic Youth comes to mind as faring the best). The lyrics seem to presage the indie rock era perfectly, constant considerations undercutting any buoyancy that threatens to raise their spirits. Underachievers, attack at your leisure.

Giving themselves a year to think about it, the Dwarfs returned in ’91 with their second LP, Fork Songs. The first song, “Dare to Tread,” gets down to business immediately, laying out the band’s blueprint in its four and a half minutes: jaunty rhythm guitar, anthemic riffs recorded flat, arch lyrics, and cardboard box drumming. Fourteen variations on the theme later, the shrugging closer "Think Small" engages in some quiet defeatism, catchy for all its ineffectual sullenness. In between the Dwarfs splatter their canvas with everything heard on Weeville, refined slightly with another year’s maturity; cheesy percussion loops are mixed lower, guitarwork is more tasteful, the balance between anger and resignation tipping decidedly toward the latter. In general the two sound more comfortable with their limitations, at points flat-out mellow. “We Bleed Love” is from head to toe verifiably a Dump song -- one can easily imagine James McNew hunched over his Hello Kitty boombox, trying to figure out the chords. The appended Dogma EP predates Weeville by two years, and is decidedly more ramshackle, kicking things off with a spoken word piece and utilizing more found sounds and tape pastichery. The centerpiece is "The Slide," a slow burner of zinging, pro-euthanasia couplets (summing with the droll assessment, "The doctor should kill / She's terminally ill"). The most successful gambit is "Dog"'s funk-spazz-pop, multi-tracking allowing the Dwarfs to come across as a no-budget Talking Heads.

“Life Is Strange” shares a similar approach with “Dotted Line,” in that both songs share the same gradual enfolding of electric guitar heroism for maximum – minimalist – impact (Guided By Voices used this trick endlessly during their basement years). “Life” is more straightforward rocker, but with chintzy percussion and no low end to speak of, its demo-sized effect is considerably less than suggested. That’s all part of their charm, though, the Tall Dwarfs living up, and down, to their name.

[Weeville and Fork Songs are out October 25th on Cloud Recordings.]

Various Positions

2005-10-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

THE SKYGREEN LEOPARDS Minotaur (Burn A Candle For Love)

The Skygreen Leopards, a Californian duo of Donovan Quinn and Glenn Donaldson, take their name, and a good deal of inspiration, from mid-20th C. American poet Kenneth Patchen. "Because where they planted skygreen leopards grew": hard to believe, but listening to them, the fantastic is almost believable. The music's crisp and clear, twangs like folk, and is sung fey. It’s both charming and charmed, as intimate as a campfire singalong, and yet joyfully acknowledges the life in the open around it. The Leopards wrote this album in a seacoast cabin, an affect reminiscent of another California poet, Robinson Jeffers (though it was a rental, and probably did not look as cool as Jeffers’ tor). The arrangements are offhand, and considering their background in improv, sound assured in their breeziness. According to Donaldson, composing in Skygreen works something like this: "Donovan Quinn & I sit around & drink coffee & talk about Kenneth Patchen or debate the merits of Bob Dylan’s various phases, then we 'write' songs." Still, it would be easy to pin the twee tag on these sunlit explorations were it not for the clouds that gather. Like Patchen, a deep dissatisfaction erupts from the menagerie -- one gets the sense that they were not born in the countryside, but have retreated there.

Patchen viewed the world of man as misruled to the point of catastrophe. His poetry uses nature images to evoke the sense of refuge in an inhuman, incorruptible, space. "Minotaur" (from this year’s Life & Love In Sparrow’s Meadow on Jagjaguwar) pulls the verdant curtain aside to view the inner shadow. It's a song about monstrous behavior leading to a lostness, and the ensuent hope for transcendence: "Oh, to be a prairie bird." As the woodland processional marches out, variations on the refrain, "This is the message that your minotaur brings" are repeated, while another voice insists, "Burn a candle for love." There's a meaning at work here that avoids easy solutions, a small hope amid the backsliding of society's progress -- Patchen would be proud.

[The Jehovah Surrender EP will be released later this month. It sounds as if the band has moved, perhaps only temporarily, from the shed to the garage, having added distorted guitar, fuzz bass, and what sounds like an actual drum kit. The change aligns them more closely with the popular sound of Nuggets et al. You can read the fanciful account of the events behind the recording here.]

QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE Just For Love

One of the first San Francisco bands to stir up the 60’s scene, Quicksilver Messenger Service suffered more than most from extenuating circumstances. They initially spurned label money, but found room remaining on the bandwagon two years later, having fully cemented their reputation on the West Coast as a live act. A drug bust had already sidelined singer Dino Valente, who would not rejoin the band until 1970. Upon his release, he recorded a self-titled solo album, a hermetically sealed period piece that cast himself as a humble sage who gently directs young women down the path of right intention (that ends in his bed). He apparently was kinda like this offstage, too. "Overpowering and indulgent" reads one online assessment, and even his own producer, Bob Johnston, acknowledges that "people thought that he was evil."

QMS did pretty well without him, recording several albums, gaining some notoreity, and playing Monterey. Valente rejoined just as the whole West Coast pop experiment came crashing to halt; the hippie dream gave way to drug nightmare, and harsh 70’s reality commenced in earnest. From the dual-guitar jam attack for which they were known, Valente brought down the fans by loading QMS’ fourth LP with his fussily cosmic ballads; "Just For Love" is the title track. Arthur Levy notes that every song on Dino Valente is directed towards a "you," and the approach is no different here. The song sounds pleasant enough; it’s definitely an easier listen than the strained harmonies (both musically and lyrically) of Valente’s solo record. It resonates well in ’05 with its similarity to Forever Changes’ stately arrangements. Tasteful piano flourishes, pageantal drumrolls, a troubadour's guitar line -- over and above the assembly soars Valente, sounding like Roky Erickson emulating "Song to the Siren" above the demon static. There’s a certain trippy swagger up and down the verses, a "kaleidoscopic dimension of simpatico" (to quote Arthur Levy’s Dino Valente liners) that, for all its ridiculousness, still manages to intrigue.

