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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

cover image On their third full length album, the duo of AJ Cookson and Matthew Rozeik that somehow managed to merge the disparate worlds of black metal and hard-edged electronic dance music have put together another brilliant combination of the two, sounding like no one else in the process, in the best possible way.

Distraction

If I had only heard the name of the band, I would have likely have written them off as yet another clich√© black metal project with intentionally bad production and stupid garbled vocals.However, with a first album titled This Beat is Necrotronic, I was curious to hear more, and I am glad I did.That same defiance of expectations can be seen by the artwork alone:the "almost black on black" graphic design of so many metal albums is here, but rather than demons and blasphemy, there are pictures of astronauts.

There are of course moments where the duo sticks to more conventional metal territory:the digital guitar distortion and screamed vocals of "Led to the Water" and "Theme From Escape" are a bit more traditional, although the stiff drum machine rhythms and ambient synths do their part to mix up the archetype.Similarly, the distorted bass and pummeling riffs of "Arrows" keep things metal, but the synth textures and guest female vocals by Eliza Gregory are anything but the norm.

For me the best songs here are the ones that bounce between the two extremes."Imperial" begins with grimy guitar and a chintzy drum machine channeling "kvlt" metal before it throws itself into a synth heavy breakbeat collage, which is then broken up by guitar solos and bassy drone.It has the bleak heaviness of metal, catchy electronic rhythms, and memorable transitions to create a track that brilliantly sounds like no one (and nothing) else.

The aquatic bass thuds and filtered synths of "Endless Vertex" exemplify this as well.The slow, pounding heavy layers and heavily effected guitar are paired with lush keyboard passages to create this great juxtaposition of ugly and beauty.Even the heavily processed basement guitar drone of "Wretched Hag" is balanced out by electronics to create a bizarrely heavy take on ambient music.

The Colonial Script retains the joyful genre-bending of its predecessor Music of Bleak Origin, but adds an extra layer of polish and experience, feeling more focused and self-assured.As dark and as bleak as it may come across, there is a perverse sense of exploration and excitement to be found here, something that too many bands simply choose to ignore.

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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

cover image An ambient side project from Dean Costello (Harpoon, Diatribes, Winters in Osaka), Cosmic Despair is a perfectly titled album: a long suite of guitar and organ bleakness, with just a hint of psychedelia to keep it different and unexpected.

Basses Frequences/Calls and Correspondence

"The Beginning" leads off with rich, funereal type organ drones that hit just that right level of creepy without becoming clich√©, creating a distinctly dreary atmosphere.Guitars drop in noticeably, but do not upset the dark atmosphere that was already created.The result is chugging, resonating waves of indistinct noise that manage to be simultaneously dark and inviting."Abstraction" has a slightly more restrained dynamic, but a vintage-tinged, nostalgic hum and heavy waves of bass give it its own unique identity.

"Expanding Mental Universe" is where things begin to get spacey.Sci fi synth blurbs, slathered in reverb, pulse outward with understated drifting tones atop.Subtle variations on the same theme are the norm before overdriven bass and crunchy, earthy guitars come in to ground the otherwise cosmic vibe, with the two instruments eventually becoming equals in the mix.

Also channeling in the more celestial elements, "The Crossing" begins with shimmering electronic swells leading to an overall more restrained, pensive quality to it.While the electronics are a big piece of the equation, resonating guitar notes draw focus.Sparse, deliberate tones glide through the synthetic ambience.An almost hidden layer of percussion is there to be heard, pushed into the distance but panning around the entire track, giving a certain dynamic flow to it before ending on gloriously hallucinogenic organ tones.

Cosmic Despair does exactly what the title indicates, bringing in an astronomical take on dark, bleak atmospheres, but the use of identifiable guitars serve to keep things somewhat grounded.The bleakness is particularly well done, because it never slides into tired or overwrought territory.Like the best dark ambient, it knows exactly how dark to get before sliding into self-parody.

