Kailin, 2017
Post-club ambient is how boomkat described Kailin’s Fracture, which is both evocative and accurate. I also hear something of the weirder outer reaches of r-n-b in it as well. When the lugubrious keyboards wobble and warp, similar to when you look at the world through a textured glass. It’s strangely cavernous as well, playing with stadium sized sounds that would only reverberate like that if the stadium were empty.
Lol Coxhill, 1978
I’d heard heard about Lol Coxhill’s Digswell Duets for so long—decades, at least—when I saw it in person at DustyGroove, I immediately plunked down the not-insubstantial amount they were asking, still not knowing what to expect. Sure, I could have easily go on youtube before taking the plunge, but who was I kidding? After all this time, Digswell was going to be mine.
Though not surprised, I found it a pointedly odd record. The two sides are about as different as the two figures on the cover. The first side is a collaboration between Coxhill (on saxophone) and Simon Emmerson on electronics, called the ‘Digswell Tape System’. It spools out like free-jazz-meets-frippertronics. The flipside is a no less abstract, but far more traditional meeting between Lol and pianist Veryan Weston.
Both are striking examples of the then-still-fresh British Free Improv movement, but I find myself wanting to consume them separately. Is Coxhill asking us to note the differences or similarities between the two sides? Are they supposed to be heard simultaneously, as two halves of a whole? (I doubt it, but I might try it, just once.) Perhaps though, I should try and play it through as it was intended, and give Digswell Duets time to reveal itself to me.
LOCATION: the Grey Eagle AVL.NC
SUBJECT: Superchunk
OBSERVATIONS:
Superchunk know what they are doing. They’ve run the club gauntlet since before grunge was even a thing. They know there’s a handful songs that people absolutely expect to hear (Slack Motherfucker, Driveway to Driveway…) but between those and whatever their latest LP is, they pepper in some unexpected tidbits from their now-rather-large catalog. They dusted off Song for Marion Brown, which made me go back to reappraise Indoor Living, which I admit I rarely ever put on. I was also glad at least a couple of songs from recent albums, I Hate Music and Majesty Shredding stayed in rotation. Too often, a long-running band’s newest material can have a short shelf life, lasting only as long as the next tour, never to be played again. Superchunk make a strong case for the enduring quality in their later work.
NOTES: Superchunk; Rock-a-Teens
PRESENT: AMS
In which I mount a defense for one of the more lampooned and derided styles in rock history—Progressive Rock. If you want to keep keep up with future episodes of this podcast, subscribe to sndlgc podcasts in the app of your coice or copy this link to subscribe manually.
In recent years, progressive rock has come a long way towards rehabilitation. Not so long ago, ‘prog’ was a four-letter word in reviews, derisively thrown any band a tad too ambitious. Of course, while the concepts behind prog have gained greater acceptance, there’s always more to the scene than King Crimson and Yes.
It can a a daunting task, wading into such a sprawling genre without a guide. When the style is filled with side-long song cycles, each song reaching into double-digit durations, what sort of primer can one make?
Here is my solution: make 7-inch single edits. Cut the epics down into digestible lengths. In doing so, I endeavor to not just present an excerpt of the song, but to preserve some of the original’s scope—it’s varied passages and virtuosity and grandeur. Granted, if I’m lopping off more than half a song, something’s bound to be lost, but my hope was to give a vague impression of the whole.
While progressive rock was in exile, the accepted wisdom went something like it was just too much twee noodling. This mix goes a long way to prove how, despite all the dextrous displays and extemporaneous tempo shifts, the best bands could make it rock convincingly. It’s also common to hear that punk rock was, in part, a direct repudiation of prog—and yet, listen to Peter Hammill’s unhinged performance on Disengage, and you can understand why he had Johnny Rotten’s respect.
Like any major movement in music, progressive rock is more than it’s remembered for. In the 24 songs included here, we move from blues-based hard rock to keyboard-drenched psychedelia to improvisatory jazz-rock and end with some pastoral progressive-folk.
