We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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The 1970s was the decade of the singer-songwriter: a golden age in which anyone with passable guitar skills, decent vocal ability and a handful of good songs could land a recording contract. But just as in every other era in popular music, the most original artists tended to be largely ignored in favor of easily digestible, crowd-pleasing pap. In a decade in which Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were selling out football stadiums, an artist like Judee Sill had no chance.
Sure, Judee had the same MOR production values and soulful twang as a Carole King or a Carly Simon. She had the same ability to pen honest, heartfelt lyrics that spoke to the universal human condition. Sure, her debut album was produced by Graham Nash and Bob Harris (her ex-husband and the producer of Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon). And yes, she was discovered by David Geffen and signed to the Asylum label, home to Mitchell and scores of other successful singer-songwriters. However, she also had a penchant for complex occult religious symbolism and a melancholy streak that could become downright depressing. She also struggled with a lifelong heroin addiction, a fact she never shied away from in her lyrics. Her songs were about yearning, romantic or spiritual, often both in one song. Judee navigated a wholly unique lyrical world full of angels and prophets in the shape of children, messiahs and demons in the shape of ex-lovers, and God and Satan as ever-present influences in her life. On her solitary radio hit "Jesus Was a Cross Maker," she resurrects a familiar Gnostic idea, comparing Jesus to Satan and vice-versa, pointing out the essentially enigmatic nature of both good and evil, and the hedonistic call of both. It's frankly not surprising that Judee Sill's music never caught on with a bigger audience, considering lyrics like these: "Once I heard a serpent remark/'If you try to evoke the spark/You can fly through the dark/With a red midnight raven/To rule the battleground'/So I drew my sword and got ready/But the lamb ran away with the crown." All of this coexisting with seemingly innocuous 70s folk production: warmly resonant nylon strings, gentle orchestral fills and the odd flourish of flute or clarinet. Adding to the strangeness, Judee's voice is almost always heavily filtered, fed through several doublers, triplers and harmonizers, lending an oddly psychedelic plasticity to her deceptively pastoral songs. Judee Sill is an incredible debut album, one that deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation of listeners. For years, it's been impossible to find this album or it's follow-up Heart Food outside of expensive Japanese bootlegs of questionable pedigree, or the super-expensive Rhino Handmade CD editions that came out earlier this year. Thankfully, 4 Men With Beards, a specialty vinyl reissue label out of San Francisco, has rectified this situation with a pair of reasonably priced vinyl reissues presented exactly as the original albums were upon their initial release, right down to Judee's personal message to the listener: "May you savor each word like a raspberry."
Tigersushi is obviously trying to exceed the benchmark they set for themselves with last year's Miyage mix orchestrated by vegan DJ collective K.I.M. This double-disc mix is billed as the second volume in the How To Kill The DJ series, and is by far the most schizophrenic, eclectic and downright random collection of tunes ever presented under the pretext of a continuous DJ mix. The first volume was a relatively tame affair mixed by Ivan Smagghe, containing a standard cross-section of danceable material drawn from vintage 80s sides, with a full complement of newer electroclash and dancepunk material.
Part Two, as conceived by DJ Optimo, takes a completely different tactic, preferring sheer volume and eclecticism to any notion of consistency. His bizarre behemoth of a DJ mix fuses together close to 70 tracks from a myriad different styles all over the musical map—from 70s psychedelic funk and rock to 80s Detroit techno, from leftfield disco to completely tangential trips into outsider, avant-garde and industrial noise music. On this particular voyage, it's not at all surprising to hear Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" rubbing shoulders with Carl Craig's "Demented Drums," or later to hear Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods" fade out into The Langley Schools Music Project's version of "Good Vibrations" (for the uninitiated, the LSMP is a gymnasium full of Canadian grade school kids playing gamelan percussion and singing guileless versions of famous pop songs).
Because of the sheer number and variety of songs selected for the mix, Optimo does not let any track play for very long, editing most down to one or two minutes, and endeavors seamless transitions between each, even when attempting something insane like fusing a mashup of Akufen and Monte Cazazza to a mashup of Nurse With Wound's "Two Shaves and Shine" with Blondie's "Atomic." I'm aware that this sounds completely fucking insane on paper, but it somehow succeeds. If it's not very satisfying in the sense of a dance-friendly party mix, it does appeal on a purely intellectual level, as hidden connections are revealed between disparate strands of music that might have been thought nonexistent. For all of my DJ ambitions, for instance, I never would have thought of gluing the bubbly tropicalia of Os Mutantes' "A Minha Menina" to Pablo's classic "Cissy Strut," but it sounds amazing.