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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

cover image With a notable recent string of high profile collaborations with Aidan Baker and Yellow6, guitarist Eric Quach has been continually refining his abstract take on ambient drone, and on this four track solo cassette, his ability at generating unique, alien noises from the stalwart instrument is clearly on display, as is his skill for composition as well.

Land of Decay

The A side opener "Phantom Eye" immediately leads off with Quach's knack for shaping dissonance into beauty, with the shimmering, undulating guitar noise coming across as warm and engaging, rather than harsh and off-putting.Isolated, plucked guitar notes ring away as another layer of guitar eventually pushes things into louder territory with its driving, vacuum cleaner roar.Chugging, compressed riffs eventually supplant the spaciousness before the piece collapses onto itself into silence.

"Phantom Brain" keeps things sounding more like actual guitars, with the slow, melancholy notes reverberating away:a slow, bleak drift through almost completely blackened caverns.Stuttering, mid-ranged notes eventually shine through; all the while the track builds to a dark crescendo before retreating."Phantom Voltage" goes for a more electronic sound, with the heavily processed ebbs and flows of guitar noise acting as the foundation.On top, guitars that sound like synths soar, channeling a Vangelis-y vibe that leads into a soaring climax.

On the flip side of the tape is a single, sidelong track, "Phantom Pain," that pieces together the elements of the previous pieces into a single long-form work, with some new techniques.Opening slow, with heavily echoed and delayed guitar notes, there is more of a rhythmic throb that emerges, putting it in a different space than the other tracks‚Äô largely textural sounds.Different layers of percussive rattles appear, with the slow addition of guitar sounds leading to a dramatic build in dynamics.About half way through it is almost as if the distortion on every track is cranked up, resulting in a dramatic, intense peak before the track goes back to a more ambient, though aggressive, territory.

TQA is often considered amongst the multitude of "guitar drone" projects, but like the best examples of that sub-genre, it is anything but repetitious or simplistic.Instead Phantom Limbs is a detailed and thorough meditation on a single instrument that does not become stagnant, but spends the perfect amount of time to develop and expand on a theme or sound.This is one of those works that really demand close attention to absorb all the nuance and complexity that lies within.

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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

cover image Whenever asked about reissuing his old material, the standard line from Robert Haigh has always been that because the original masters had been lost there was no chance of a reissue. So it came as a bit of a shock when Vinyl On Demand announced that they were releasing a box set of Haigh‚Äôs work as Sema this year. Although there is no unreleased material included, the scarcity of all this music means that there is nothing to complain about. This is complete collection of some of the best and criminally unheard music of the 1980s.

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Vinyl-On-Demand

The lost masters have not mysteriously resurfaced, instead an almost forensic digital remastering of the material was performed using multiple copies of the original LPs, removing pressing errors and allowing the full detail of the music to remain. The result is a stunning reproduction of all the Sema albums but with the addition of bonus tracks to fully flesh out each album. They sound beautiful (though that is not hard compared to the MP3 rips I have had to make do with) and it is hard to tell that these had been mastered from other records. Granted there is a little muffling to some of the mid-range piano notes but it is slight and barely noticeable even when it does happen.

Beginning, naturally, with Notes from Underground, this box set offers me a chance to experience Haigh‚Äôs early works again as if they were brand new. While Haigh has always been a deft hand at the piano, his work as Sema incorporated a lot more than just ivory tinkling. Tape loops, synthesizer, and unusual percussion are as much a part of Sema as the instrument for which Haigh is now best known. "Song of Solomon" incorporates a steady but discordant synth drone into the sparse but elegant piano lines; the two elements coming together to create a strange new space within the music. The sound of wordless breathing at the end of the piece remind me that this is not some alien transmission but the work of a fellow human.