Progressive rock is as expansive as it’s proponent’s symphonic ambitions. It’s a fertile spot in rock history, not some aberration. Despite a wan period of neglect, it is flourishing again.
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: Earth Hymn
Budgie: Stranded
Uriah Heap: Tears in My Eyes
The Norman Haines Band: Rabbits
Brian Auger: Oblivion Express
Robert Fripp: Disengage
Osiris: Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Can: Vernal Equinox
Gong: Master Builder
Brand X: Malaga Virgen
Volker Kriegel: Plonk Whenever
Carol Grimes & Delivery: The Wrong Time
Nucleus: Oasis
Julie Tippetts: Oceans and Sky (and Questions Why)
Amon Düül II: Telephonecomplex
Nektar: The Dream Nebula
Traffic: Dream Gerrard
UK: Thirty Years
Fuchsia: Another Nail
Hatfield and the North: Fitter Stoke Has a Bath
Yonin Bayashi: Ping-Pong Dama no Nageki
Trees: Sally Free and Easy
If you’re looking for even more progressive rock, I wanted to include the first volume here, since it was released before the start of this blog. This original missive includes a lot of the biggest names in prog, from King Crimson to Yes and Genesis.
Dean McPhee, 2018
The typical guitarist has to toil in order to build a distinctive voice on their instrument. It’s in part why so many guitarists are lauded for their virtuosity. The truly great guitarists don’t often wow you with dexterity, they impress you with the force of their creative voice. That individualism is almost as hard to get at in words. That ineffability is why I find trying to review solo guitar albums like Dean McPhee’s Four Stones so difficult.
Make no mistake, it’s a great album, but it’s no a fingerpickin’ extravaganza. What I like most about it is McPhee’s patience. Four Stones is a spacious, atmospheric album. It owes as much to the great composers of soundtracks as it does the legends of guitar heroism. His notes ring long, lonely and pure with just enough electric grit to give them shades of meaning.
LOCATION: the Mothlight AVL.NC
SUBJECT: Screaming Females
OBSERVATIONS:
There's something Insanely gratifying about Screaming Females. Sure, they're as reliable a live band as I've seen—always on point—but something more. Punk has been with us for well nigh 50 years. The template can start to seem very stale and predictable. Every now and again, though, a band comes along that manages to not reinvent the genre, but reinvigorate it. Screaming Females so wholly embody the racket they make, it comes alive. They've got solid songwriting, chops, and a distinctive voice—all it takes to stand out from the collective weight of history, but what makes them vital is how it always feels that they throw themselves in, bodily to what they are doing. Seen live, the energy you feel from the band is palpably mirrored in the crowd. It’s nearly impossible not to get swept up in it.
NOTES: Screaming Females; Thou; Hirs; Teenage Halloween
PRESENT: AMS
Ranking Dillinger, 1977(?)
My journeys into the various shades of reggae have been sporadic at best. If I'm honest, it's only ever been just stumbling upon things, picking up whatever strikes a chord. The reason I first poked around at all was to root out the influencers for the various strains of dub techno I was obsessing over in the 90s. My collection is telling in that regard: most the things that still strike that chord are solidly dubbed.* I find the way dub techniques upend a song, turning it into a disjointed patchwork makes for unpredictable and engaged listening.
All this is a long preamble to say I'd never heard of Ranking Dillinger before I saw None Stop Disco Style. I was intriguiged by the title.—from which I expected a reggae-disco hybrid. Instead I got a solid dub platter. It sounded like lo-fi, homespun remixes of songs I'd never heard the first time 'round—which was perfect.
*for years now, Rocksteady has actually been my go-to style of reggae, but that's for a different post.