The second disc, entitled Espacio for no apparent reason, forgoes the short-attention-span mixdown of the first disc in favor of letting each song play out in its entirety. As such, it's more of a "chillout" disc than the first, as thee infinite beat is not kept in perpetual motion, and tracks such as the Angelo Badalamenti theme to David Lynch's "Mullholland Drive" or Arthur Russell's beatless voice-and-cello "Another Thought" could by no stretch of the imagination considered dance songs. Kudos to Optimo for including such excellent, if completely random selections as Sun City Girl's "Opium Den" and The Only Ones "Another Girl, Another Planet" on the same disc. For sheer eclecticism and varied musical taste, Optimo's How To Kill The DJ Part Two is the one to beat, although beyond the initial novelty, I'm not sure what particular use it has for the average listener.
BreathlessThis is the long overdue CD reissue of one of the most mythical,sought-after albums from the British progressive folk scene of theearly 1970s. Right up there with classics like Comus' First Utterance and Simon Finn's Pass the Distance, Jan Dukes De Grey's 1971 LP Mice and Rats in the Loftis a brilliant work of psychedelic folk with a seething undercurrent ofmalevolence. Apparently having learned a lesson from the artistic andcommercial failure of their first LP, 1970's Sorcerers on theNova label, the duo of Derek Noy and Michael Bairstow enlisted drummerDenis Conlan, and quickly disposed of all notions of pop songcraft towhich they might have initially aspired. Instead, they recorded thedistinctly uncommercial 19-minute sidelong "Sun Symphonica," abreathtaking, dynamic work of epic genius, fusing together at leastfive separate musical movements into an unfolding narrative that beginswith a hippie paean to the sun and proceeds through progressivelydarker and more twisted realms. The instrumental bridges arebrilliantly conceived, referencing the medieval idiom popular inBritish folk of this period, but impregnating it with an energy thatsmolders with intensity and immediacy. Effortlessly wielding 12-stringguitar, violin, cello, flute, clarinet, recorder, harmonica and adizzying assortment of percussion, the trio plays with all the poise ofan experienced jazz ensemble, but produces something altogether heavierand more psychedelic, as if Amon Düül II had restricted themselves toacoustic instruments and decided to compose a soundtrack to The Wicker Man.As the "Sun Symphonica" trudges on through its many moods and phases,it gradually becomes clear that a distinctly pagan formula is at work,and the solar imagery is quickly eclipsed by its more primordialcounterpart: the devil in the form of dead, bloated corpses coveredwith maggots rotting under the intense noonday sun. By the 15-minutemark, the track is a swirling maelstrom of simmering instrumentalfragments flying around the stereo channels in a lunatic dance, as the"sunshine" mantra returns once more, where in a savage irony it hasbeen transformed into a terrifying hex. Unfortunately, the album neveragain reaches the maniacal heights of Side A, but where it does go isnearly as fascinating. "Call of the Wild" utilizes the voices of allthree band members to create dizzying vocal harmonies in a song whichcelebrates the savage nature of man, and advocates the expression ofinner, suppressed primalisms. By the halfway mark, the song experiencesa radical break with structure and turns into a seething echo chamberof wicked guitar improvisation. The final track is also by far thestrangest, the eight-minute title track, which creates a hypnoticwhirlpool of electric fuzz guitar over which Derek Noy narrates ingreat detail a ritual human sacrifice with a zeal that would set H.P.Lovecraft's hair on end. Mice and Rats in the Loft is uneasylistening at its finest, and Breathless' first-ever CD reissue does anadmirable job of reproducing the cover art in their foldout digipack.The booklet contains new liner notes by David Tibet, which should comeas no surprise, as the influence of this album can certainly be felt inCurrent 93 efforts such as Thunder Perfect Mind and Tamlin.Anyone interested would be advised to pick up a copy of this limitedreissue before this masterpiece fades back into obscurity once again. Read More