"Concrete and the Klee" wears its influences on its sleeve with Haigh combining found sounds, electronic tones and piano to form a strange, surreal landscape much like some of Paul Klee‚Äôs paintings where easily identifiable figures are incorporated into colorful, blocks of abstraction (incidentally, Sema was the name of an artistic union formed by Klee in the early 1910s). This link with an artist indebted to Cubism and Expressionism makes total sense when Haigh‚Äôs own style is so heavily inspired by analogous composers like Erik Satie and Claude Debussy. The addition of musique concr√®te into such a mix, along with the angular guitar (?) of "Air Cage" prevents these recordings from being mere throwbacks to a bygone era as Haigh brings such "easy" music into a new era.

The set continues with Theme from Hunger, a brooding work which saw Haigh push his piano playing away from the previously mentioned influences and take on more of a distinct style of his own. Using the piano to punctuate the tense electronics of the title track, he creates a fascinating piece which stands out even amongst the many great pieces included throughout Time Will Say Nothing. Seguing into "S.S. Minor Ghosts," the electronic hum becomes stronger and stranger and dramatic percussion widens the scope of the music further. Hints of John Cage can be detected on the second side of Theme from Hunger, especially on "Song of Praise," which sounds like a prepared piano piece being played on an unprepared piano (though I imagine most pianos are unprepared for Cage!).

The ominous subterranean bass and chanting at the start of "Extract from Rosa Silber" demonstrate another side to Haigh‚Äôs work as Sema. This falls more in line with some of Current 93 or Coil‚Äôs experiments with loops and atmosphere than the rest of the Sema material. Haigh‚Äôs arabesque piano motif acts as an anchor for the unsettling dirge, an unlikely pairing much the situations described in the previous LPs described above. The surprise guitar arpeggio that jumps out suddenly sounds like Mike Oldfield walked into the wrong recording studio, played a lick before realising his error and leaving. I can see how this disjointed and illogical approach to composition would appeal to Steven Stapleton and Extract from Rosa Silber definitely fits with Nurse With Wound‚Äôs Spiral Insana, which Haigh would later contribute to.

"Anatomy of Aphrodite" on side B of Extract from Rosa Silber continues this unpredictable style with some fantastic piano melodies, church bells and is-it-human-or-is-it-a-ghost vocalisations. The chopping and changing is much more frequent here compared to the title track; Haigh seems to have been having a great time with putting together this piece. Extract from Rosa Silber has been bulked out with three short pieces from various compilations also included (though they come outside the time frame indicated by the box set‚Äôs title). These pieces are more varied than the rest of the Sema collection with pretty much all bases covered by these pieces. "Untitled" from Three Minute Sympony lies somewhere between Haigh‚Äôs modern piano works and the murder scene from Psycho whereas "The Pleasure of the Text" from Devastate to Liberate is warbly, gossamer ambience that spreads out of the speakers like a vapour. The metallic percussion and piano "The Over Yellow" from Ohrensausen threatens to turn into an Omni Trio-esque groove, occupying some strange middle ground between Sema and Haigh‚Äôs later electronic dance music phase.

Co-credited to both Haigh and Sema, the final LP to use the Sema name finished off Time Will Say Nothing. Three Seasons Only is the point where Haigh left the experimentation and avant garde nature of Sema behind and embraced the piano as the dominant (and usually only) instrument in his music, saving the electronics for his later work as Omni Trio. "Empire of Signs" largely revolves around the keys of his piano but Haigh also employs gorgeous acoustic guitar and glockenspiel that sound so warm and happy compared to the cooler electronics and percussion of his earlier works (though this happiness is shattered by the stabbing strings used in "Untitled" described in the last paragraph).

The title track could have come off one of Haigh‚Äôs recent albums; the three movements recalling Satie‚Äôs Gymnop√©dies though Haigh‚Äôs work is livelier to say the least. "Two Feats of Klee" continues in this vein but is embellished with strings (or possibly bowed guitar, it is hard to say). It astonishes me how he seems to be able to just throw these fabulous piano works into the world like the rest of us make a cup of tea or coffee. The album (and indeed the box set) is capped off with the addition of "Found Improvisation" which was originally issued on the Best of Robert Haigh tape on United Dairies. By its nature it is looser and more harmonically adventurous than the other pieces on Three Seasons Only and I am not sure it really fits in with them but it is nice to have it included for completeness sake.