LOCATION: Thomas Wolfe Auditorium AVL.NC
SUBJECT: Asheville Symphony Orchestra, Jayce Ogren conducting
OBSERVATIONS:
In April, we returned to hear our local symphony orchestra with the promise of some slightly more modern fare. This time around, in our orchestra's version of American Idol—wherein each contestant for the conductor / musical director slot had a public performance over the course of the season—we saw it helmed by the very young-looking, but no less accomplished, Jayce Ogren. The theme of his program was patriotism—but not of the bombastic De Sousa variety.
The first piece was John Adams' The Chairman Dances. It was a lovely piece, even if it belied its theatrical origins. It was written—but not included—to be in the opera Nixon in China. It often featured the shifting patterns of audio moiré that define much of late-20th century minimalism but would change gears, jarringly at times (probably to match action in some scene). The second piece was also from the last century, Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain. At heart, it's a piano conerto, and Joyce Yang impressed as the virtuosic lead. Despite her melodramatic flair, my attention drifted. I just didn't find the work captivating, musically. The evening closed with Sibelius' Symphony no.2. I didn't know the work well, but it seemed well executed: crisp and well defined across the spectrum.
While the patriotic theme did not veer to the martial or nationalistic, each piece had a lively pulse. Ogren focused on the way traditional and folk musics of a place can bleed into its orchestral work, helping the composer target and express specific emotional cues with their home audience.
NOTES: John Adams, the Chairman Dances; Manuel de Falla, Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Joyce Yang, piano); Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 2
PRESENT: AMS; Angela F.
Spacemen 3, 1988 / Sonic Boom, 1990 / the Darkside, 1992 / Spectrum, 1994 / Spiritualized, 1995
By the time I came across the Spacemen 3, they'd already broken up, with solo careers underway. Of course, they were barely an obscure cult band at the time. The Spacemen have grown in reputation as the years go on. I was just in time to catch a wave of reissues before their catalog plunged back into out-of-print obscurity. Even still, getting it all, took some serious doing, but I was obsessed, and needed everything. It's no exaggeration to say their records ended up molding a good portion of my current sound character.
As they've vinyl copies started to return to the market, I was faced with the difficult decision of just which one to get. Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to is a perennial favorite. In actuality, Taking Drugs is a collection of demos for their first album, leaning more into their rockist side and only hinting at their spaced-out potential. Their last album, Recurring, is amazing, but fragmented—playing more like a split LP for their subsequent solo gigs. That left Perfect Prescription and Playing with Fire, which felt like deciding which arm to lose.
Ultimately Playing with Fire was too alluring. It's the wobbling imperfect balance in the middle of their transitions. It churns with overdriven guitars on Revolution, blisses out brilliantly on How Does It Feel? and features an unrelenting, locked-groove tribute to their heroes, Suicide. (Plus, it was released on double 10-inch.)
Before Spacemen 3 dissolved in acrimony, Sonic Boom fired off his first solo album, Spectrum. It's a clear continuation of Playing with Fire (and featured help from most the band). I ordered an expensive copy from Japan off ebay, long before the reissues arrived. If I had waited, I would have scored a copy with the interactive psychedelic wheel on the cover (alas, mine's just printed). Spectrum's centerpiece is Angel, a variation on themes from Spacemen 3's Ode to Street Hassle, but so much improved.
With the Spacemen over, Sonic Boom formed a group (confusingly, also) called Spectrum that was to be his pop outlet. Soul Kiss (Glide Divine) is perhaps the most under-appreciated shoegaze album (this, by a man who helped made the genre possible), but I could never get over Highs, Lows and Heavenly Blows. I waited decades for it to be reissued. It's another transitional record, showing both where Sonic Boom had been as well as where they were headed. And Then I Just Drifted Away is a brilliant rework of How Does It Feel? and the instrumental simply called Feedback showcases what Pete Kember was up to with his other, more ambient project Experimental Audio Research (more on that another time).