Hope for Agoldensummer Every year I hope that there will be at least one record that I'll fall in love with. I pine for the kind of record I'll want to put in the player every time I sense that I'm around speakers or a pair of headphones; the kind of record that I'll wear out from constant abuse and wind up buying again and again; the kind of record I want to give everyone I know as a gift for no other special occasion than just being alive. It's rare that such a record comes along and usually at the end of the year I'm left making year-end lists and voting in polls for albums that were great, or fun, or inventive but not quite life-changingly beautiful. There aren't many records that make me want to re-evaluate my beliefs about music and about people, and even fewer that manage to transcend all the mess of a music industry full of empty promise promo sheets and groundswells of hype. Thankfully as the year draws to a crisp wintery close, I've found a record that does. Hope For Agoldensummer hails from the deep south and the music they make together oozes the rustic, porch-swing spirituality that one might expect, but with uncommon grace and warmth. It would be easy to play in cliches and revive the jug band for the Converse and hoodie-wearing indie set, and someone somewhere is no doubt trying to get that to work-but that's not what Hope is about. Principal songwriter and free spirit Claire Campbell anchors the group with a soaring, soulful voice that is comforting even as it's aching. Her sister, Page, harmonizes and occasionally takes the lead with a deep voice so strong yet so nearly ready to break that I find it impossible not to want to sing along just to make sure that the songs keep going. And while the voices and the words are undoubtedly the stars, the accompaniment of cello, slide guitar, accordion, and a simple brushed drum kit is sparse but so incredibly perfect that it makes me wonder how the songs could have been written any other way. Drummer Jamie Shepard's enormous bass drum gives the songs a deep, dusty and hollow heartbeat of a rhythm while the simple glockenspiel melodies and spaghetti western guitars give the otherwise authentic, down home atmosphere a hint of something bigger. This is family-made music, right down to the honest-to-goodness sisters who sit and sing and bring audiences to tears, and it follows in that vividly southern tradition of families gathering around to sing and commiserate and tell stories set to song. Heart of Art is a slow, almost mournful album full of songs about loss and regret and shame and yet it winds up being celebratory in its belief that music is strong enough medicine to cure any ill. Like an album of murder ballads where the only cause of death is a broken heart, the record keeps finding new ways to pull at the deep, recessed, cynical heartstrings until the only way to beat Hope is to join them. When people who never appear to suffer try to craft songs that are uplifting and hopeful, it always seems too glossy and too strong to mean anything. These songs acknowledge the pain and the anger and the hurtful, hateful things that people can do, but somehow the songs carry on, the musicians carry on, and as a listener, I carry on because I believe in where we are all headed. When the whole band sings "we come together/ and we work/ and we fall apart/ I play music because I'm in love with silence and sound," during the triumphant album closer, "Laying Down the Gun," it's impossible to resist the thought, the hope that music really is a magical tonic for all that ails you. I'm finding new songs to fall in love with every time I listen to this record, and new, unexpected moments of clarity and insight. Most of all, I've found the record this year that reaffirms my faith in music, my love for music; it's the record that reconnects me with other people through the simple tradition of song, and for that I'll be forever thankful.
Hope for AgoldensummerEvery year I hope that there will be at least one record that I'll fallin love with. I pine for the kind of record I'll want to put in theplayer every time I sense that I'm around speakers or a pair ofheadphones; the kind of record that I'll wear out from constant abuseand wind up buying again and again; the kind of record I want to giveeveryone I know as a gift for no other special occasion than just beingalive. It's rare that such a record comes along and usually at the endof the year I'm left making year-end lists and voting in polls foralbums that were great, or fun, or inventive but not quitelife-changingly beautiful. There aren't many records that make me wantto re-evaluate my beliefs about music and about people, and even fewerthat manage to transcend all the mess of a music industry full of emptypromise promo sheets and groundswells of hype. Thankfully as the yeardraws to a crisp wintery close, I've found a record that does. Hope ForAgoldensummer hails from the deep south and the music they maketogether oozes the rustic, porch-swing spirituality that one mightexpect, but with uncommon grace and warmth. It would be easy to play incliches and revive the jug band for the Converse and hoodie-wearingindie set, and someone somewhere is no doubt trying to get that towork-but that's not what Hope is about. Principal songwriter and freespirit Claire Campbell anchors the group with a soaring, soulful voicethat is comforting even as it's aching. Her sister, Page, harmonizesand occasionally takes