Endtroducing...

2005-09-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

THE FALL Mere Pseud Mag. Ed.

Consensus on The Fall is that they step in the same river with every LP, but it was John Peel who made the subtle distinction: "always different, always the same." Beginning with dank garage scratch in the late 70’s, The Fall had mutated into bouncy pop by the late 80's, at which time the keyboards got out of hand, giving way to flirtations with technopunk in the early 90’s, continuing to evolve through trials endured in the years spent wandering between decent label support (one of the more interesting adaptations being 1997's Levitate -- a rock band trying to make club music with club producers who want to make a rock album). Sifting through the mess reveals only one definite source of continuity, frontman (I was careful not to put "singer") Mark E. Smith. MES, as he is known to initiates, has now logged twenty-eight years on the margins, inhabiting his chosen roles of provocateur, Blakean mystic, and self-described "well-read punk peasant" unlike any other. The terms of this contract -- an incredible amount of band turnover, industry indifference, and ensuing personal bankruptcy -- have taken a heavy toll (trainspotters may compare then to now), but now the man racks up the lifetime achievement awards at British industry shows and can take comfort (but, rest assured, won't) in a modicum of success.

In 1982 there was no need to suss out the legacy, but somewhere along the way Peel coined them "the mighty Fall," and they became a kind of fabled institution, more referenced than heard. The Fall, by alternately pursuing and rejecting pop styles, have earned a diehard contingent who appreciate the Manichaean (and Mancunian) tension. All this cult love has finally led to a respectable reissue campaign for the band’s back catalogue. Starting last year with Live at the Witch Trials, Castle's program has finally worked its way up to the most notorious Fall album, Hex Enduction Hour, home of this MP3.

From its slurred intro, "Mere Psued Mag. Ed." quickly manifests in full, an insistent poltergeist feverishly clanging invective. MES’ verbal economy boils down "Mere Pseud" to its essential ingredients, all piss, vinegar, and suspect pharmacology. Critiquing the new breed of music scribes, MES strips away layers of defensive affect ("Real ale, curry as well -- sophisticate!") in no time flat. Unfortunately, the reissue doesn't provide annotation, much less a lyric sheet, so some obscurities beg to be Googled: "His dream girl sings adverts for the Weetabix/A fancied wit that's imitation of Rumpole of Bailey".

When that proves unsatisfying, the wretch’s father is called forth, but the track mercifully ends before punishment can be meted out. This is the Mark E. Smith that rockists revel in, but even a perfunctory listen to the following song, "Winter," reveals a painterly, almost gentle, chiaroscuro approach. MES, for all his vatic mutterings and sneering anti-posturing, is as able a lyricist as any, possessing a sense of humor that allows him to shift into high gear derogation without the shrill grind of didacticism.

[A note on other versions: In a 2003 Peel Session, MES fumbles with the words, either slightly embarrassed or slightly senile, finally conceding, "Etcetera!" On last year's joke/dole subsidy Interim, Smith switches the aforementioned cereal reference for a brand of ice cream, the only innovation in an otherwise bland remake.]

Taken as one battering whole, Hex takes 60 minutes to find no way out, and yet, 23 years later, kids are happy shuffling their Fall MP3s amongst dreck from the latest ahistorical trust fund Brooklynites. Supplemented by music zines, attendant message boards, MP3 blogs (!), and the easy availabilty of gateway drugs, mere psued mag eds are flourishing like never before. It remains a mystery as to what keeps MES going in the face of all this mire (and don’t say speed), but perhaps his attitude in regards to this and other big questions can be taken from the urgent scrawl of Hex's cover graffiti: "HAVE A BLEEDIN GUESS."

GUIDED BY VOICES Mag Earwhig!

From the bloated rock corpus of basement savant/avuncular showman R. Pollard comes this snippet, the unlikely title track from GBV’s 1997 concept-album-that-wasn't. Mag, in this case, meaning magnificent, as in Magnificent Earwhig, the album’s ostensible protagonist. Given his working methods, it’s hard to imagine Pollard pulling off a coherent album; his opaque wordplay and junk construction ethos would seem to preclude that kind of discipline. The history of Mag Earwhig! serves as testimony to this fact. After having recorded 15 songs with his new professional band, Pollard began to have doubts. In his search for a more perfect pop alchemy, he sequenced the album "36 different ways" (the press release notes this with the barest hint of exasperation) before throwing in the towel and calling up his recent exes Tobin Sprout and John Slough to finish the album. Somewhere in the confusion, the idea of a hero earwhig was lost, but he lives on in the inner sleeve in the barest of outlines: "MAGNIFICENT EARWHIG! I AM SMALL YET BIG. I AM EVERYBODY."

There isn’t any sign of him in his own song, even. A processed vocal looped in the background may or may not be saying "Mag!". A quick check of the lyric sheet confirms that there isn't much going on here (though I do dig the ringing rhyme of "I smiled like an electric child"). However, the sleeve's marginalia, "(A sign reading: Welcome To New Limited Dimensions)," does find thematic resonance all over GBV's aching universe (just off the top of my head, backup singing on Earthquake Glue was credited to "The Model Prisoners of the 5 Sense Realm"). There's a rich vein of such stuff running through his work, but unfortunately, Pollard's populist cosmology has yet to find its Boswell. (Maybe next time.)