Jason Pierce (aka J.Spaceman) quickly launched Spiritualized, debuting with an ambitious single, turning parts of a Spacemen 3 instrumental into a 13+ minute dream pop epic. The band was lush and lavish from the outset, sounding less DIY-experimental than any of Sonic Boom's projects. Spiritualized was defined by extended songs built of diaphanous layers, like Feel So Sad. While Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space has been minted a classic, I believe Spiritualized peaked with Pure Phase. The album sounds enormous (apparently you're hearing two different mixes simultaneously). That depth in the album's sound gives an extreme punch to their loud-quiet-loud dynamics. Pure Phase moves as a suite, strung together by the cosmic tones phasing in and out of nearly every song. It's atrippy, frightening, beautiful and groovy record, often all at once.
The Spacemen 3 was, at heart, a duo, but Pete Bassman has probably in the strongest claim as their third. He played on nearly all the Spacemen records (and most of the Spectrum material as well). He's fronted a couple of bands himself, the most successful being his psychedelic garage band, The Darkside. They had two solid albums, that fit neatly into the Spacemen canon, while still carving out their own, distinct voice. Darkside's second album, Melomania, lacks a killer single like Waiting for the Angels (from their first), but it's the more ambitious of the two. They experiment with their formula, courting a heavy-lidded madchester sound on This Mystic Morning, and ending with a near-10-minute Velvets-style jam, Rise.
While these are all records I argue to be objectively classic, they're also indelibly soaked in time and place. When you spend that much time searching for and listening to something, it seeps into your very experience—not just the soundtrack to your past, more an unseen character in your story. I certainly can't imagine my life without the Spacemen 3 by my side.
LOCATION: the Mothlight AVL.NC
SUBJECT: Circuit des Yeux
OBSERVATIONS:
A trusted friend inveighed upon me to give Circuit des Yeux a listen, and seeing they were coming through town shortly, I opted to have my first experience be a live one. My report back to her was summed up as, "if Angels of Light had been Jarboe’s post-Swans project instead of Gira’s." Hayley Fohr's low contralto, laden with vibrato serves as the a centerpiece of an acoustic din that slowly coalesces, martially about her.
It was one those rare nights where it was worth arriving early. Every band on the ticket was worth the time and travel. The Nathan Bowles Trio was better than the first time I'd seen him, working a much more hypnotic folk motorik. The use of banjo and upright bass, oddly, made think of the politically separation of pitches in the Minutemen (of all things). Marisa Anderson understands how to use the electric aspect of her guitar. Her set was in the same no-mans-land between American Primitive folk picking and Morricone spaghetti western soundtrack that I'd file Earth under.
NOTES: Circuit des Yeux; Yeux; Marisa Anderson: Nathan Bowles Trio
PRESENT: AMS
Ministry, 1989
In party conversation, when I'm trying to explain my aesthetic journey from punk rock to free jazz, I often end up referencing Ministry. My line is that free jazz showed me that elements of chaos were far more intense than tightly choreographed structure could hope to be. For example, compare John Coltrane's Ascension to Ministry's Paslm 69. For all their brash in-your-faceness, Ministry is nowhere near as unsettling as Coltrane—and the jazz great was actually trying to inspire, not intimidate us. I pick on Ministry because there's something so cartoonish in their aggression. It only felt genuinely threatening when I was too young to understand.
Which is a long, backhanded way to get around to saying that I love listening to Ministry. It may be simply that it's damnably hard to escape nostalgia's clutches, but I do think there's an honest enjoyment in it—just maybe not the one the band intended. I listen to Ministry like I read comic books: with a guilty pleasure grain of salt and dose of self-deprecation. At their peak—and The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste is almost certainly that, still dynamic with great turns by their coconspirators—their caricature of outraged intensity is counter-culture junk food I find hard to resist.
Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson, 2017
Glotman and Erlandsson's Negative Chambers occupies a space not as populated as I'd expect: ambient minimalism executed with acoustic and traditional folk instruments. Perhaps there's more to this slice of style than I think, but I'm also counting the somewhat reverential air the material maintains. While the instrumentation on each track is sparse, their measured and thoughtful execution bears more in common with modern orchestral composition than ambient electronica.