the lead with a deep voice so strong yet sonearly ready to break that I find it impossible not to want to singalong just to make sure that the songs keep going. And while the voicesand the words are undoubtedly the stars, the accompaniment of cello,slide guitar, accordion, and a simple brushed drum kit is sparse but soincredibly perfect that it makes me wonder how the songs could havebeen written any other way. Drummer Jamie Shepard's enormous bass drumgives the songs a deep, dusty and hollow heartbeat of a rhythm whilethe simple glockenspiel melodies and spaghetti western guitars give theotherwise authentic, down home atmosphere a hint of something bigger.This is family-made music, right down to the honest-to-goodness sisterswho sit and sing and bring audiences to tears, and it follows in thatvividly southern tradition of families gathering around to sing andcommiserate and tell stories set to song. Heart of Artis a slow, almost mournful album full of songs about loss and regretand shame and yet it winds up being celebratory in its belief thatmusic is strong enough medicine to cure any ill. Like an album ofmurder ballads where the only cause of death is a broken heart, therecord keeps finding new ways to pull at the deep, recessed, cynicalheartstrings until the only way to beat Hope is to join them. Whenpeople who never appear to suffer try to craft songs that are upliftingand hopeful, it always seems too glossy and too strong to meananything. These songs acknowledge the pain and the anger and thehurtful, hateful things that people can do, but somehow the songs carryon, the musicians carry on, and as a listener, I carry on because Ibelieve in where we are all headed. When the whole band sings "we cometogether/ and we work/ and we fall apart/ I play music because I'm inlove with silence and sound," during the triumphant album closer,"Laying Down the Gun," it's impossible to resist the thought, the hopethat music really is a magical tonic for all that ails you. I'm findingnew songs to fall in love with every time I listen to this record, andnew, unexpected moments of clarity and insight. Most of all, I've foundthe record this year that reaffirms my faith in music, my love formusic; it's the record that reconnects me with other people through thesimple tradition of song, and for that I'll be forever thankful. Read More
Piehead Standing as a fill-in for the unfortunately absent Edward Ka-Spel asPiehead's 11th release this year, Qwerty more than manages to keep theseries interesting as it draws to a close. Qwerty is a solo Croatianelectronic artist who is working in the well-traveled but stillenjoyable paths cut by Warp Records trailblazers and theircontemporaries nearly a decade ago.This record is actually a collection of Qwerty tracks originallyrecorded between 1996 and 1999 and every minute of it sounds like aproduct of those days long gone now, before fast access internetservice and companies with bandwith to burn hosted hundreds uponthousands of tunes created in bedrooms and basements as a reaction toeager youngsters hearing early Autechre records for the first time. Soif the record sounds a little dated it's mostly due to the incoherentpace at which trends in electronic music change, and the breakneckspeed at which whole new sonic paradigms are adopted as 'the next bigthing.' Frankly, I've always loathed the new-chasing quality of a lotof contemporary electronica, so it's fun to take a dip back in time afew years and add these tracks by Qwerty to my playlist of late 90'sinteresting electro experimentation. The sounds and melodies here areall a tweaked reflection of synth and sample-based techno, but runthrough a cut up filter or distortion plug in or other bit-manglingdevice to give them a slightly worn and abused character. "Aardvark" inparticular uses static bursts and a wobbly thump for its rhythm trackwhile minor key, melancholic chords wash around in the background. "IlCuore" seems based on broken game sounds at first until it sputtersinto jagged, squelchy electro with a smooth tine melody. It's not musicthat's going to set the laptop world on fire, but it's a fun and variedmix from an artist very few people will have ever heard from before.That's the beauty of the Piehead series, and one of the greatestlaments I have about the series project coming to a close with the 2004edition. I've recommended time and again to people that they check outwhat Piehead is doing. It's a great treat to get a disc in the mailonce a month, like a featured wine or desert of the month. I've neverknown what to expect each time, and there have been more than a fewreally great surprises. The monthly series is closing shop, but Pieheadpromises to continue on with less frequent output in the future. I'mhoping they keep digging up stuff like Qwerty that has something tooffer the world, if given the right attention and care.