With such a brilliant job being done on Time Will Say Nothing, I can only hope that other Haigh projects get similar treatment. The Truth Club and Fote material is quite hard to find, as are the four records under Haigh‚Äôs own name from the late 1980s; to see these remastered and reissued in a similar way would be incredible though maybe not as incredible as these Sema LPs. Short of a box set of complete La Monte Young recordings, nothing would have amazed me more than Time Will Say Nothing!

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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

cover image I absolutely loved Jakobsons' last solo album (Darwinsbitch's Ore), but her many collaborative releases since then have varied quite a bit in both style and quality. ¬†Recently, however, she has been on a definite hot streak, as both Myrmyr's Fire Star and the Espvall/Jakobsons/Szelag album were pretty amazing. ¬†Glass Canyon does not quite keep that impressive momentum going, but there are enough flashes of inspiration to make it an intermittently satisfying effort nonetheless.

Students of Decay

In characteristic fashion, this album marks the beginning of yet another new direction for Marielle: prominent use of synthesizers. ¬†Unfortunately, I cannot help but find that exasperating, as synths are very much in vogue these days and their ubiquity is definitely wearing on me. ¬†I am not some sort of crazed Luddite or anything, but a considerable part of Jakobsons' appeal for me was due to her organic intensity in a field so rife with laptops, synths, and artificiality. ¬†As a result, Glass Canyon is quite a bit less distinctive than most of Marielle's other efforts. ¬†Also, some of the more aberrant pieces just seem jarringly out of place: "Dusty Trails" sounds like burbling, candy-colored neo-krautrock and "Crystal Orchard" resembles a Futurist Aaron Copland (not a compliment). ¬†It is hard to comprehend how they wound up sharing an album with something as slow-burning and menacing as "Shale Hollows," which is probably the album's finest sustained piece.

Fortunately, several of the album's other dark pieces are quite good too. ¬†In particular, I loved the moment in "Albite Breath" when the thick, quavering synths give way to a mournful violin coda. ¬†It is probably among the most moving passages in Jakobsons' entire oeuvre, actually. ¬†A few great songs do not quite salvage the album though‚ÄìGlass Canyon is ultimately too uneven and too simple to burrow very deeply into my psyche. ¬†Part of that may be by design, as Marielle deliberately set out to make a stripped-down album in order to focus on the textural contrast between violin and synthesizer, but I do not think that she allowed that impulse a sufficient gestation period: too many of these songs are lean on strong melody and place too much faith in the appeal of buzzing, throbbing, and oscillating.

Normally, I would describe this sort of album as "a transitional effort," but Marielle's whole career has essentially been one unending transition and it is entirely possible that her next release will bear no resemblance to this at all. ¬†I suppose occasional misfires are an inevitable occupational hazard that comes with constant reinvention and restless evolution.Although I suspect much of my disappointment may be due to my unrealistically high expectations and my subjective bias against analog synth textures, I think I can safely say that this does not rank among Jakobsons' best work. ¬†Existing fans will no doubt enjoy a few pieces, but the merely curious should go elsewhere.

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01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

The original idea of this project was to allow musicians from different scenes (but who shared common ideas) to work together. In this case, a development of two pre-existent duos.

Quite often musicians from different sonic languages can be seen being put together, trying to push the artists to develop unexpected works. Vainio, Drumm, Dörner and Capece have mainly strong points in common, that have been executed in different contexts. The music map is generally divided into categories that are determined by it's most evident and often banal elements; if it has beats or not, if it is quiet or loud, if it has raw material or a carefully worked aesthetic. These four musicians have been working using all the previous elements, but these elements did not determine the music, they were used at the service of deeper ideas related to time and perception. How the sound of our environment can become music, how can music be attractive without telling a story, the work of sound in it's extreme: noise, granular and delicate, digital, electronic, instrumental extended techniques, preparations. Kevin Drumm and Axel Dörner started working together in the late 90's as part of a trio with Paul Lovens, As a duo they released an influential album on Erstwhile Records. Vainio and Drumm met in 2005 in Australia, both as part of the touring festival What is Music?. Even if both musicians declared to have a great time touring in Australia, they did never played together. Drumm's and Vainio's music is often compared by critics. Capece has released a duo CD on L'Innomable label with Axel Dörner and a trio one with Dörner and tubist Robin Hayward on Azul Discográfica label from New York. Dörner and Capece worked in several projects together, including a residence with Keith Rowe working on "Treatise" by Cornelius Cardew. Mika Vainio and Lucio Capece have released together the album Trahnie- an album they worked for three years on, and also did several concerts as a duo.