LOCATION: various sites, Knoxville TN
SUBJECT: Big Ears Festival
OBSERVATIONS:
Last year, I only dipped my toe in, testing the waters of the Big Ears Festival. Going for one day, I crammed in as much as possible and left overwhelmed. I was all in this year (though, circumstances necessitated I skip the opening night, Thursday). Arriving for the opening bell on Friday, I dove in, catching 10 performances in the first day alone. By the time I left, early Sunday evening, the final tally was up to 23. I set off for the long drive home, exhausted (in the best possible way).
Without trying to detail every experience, what follows are some of the highlights, as I saw them.
There was no better way to start than catching Roscoe Mitchell's Trio Five. Mitchell's presence and performance served testament to the advanced programming at Big Ears—their ability to attract artists of stature. The Art Ensemble of Chicago founder has remained, since the mid-60s a restless artist. These Trios, the first of which are documented on the ECM album, Bells for the South Side, are mature, searching works. The group was well-versed, each member, though some at least 2 generations Mitchell's junior, were patient and knew when to sit back or lean in. Roscoe's extended solos were searing—especially on soprano saxophone—filled with intervalic leaps and exploding, multi-phonic extended techniques.
Quite unintentionally, I ended up organizing my experience each day into loose groupings. Friday contained, by far, the most jazz-oriented of shows. Throughout the rest of the day, I saw the ebullient Cyro Baptista, Rocket Science (featuring Evan Parker and Peter Evans), as well as Jenny Scheinmann's Mayhem & Mischief (featuring Nels Cline). There was a powerhouse solo performance by Milford Graves—who's experiencing a coronation into elder statesman status of late. Luckily, The Thing's excoriating set made up for a rather staid and mildly disappointing turn by Medeski Martin & Wood.
Even still, I mixed it up, catching Ikue Mori, and ending the night with a sublime presentation by Wolfgang Voigt as Gas—previewing his new work, Rausch. Along the way I caught an Arto Lindsay set that was by far the best I have seen. His band—lead by the stalwart bassist, Melvin Gibbs— featured two drummers this go 'round, giving his samba inflected art rock witha . powerful, polyrhythmic punch.
Saturday ended up leaning more towards electronica acts. I started the day with an early morning performance by Kid Koala. I didn't know at the time how lucky I was to get in to this show. Over the course of the weekend, Kid Koala would lead a series of interactive performances based on his album Satellite: Music to Draw to, that ended up the biggest draw of the Fest—consistently at capacity, turning people away. In the small Square Room venue, each table was set up with custom mini-turntables along with a collection of color-coded 45s. During the performance, a light on the turntable would give you hued cues as to which record to put on, and a conductor would guide the audience to raise the volume, add effects or scratch.
While Kid Koala's music is not stylistically advanced, he excels at making live experiences that leave you feeling as if you've witnessed—even participated—in something truly special.
I went on from there to see a hypnotic all-oboe chamber piece composed by Michael Gordon, in an Art Museum and Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble in a cathedral. Yuka Honda gave a rare solo performance and Laurel Halo drove her set well past its scheduled end-time, supported by experimental percussionist, Eli Keszler.
I ended the night at the Mill & the Mine, catching Four Tet with Kelly Lee Owens warming up. Four Tet has been on a years-long hot streak that's cemented him as one of the pivotal electricians of the early 21st century. He moves with dynamics in opposition to themselves. It has all the structure and release of classic techno but maintains the loose-limbed unpredictability of improvised music.
Kelly Lee Owens was a shocker, though. Her self-titled debut from last year (which I loved) was no preparation for her live set. Bits and pieces from the album showed up, but only as markers in her continuous slow build to a jaw-dropping display of hard acid house. If any one other than Four Tet was on after her, I would have called it a night then and there.