Piehead With Piehead's 10th installment this year, the label offers up apleasant slice of lo-fi electro in the form of the Nippon-o-centricalbum from Robokoneko (or Robot Cat for the gaijin.) The record beginswith a sample from 2010wherein the professor and the machine are wondering if computers dream.From that simple sample, the rest of the agenda for Robokoneko is laidout.The record is comprised of four tracks of melodic, blippy electrothat tends to worship at the altar of artificial intelligence andsci-fi references, and four remixes that take other Robokoneko tracksin different, but not too-different directions. There's a loveble lackof fidelity in the recording, where tape hiss is better disregarded andsample noise isn't smoothly eased into but rather accepted as aby-product of the approach of cut and paste. "Nevermore" is builtaround a simple electric piano melody and reprogrammed breaks while"Karataka" plays with game sounds and could be the soundtrack to a SegaGenesis cut screen in another life. The remixes all keep what must beRobokoneko's sense of melody in tact (to be honest, I haven't heard anyof the original songs and they aren't included here), and they all pickup on the gamey, glitchy mode from "Karataka" and weave that in and outof everything from straight-forward electro to minimalist cut-ups. Ifanything, the remixers seem to take the Robokoneko material moreseriously than the artist herself, and while they sound like they couldco-exist more freely in a world of similar sounding tracks, I preferthe original tunes here for their willingness not to care. This is thekind of record that winds up essentially genreless because it breaksthe stoic rules of DJs and world-renowned producers who like theirelectronic beats clean and well-polished, or at least dirty in amanufactured way. This is dirty, scrappy, fun electronica that workswell in a world of anime-fetish and casio love. It never stoops tobeing a novelty, and for that I admire it.
ICR I have to wonder what the trio of Darren Tate, Colin Potter, and PaulBradley has in mind when they record a set such as this one. Perhapsthey have in mind the construction of psychic hammer dedicated to theeradication of the sensual world or perhaps they simply mean to open upa space where it seems that no such space could possibly fit or exist. Landscapes has the strange quality of being both musical and completely self-indulgent."Entering" is a thirty minute circle of guitar, heavy moaning, andmonumental volume and "Surface Form" is a chugging and throbbing chunkof absolute isolation. If I'd never heard anything by any of thesemusicians, I'd find it very difficult to sit through this entire albumfrom beginning to end. Aside from the guitar on "Entering" there isabsolutely no reference point that might serve as a familiar anchor;the density of every second of sound on Landscapes is imposingand undeniably rewarding, but I'd start somewhere else if I wereinterested in anything by Tate, Potter, or Bradley. Once I got overjust how thick and sludgy the album is, the tiny nuances and nearsubliminal sounds that are littered everywhere on this record revealthemselves and demand that the record be listened to again and again.Whispering collisions and intricate networks of sonic tunnels rumbleunderneath the imposing rumble of organs bellowing sheer intensity. Attimes the tone is so low that the music is manifested on physically asa material vibration: at this point active listening becomes important.While many records of this type might serenade me into believing itsokay to relax my senses and listen passively, Monos demand a carefuland direct attention. There is literally an entirely different albummoving beneath the pure, direct, and constant hum of machine-generatedgroans and waves. Darren Tate's artwork is the perfect visual exampleof what the music sounds like: the bumpy and burned fibers of the coverart suggest a layering of tones, thoughts, and feelings. I wasreluctant to listen to Landscapes at times because, on thesurface, it feels like such a desolate and uniform recording; repeatlistens have revealed it to be so. This is a desert of sound on thesurface, but the record grants the chance to see below the surface andinto the heart of appearances themselves.
Mute Suicide changed my life. This summer, New York City was treated to anexclusive one-off concert of the legendary duo of instrumentalistMartin Rev and vocalist Alan Vega at the Knitting Factory. Drenchedfrom the downpour outside, I shivered with my beer until they arrivedon stage and proceeded to show this jaded critic just how powerful aseemingly simple two man performance can be. Ripping through a set ofclassics ("Ghost Rider," "Cheree") and more recent material ("DeathMachine," "Misery Train," the unreleased "Friday Night Fever"), Suicideenergized the entire audience again and again, ultimately leaving touproarious hollers and applause. Immediately afterwards and still, Iconsidered this night to be one of the greatest musical experiences inrecent years, rivalling several notable shows including the return ofPsychic TV.Naturally, my excitement peaked yet again when I learned that Mutewould be reissuing two essentially forgotten Suicide records thiswinter. While their first two albums, given the Mute reissue treatmentback in the late nineties, are regarded as their most influentialrecordings, 1988's A Way Of Life and 1992's Why Be Bluewere overlooked in an almost malicious fashion and have finally beengiven a second chance. Up until now, these Ric Ocasek produced releaseshave received little attention beyond the collective stereos of adoringacts like Depeche Mode, Pan Sonic, Primal Scream, and Spacemen 3.