In May 2008 the quartet made a 6 days residency and concert at Vooruit, in Gent, followed by a 5 concert European tour, that took them to Venice. In 2011 the group played at Konfrontationen Festival in Austria. In the meanwhile Capece and Vainio have been part of the Vladislav delay Quartet. Capece has played, and toured with Kevin Drumm in a trio with Radu Malfatti and Dörner has played with Drumm in a trio with Paul Lovens, at the Meteo festival, in France. The recording in Venice is a multitrack one. It was mixed by Capece with minimal edits, basically panning and volume adjustments.

The LP is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silkscreened pvc sleeve with photos by Traianos Pakioufakis & artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.

More information here.

01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

Impossible Symmetry is the third full length record by Helm, the project of London based artist Luke Younger. It marks a new chapter in the artists' canon as it's his first to be informed by live performance rather than studio experimentation. The recording and engineering was primarily a solo venture, with some technical assistance from John Hannon on a few tracks. Most of the compositions were created out of ideas / improvisations that were conceived in a live context and then fed back into the studio work. The album was recorded over the duration of a year in London with source material culled from acoustic sound sources in a similar methodology to his previous album Cryptography, whilst also simultaneously incorporating more extensive use of electronic elements and moments of rhythmic dark ambience recalling the outputs from early Coil and Cabaret Voltaire to even Traversable Wormhole's industrial minimalism.

Helm is Luke Younger - a sound artist and experimental musician based in London, working with a vast array of revolving instrumentation and abstract sound sources. Younger's compositions build a dense aural landscape that touches on musique concrete, uncomfortable sound poetry, noise, and hallucinatory drones. His most last LP Cryptography, presented a five-part suite of expertly rendered electro-acoustic study which uses processed piano, Casio MT-40, cymbal and broken guitar strings. Younger creates a world where these instruments morph into spectral rust, a shimmering klang swims alongside passive noise and the relationship between acoustic and electronic derived sounds forms a solid foundation. This sound is steered through a melange of fringe territories: glacial drone meditations, reconfigured gamelan clusters, and howling walls of organized feedback, all coalesced in a post-industrial fashion with a commitment to homemade exploratory zeal. For the past ten years, Younger has also performed extensively in Europe and the US with Steven Warwick as pioneering avant-drone duo Birds of Delay.

More information here.

01 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

Twenty years after its initial release, the debut Sugar album remains one of my favorite albums of the 1990s as well as one of my favorite rock albums of all time. After establishing himself as an accomplished singer/songwriter with two solo albums following the breakup of seminal H√ºsker D√º, Bob Mould launched Sugar, now brought back to life through an exceptionally amazing package by Edsel out now in the UK (and an okay version due from Merge later this month).

Edsel

1992 was an exciting year for music: in 1991 hair band domination was put to an end thanks to grunge and techno, resulting in the explosion of independent labels worldwide. The Salem Massachusetts based Rykodisc was hardly known for breaking new rock bands, but had plenty of open distribution avenues thanks to the Bowie and Zappa catalog reissues. On the other side of the pond Creation were shoegazing experts, but not recognized so much for American post-punk. Somehow Sugar worked for everyone all around as Bob Mould spent the previous years working with major labels Warner Bros. and Virgin Records, both which had no clue what to do with him. By the end of the year NME voted Copper Blue as album of the year, and while it may not or may not have been my favorite of the year, depending on what day I'm asked, it was at least in the top five (probably along with Meantime, Doppelganger, Souvlaki, and Peng!).