Sunday was like any Sunday after you've partied for two days in a row. I was weary and a bit hungover, musically. I caught what I could, Tyshawn Sorey's music is impressive and luminous. I'd be lying if I said I've found a way to fully connect with it, but I am no less than impressed by it.
I went on to see a set by the rock band Suuns, which I found a bit of a let-down. I'd say they reminded me of Joy Division, but really it's more like reminding me of Interpol reminding me of Joy Division. It never really lifted off—I eventually found a chair in a corner and dozed off a bit. Later I caught pianist Jason Moran with Ron Miles and Mary Halvorson. While Ron Miles has the longest resume of all three, it's Halvorson who has the buzz. I'd seen her play dozens of times while I lived in New York, so it was a treat to see her on stage again.
Despite my somewhat disengaged state, the improvised set on Sunday afternoon by Keiran Hebden (aka Four Tet) and Mats Gustafsson (of the Thing) was possibly the best of the entire weekend. Their musical spheres have little to do with each other—yet you could hear each one reaching to the other to find a common ground, in the moment. This was not their first meeting, but like their album with the sadly departed drummer, Steve Reid, I hope this set sees the light of day on record, as it was fucking stellar.
With one more show tucked in—a performance of Steve Reich's newer work, Quartet as performed by Nief-Norf—I was back on the road to North Carolina, overwhelmed (again). Already, I'm pleased to see the Big Ears 2019 lineup taking sahpe, as for the foreseeable future, I plan on making the Big Ears Festival an annual trek.
NOTES: Roscoe Mitchell; Cyro Baptista's Vira Locos; Ikue Mori; Rocket Science; Milford Graves; Arto Lindsay; Jenny Sheinman's Mischief & Mayhem; Medeski Martin & Wood; The Thing; Gas; Kid Koala; Rushes Ensemble performing Michael Gordon; Evan Parker Electro-acoustic Ensemble; Yuka Honda; Sonus Ensemble; Laurel Halo featuring Eli Keszler; Kelly Lee Owens; Four Tet; Tyshawn Sorey; Suuns; Kieren Hebden & Mats Gustafsson; Bangs; Nief Norf performing Steve Reich
PRESENT: AMS
There's a standardized laundry list of bands that gets tossed around as proto-punk: the Velvets, the Stooges, the Modern Lovers—even prog-rocker Peter Hammill sometimes makes the cut. To that list, I'd add Yoko Ono.
Once reviled as the anti-Beatle that ruined everything—which was of course, preposterous, Yoko Ono has run a lifelong gauntlet of bullshit. Her marriage to John Lennon provided her enormous opportunities, but also brought her art to the attention of people that had zero context or desire to understand or engage with it. She was used as a bad punchline for art-rock jokes. Lately, as rock itself has moved out of the mainstream (again) and it's veered in artsier directions, she's been enjoying a bit of unexpected, elder stateswoman status. Big names are lining up 'round the block to collaborate with her.
If you go back to her solo work in the early 70s, Ono makes a great case for her status as a punk rock progenitor. Those albums feature strident, socio-political lyrics over songs squarely based on barroom blues—sounding off-the-cuff without much of any concern about the 'right' way to play or sing it. That's about as good a description of the early punk albums as I can think of.
The song driving this all home, for me, was I Felt Like Smashing My Face in a Clear Glass Window off 1973's Approximately Infinite Universe. The title alone is punk as fuck. Over a slopped, funky blues riff, Ono muses about self-determination and escaping from her parents' (and by extension, society's) expectations. While the feminist implications are obvious, It's reach is well beyond, tapping into a vein of pure teen angst—the universal desire to come of your own age; the fount of all things punk rock.
While songs like Clear Glass Window certainly presaged punk, in many ways, Yoko Ono is also a proto-post-punk artist (if you can stomach such an oxymoron). When her more outré tendencies collided with popular rock forms, as on Don't Worry Kyoko (Mommy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow) she helped clear a path for the utter dismantling of rock-n-roll's structures from within that would happen in the post-punk era.