Wax Trax! completists may remember A Way Of Lifewith a certain amount of distaste. Unaware, uninformed consumersexpecting the reformed duo to adopt the sound of labelmates Front 242,Meat Beat Manifesto, or Greater Than One were surely aghast at thealbum's overt, unabashed reverence for Elvis Presley and early rock androll. Though it failed to fit comfortably amongst that wave ofindustrial music, the album exudes a similar emotive quality to that oftheir second album, due to Ocasek's return to the boards and the band'sdesire to record more of a "live" album. The music, credited entirelyto Rev, ranges from the hard driving "Rain Of Ruin" to the gorgeous"Surrender." Vega's desperate gasps and poetic yelps on "DominicChrist" and the incredibly ominous "Heat Beat" recall those of his peerGenesis P-Orridge at his best and most energetic. Patience didunfortunately wear thin for this Suicide devotee on the painfully datedelectro-rockabilly "Jukebox Baby 96," a reasonably popular and updatedversion of Vega's 1980 French Top Ten solo hit.
Compared to the eclectic flavors of A Way Of Life, Why Be Blueabandons a good deal of the noise and moves in a more accessibledirection. However, a poppy version of Suicide is, in and of itself,far more disturbing . The album, again produced by Ocasek, consistsprimarily of upbeat and danceable tracks including "Cheat Cheat" andthe New Order-esque "Play The Dream." The title track opens the CD withVega's near-gibberish lyrics and a typically repetitive Rev production,wasting little time to show this newfound optimism. "Flashy Love" isthe clear standout track, with Rev toning down his effects a bit toallow both his melodies and Vega's catchy verse-chorus-verse vocals toshine through. On "Last Time," one of the few slower songs here, Rev'swarbling synths and phasing drums attempt to drown Vega's voice in thissonic sea. Truth be told, the panning and delay makes this song, aswell as the rest of the album difficult to enjoy in headphones. Leaveit to Suicide to make what could have been a pleasant pop album into achallenging, yet still rewarding listen.
As with the previous Suicide reissues, each album comes with a bonussecond disc featuring European concerts from the latter half of the1980s. The live discs present the band in two distinct settings: onedifficult and confrontational (London, 13 December 1987), the othermore welcoming (Paris, 17 April 1989). In London, apparently before arather small audience, the duo previewed tracks from thethen-unreleased A Way Of Life, including "Dominic Christ,""Jukebox Baby '96," and "Surrender." The band's frustration is clear,with Vega growling his way through Rev's gritty versions of "Cheree"and "Girl," closing with the classic "Harlem." Roughly a year and ahalf later, they are met with an eager audience in Paris, who aresubsequently rewarded with a set packed with tracks never recorded inthe studio such as the opener "C'Est Lie Vie", the very groovy "MamboMambo," and "Night Time." The classic "Dream Baby Dream" comes intowards the end, sounding even more somber than the original recordednearly ten years earlier. While the recordings of these performancesnaturally reminded me of the powerful experience I had this summer,neither of them matched it. In any case, these four discs are a greataudio document of a band in limbo, stuck in that uncomfortable spacebetween the Seventies smashed bottles and furious punk assholes and thesuperior cult status they enjoy today worldwide. Many would have givenup where Suicide have managed to endure, and for that they have earnedthemselves the bragging rights. Anybody with any respect for modernmusic whatsoever should waste no time in seeking these two double discsets out. -
Mute/Spoon In many ways, Can was (and is) the ultimate rock band. Accordingly,volumes have been written about Can by writers far more eloquent,knowledgeable and pretentious than me, so I will forgo any in-depthexplication of the band's considerable importance and influence.Suffice to say that Can virtually invented a new paradigm for rockmusic, pioneering a marriage of avant-garde techniques andimprovisational rock. They combined classically trained instrumentalvirtuosity with unhinged psychedelic meltdown, and recorded epicrecords filled with massive, funky grooves that were simultaneouslytrance-inducing and booty-shaking.Though the back catalog has been available for years via vinyl andCD reissues on Mute/Spoon, this marks the first time that the albumshave been massively overhauled and subjected to new digitalremastering. Beginning with the first four chronological releases,these reissues were overseen by Can founders Holger Czukay and IrminSchmidt. All discs are playable on CD and SACD compatible players, andeach contains allegedly improved artwork (though it actually looks likea step down in quality to me), rare band photos, and predictable newliner notes by The Wire's David Stubbs.