H√ºsker D√º was becoming more popular as a legend than they actually were during their existence (stadium rock mega-groups like Nirvana and Pixies frequently cited them as main influences) and Mould had won the critics over on his own, most particularly with 1989's introspective debut solo album Workbook. I got to see H√ºsker D√º at 14 during their final tour at the Student Union Ballroom at UMASS Amherst. Three years later I couldn't get in to a Bob Mould solo show at Bill's Bar in Boston (I hadn't turned 18 yet), but these weren't huge places, Mould hadn't made a breakthrough connection with the mainstream until Sugar.

In all actually, this was a new approach. The songs were fresh, catchy, and the hooks were epic. Additionally, there were sounds never heard on Mould's prior projects: synths, various samples, and odd non-musical noises in transitions between songs. Most importantly, the "band" aspect played a much greater role than most people probably give it credit for: with other people mixing the album with Bob and playing in the band, other characteristics were new, especially the vocals. No longer were Mould's vocals buried deep beneath the distortion of his thunderous guitars, for Copper Blue the vocals were clear and exceptionally present. No fans were lost, as far as I remember. No energy was gone from the H√ºsker D√º days nor were the lyrics any more uplifting than Mould's solo albums, despite Bob's claims he had excised his demons on the solo records.

Singles with undeniable hooks like "Helpless" and "Changes" were lyrically dark, despite the springy pop melodies. Additionally, it sometimes sounded as if Copper Blue was a tribute to the bands that Mould helped make, with Mould either consciously or unconsciously cashing in on the bands that H√ºsker D√º influenced. "A Good Idea," in particular, could have easily been a Pixies tune, and, now with Pixies out of the picture, who was going to stop Mould?

Copper Blue was the right album at the right time that hit all the right spots. It opens with the brooding "The Act We Act," which sounds like a heavy and gruesome way to open a pop record, but lyrically it's not nearly as sad as the rest of the album's themes of murder, disease, and destructive heartache, especially the words in the spritely sounding perfect pop (breakup) tune, "If I Can't Change Your Mind." I was working at Tower Records at the time and Bob's sexuality was at least widely known amongst the fans, but I still don't buy that all of the songs are about his alleged breakup with Grant Hart.

I parted with my copy of the original version in the limited copper package with the Polaroid to spring for this version and I do not regret that decision. The remastered sound is fantastic, surprisingly making the album sound meatier than it previously was. Edsel has reintroduced the album in the UK, remastered as a 2CD+DVD package. Disc 1 contains the album and B sides, disc 2 was recorded live at the Metro, Chicago in 1992 and the DVD includes the promo videos as well as some TV performances and interviews. I think it's better to hear the B-sides in the context of the year instead of collected on the previously released Besides compilation. For those in the US, fear not, the DVD is playable in our machines. The accompanying booklet contains a scrapbook of photos and tour posters and tons of dialogue from all the band members, Alan McGhee of Creation, and Lou Giordano, the album's engineer.

I almost held out for the Merge version but was put off when I learned that the Merge versions would not include the DVDs. Furthermore, the Merge version of Copper Blue tosses in the Beaster EP, which sounds completely out of place when listening in the context of Copper Blue, despite being composed and recorded during the Copper Blue sessions. While I enjoy Beaster on its own merits, it is simply too dark to be played as part of Copper Blue. Beaster and File Under: Easy Listening are also now available in deluxe packages from Edsel in the UK, and the cost is actually not that expensive when ordering direct from some of the international megastores (they will remove VAT when orders are made outside of Europe).

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01 July 2012

Albums and Singles

After establishing himself as an accomplished singer/songwriter with two solo albums following the breakup of seminal H√ºsker D√º, Bob Mould launched Sugar, creating perhaps one of the best albums of the 1990s with this monstrous debut, now brought back to life through Edsel in the UK and a half-rate version due from Merge later this month.