Space Afrika, 2018
The brand of deep, hypnotic dub pioneered by the Basic Channel label in the late 90s / early 2000s has slowly grown into a sub-genre unto itself. The sparse minimalism of the style, with percussion more implied than anything else, and gaseous but impactful bass, is perhaps easy to mimic but damnably hard to bring to life. Space Afrika rises to the challenge, with an album that carries echoes of the dubbier Vladislav Delay output—not a moment too soon, either, as Delay himself has been AWOL of late, leaving a vacancy to fill in my listening.
Chrome, 1981 / Helios Creed, 1992
Recently I went on a tear, trying to listen to every album related to the infamous industrial act Chrome. This was no small endeavor: the band (under alternating stewardship) has an over 40-year, near-continuous history (not to mention all the solo albums). It seemed the end of that cycle was a good time to discuss the Chrome in my collection.
The demented and drug-addled industrial rock Helios Creed and Damon Edge made sounds completely outside of any scene or time. I don't know of many or any bands coming from California in the early 80s that bear any relation to them whatsoever. Like backwoods meth cooked up in a trailer, this SanFran duo (along with whatever support they could muster up) runs on cheap highs. Blood on the Moon is their fifth full length in as many years and by far the most 'professional' sound they'd achieved—that is to say the recording equipment sounds moderately up to the task of capturing their mania. Edge's voice comes at you in either low, lascivious, demonic tones or high, pinched, cartoon villain angles. Creed's guitar is chained through enough effects to make chord changes irrelevant, while the rhythm section martials on mechanistically. Chrome are like a seriously a bad acid trip (in a good way).
Helios Creed had the more successful post-Chrome career—at least artistically. Damon Edge's subsequent Chrome and solo records slid into lo-fi synth dirges, sorely missing Creed's acidic splatter. Creed's output could be hit or miss as well, but there was usually at least one or two worthwhile burners per LP. In the early 90s he paired up with the Minneapolis label, Amphetamine Reptile (the perfectly named home for a Chrome project), known for their sludgy brand of hard indie-rock. With the return of guitar rock to radio airplay and the rise of Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, there was probably never a better time for Chrome to ascend. Helios did his level best, delivering a trio of blistering industrial barn-stormers—including my pick, Kiss to the Brain. They surely, must have grown the Chrome cult but were still far too oddball to garner wide attention.
My latest in the Biscuits for… series focuses entirely on dance tracks with undanceably low beats-per-minute. If you would like to subscribe to future editions of my podcast, you can search for sndlgc in the app of your choice, or add it manually with this link.
I've been obsessed with slow dance music for years now. Something about the inherent contradiction appeals. To clarify, I mean tracks within a techno dance style that are low BPM, nothing like what would be fitting for raising your would-be girlfriend over your head in a pond in the rain while practicing your routine. The fascination runs so deep, I've tried (and failed) at making a track or two myself. I'm not alone in this fascination. Just check out none other than Andrew Weatherall's recent output, compared to his bangin' techno or skittery drum-n-bass output of the 90s, it's downright lugubrious.
When you tune your ear to a particular concept—something broad but identifiable—how it seems like what you're looking for is suddenly in abundance. I don't flatter myself that I'm spotting a trend. More likely, It's just I'm suddenly tuned into a new frequency and am picking up on what I never noticed before. Whatever the reason, in 2018, I was suddenly stumbling over a wealth of slow motion disco.
Granted it's not all actually slow. Some of these tracks know how to trick your ear into hearing a rhythm slower than what's being played. You probably wouldn't dance to all of it, but each song is firmly from an electronic dance tradition. This ain't early 90s listenin' techno.
As usual I've chopped it all down to its bare essentials. 30 songs sail by in 80s minutes. True to the Biscuits for series, all these songs are hot off the press—nearly all of them released in 2018, and some just weeks old.