Perhaps not surprisingly considering Czukay and Schmidt helmed thesereissues, the elements that seem most obviously emboldened by the newdigital mastering are the bass and keyboards. Because the originalalbums were all made from carefully edited and assembled two andfour-track recordings, it would have been impossible for a particularinstrument to be isolated and expanded in the mix. Nevertheless, I amcertain that I detect a bigger presence of bass across all four discs,and Schmidt's architectural swathes of organ have never sounded fulleror more atmospheric. The hiss that was often detectable on previous CDissues has been almost completely eradicated. Often when hiss isremoved from old recordings it can wreak havoc with the treble tonesand bottom end, smoothing every sharp edge away into soft-edged,nebulous blandness. However, an extremely careful job has been done toremove hiss without disadvantaging the original mix. The volume hasalso been increased considerably across all four albums. Louder is notnecessarily always better, but in this case, it means an increasedpresence and a greater sense of acoustic vastness, with no discernabledistortion. The hiss removal and volume increase contribute a terrificlive feeling to this material, dragging it out of a dusty, formaldehydepast into a seething, organic present, loaded with previously inaudiblesonic detail. Jaki Liebezeit also benefits from the remastering, witheach robotic, hypnotic pummeling of his primitive drumming burstingwith an even more earth-shattering urgency than before. Only the lateMichael Karoli seems relatively unchanged by the new digitalprocessing, his uniquely spindly, spidery guitar still shredding andpiercing its way through the mix.
Though I've never heard anyone claim it's their favorite Can album, the pre-Damo Suzuki debut Monster Movieis nonetheless a force to be reckoned with. This is primarily becauseof the sidelong behemoth of "Yoo Doo Right," on which American vocalistMalcolm Mooney obsessively scrapes up the remnants of a brokenrelationship while the band unleashes a stoned, hypnotic groove thatsets a new record for transcendent monotony. The remastering jobbreathes new life into the song, highlighting a sense of presence andcohesion that previous editions have lacked. Though I know it's aterrible cliché, it sounds almost as if the band is in the room withme, and I could practically feel the flecks of spittle flying out ofMooney's mouth with every anguished repetition of his lyrical refrain. Monster Movie and its follow-up Soundtracksseem to be the most improved of the four reissues, perhaps because ofthe comparatively poor quality of the original recordings.
Soundtrackswas a collection of music Can recorded for fivelong-forgotten films, with the main attraction being the 15-minute"Mother Sky," containing the first example of Damo Suzuki's stunningvocal technique. The track sounds cleaner and crisper than ever before,with each strike of the kettle drum sounding absolutely monolithic, andCzukay's bass tracing its own melodic path through the song.
The massive double LP Tago Magois my favorite album of all time, hands down, making objective analysisall but impossible. I've become quite accustomed, over the years, tothe sound of the previous Mute/Spoon CD issue, so I did not easilywelcome the changes apparent on the new remaster. After just a fewspins of this version, however, I was completely won over. Whether inthe thick, rich detail of Schmidt's cosmic keyboards on "Paperhouse" orthe warm, dimensional presence of the transcendent "Oh Yeah," this Tago Magohas much to recommend it over all previous incarnations. Quiet,simmering tracks like the dark, ritualized experimentation of "Aumgn"or the album's hazy comedown "Bring Me Coffee or Tea" benefittremendously, as new ghostly details become evident at all audiblelevels, making these pieces seem even more ingeniously conceived thanbefore.
The differences are least obvious on Ege Bamyasi,although the volume increase and fidelity boost make tracks like theclassic "Spoon" sound razor sharp, living in the perpetual present,instead of some shaggy Krautrock past. I welcome any chance torediscover and experience anew the unparalleled genius of Can, butthese reissues are truly a cause for celebration. They literallybreathe new life into music that has become such a legendary,influential, intellectually scrutinized body of work that one mighthave assumed that it had no more surprises to offer. While I'm notconvinced by the new packaging or the rather doctrinaire liner notes,the improved sound of these discs more than makes up for thoseshortcomings. People who own the original LPs or the previousMute/Spoon reissues would be most enthusiastically encouraged to seekout these remastered editions, and for those who still don't own theseCan albums, you have no excuse not to run out and buy theseimmediately. They would also make a swell, reasonably priced Christmasgift for that very special music junkie in your life who might not haveeven heard them yet!