So strap in and get ready to bust a (slow ass) move.
Chloé: Recall (instrumental)
Hi & Saberhägen: Parachute
La Frère: N8TTT
MTV: Snow Ball
Pinklunch: Other Side
Fango: Atena
Commodo: Leeroy
Etch: Defunkt Logic
Novo Line: Triad (33)
Jako Maron: Katangaz
Streetboxxer: Memory Man
Black Zone Myth Chant: Radio Romantica
Krikor Kouchian: Plomo o Plomo
Chromatics: Lady
Suba: Wayang no.8
Move D / Benjamin Brunn: Come In
Marc Romboy: l'Universe Étrange
Overmono: Pom
Heap: Tripper
Low Jack: Brass
Brainwaltzera: Kurzweil Dame (Eva Geist mix)
Masimiliano Pagliara: Small Town Life
Synkro: Automatic Response
Steven Rutter: Memories of You
Sign Libra: Mantodea vs Furcifer Pardalis
Boothroyd: Rinsed
Jonathan Fitoussi / Clemens Hourrière: Ice Tunnel
Happy Meals: Run Round
Dual Action: Cochi Loco
Mønic: Deep Summer (Burial mix)
Osibisa, 1972
I often shop the new arrivals bin on the Dusty Groove website. From the time I lived in Chicago, they've been veritable resource of discovery—so much more than just a record store. Their sonic niche is not my specialty, so it's always fun to wade through what they have and see what catches my eye. One time, it was Osibisa.
I'd never heard of the band before, but the cover of their third record, Heads, will stop you in your record-flipping tracks. The typography instantly makes you think it's a prog-rock record, with echoes of Yes or Budgie. The warped painting is by Abdul Mati Klarwein, the same artist who gave us Miles Davis' Live Evil. The image is of the sweating, disembodied head of a flying elephant. To make things even weirder, each of the band members faces seem to be emerging from different parts of this demonic-looking Dumbo's face. With exactly that much information to go on, I had to see what Osibisa was all about.
For lack of a better term, they were a funk band. If you try and get beyond that, you end up needing a lot of hyphens. Though based in London most of the band hailed from Ghana, and their progressive-flavored jams shared some DNA with afrobeat. The more psychedelic edges of their tracks remind me of a more percussion-heavy Cymande. They also retain an African feel of call and response—the same one that also informs African American Gospel music. It all ads up to (ahem) a heady brew.
Gerard Herman, 2016
It's actually rather rare to buy a record with no information other than the sound. So many things influence us, from what we already know, to criticism and promotion, up to the cover art. I virtually none of that when it came to Gerard Herman's Die Paste, Die Wrong. I knew nothing about Herman, and the Entr'acte label is about as forthcoming as their stark, consecutively numbered covers would imply. I had no information other than what I heard and what I heard were these beguiling electronic miniatures, each built with simple, limited components but each slippery in its construction, hard to pin down.
L.Voag, 1979
Any band that names themselves the Homosexuals, in 1977, is confrontational. Apparently the name-change cost them at least one band member. The Homosexuals were a prolific and squirrelly group, who seemed to form new bands monthly either from desire for obfuscation or perhaps sheer boredom. The box set, Astral Glamour, went a long way to making the bulk of their work as the Homosexuals available again (and more besides) but huge swaths of their other material remains damnably hard to find. Hell, it sometimes feels like you have to be an internet detective just to find out it even exists. Getting the box set digitally also does nothing for sorting out what goes where…
On vinyl, this dilemma is slowly being addressed. The various works of Amos, aka Jim Welton, aka L.Voag have started to see the light of day . Listening to The Way Out is almost a form of archeology. Nobody makes this sort of lo-fi jumble in era of computer-based home studios and auto-tune. It sounds like half these songs were written moments before they were recorded. The magic of it is in how well it works, in all its haphazard glory.