FEATURED NEW RELEASES
From The Kitchen Archives No.3
Om
Takashi Nishioka
The Streets
No-Neck Blues Band & Embryo
Hacienda Classics (Various)
Tom Verlaine
Secret Machines

Conrad Schnitzler
Flat Earth Society / The Lost

ALSO AVAILABLE
Chris Harwood & Susan Christie (45s)

BACK IN STOCK
John Fahey

COMPLETE LIST OF THIS WEEK'S NEW ARRIVALS

"World Looks Red" Sonic Youth

"All-Boy All-Girl" Arthur Russell

A legendary (and still active and relevant) New York performance space, the Kitchen continues to pour through their huge archive of live performance reel-to-reel tapes, and here we are treated to a thrilling 10-track compilation featuring the cream of the crop of the local scene in the early-'80s. As the title suggests, the artists featured were informed by both the avant-garde and post-punk, each finding their own way to blend diverse influences into a coherent vision, and in many cases the live, slightly unhinged setting serves these innovators to a tee. Opening with two cuts from Sonic Youth, recorded late December 1982, we have a pounding version of "World Looks Red" with Michael Gira joining the group on vocals and guitar (the Swans shared the bill that night), followed by Kim Gordon's "Shaking Hell;" these are amongst the earliest live SY recordings ever made available. Swans follow with the sonic overload of "Clay Man" and "Weakling," sadly omitting the show-closing appearance by New York's finest, who, legend has it, stormed the club and dismantled the entire P.A. in response to a series of noise complaints (duh, just listen to this!!!).

Next up are three Arthur Russell rarities, first from a short-lived group called Bill's Friends (featuring Tim Schellenbaum, Chuck Wood and Jill Kroesen) delivering a great no-wave vocal delivery, with Russell sawing away in the back, on one of the more dissonant projects he's ever been involved in. The only two tracks not actually recorded at the Kitchen are the two Russell solo numbers that follow, but the bait-and-switch is well worth it since these are completely arresting alternate demo versions for the World of Echo album, "Hiding Your Present from You" and "All-Boy All-Girl," both sounding achingly stark and pure served sans-echo, just Arthur and the cello…worth the price alone.

The Christian Marclay piece that follows, "His Masters Voice," is a must for fans of his prepared-turntablism, and this heavily textured piece of appropriation is wonderful. Following is a great recording from '81 from Rhys Chatham, the eight-minute "Guitar Trio" with a heavy Neu! vibe, cinching on a circular, driving rhythm and dense guitar work, followed by the set closer, a rarely performed piece by Elliott Sharp, "Crowds and Power," featuring a 20-piece orchestra.

I've often said that most compilations fall short due to their lack of coherence and vision. Genre-defining collections, like No New York or The Harder They Come rise above being a collection of good artists when they manage to convey the energy and excitement of a vibrant scene, and can serve as an entry into a world with its own logic and worldview. Amplified may be the clearest distillation yet of this explosive and vibrant time for the music scene in New York, sucking you into the live energy of this downtown scene when that really meant something, and presenting another side of a group of hugely influential artists that you may already know and love. [JM]

"At Giza"

"Flight of the Eagle"

I wasn't a huge fan of the debut (Variations on a Theme), mainly because of the flat production, but less than a minute in, this proves to be an entirely different beast. "At Giza," the first of the album's two 15-plus minute tracks, is deeply rooted in psychedelia (and for some reason Voivod covering "Astronomy Domine" came to mind) as opposed too the sludgy doom metal that Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus have come to be associated with. The pace is slow and the playing is taut, as Cisneros' cyclical bass lines and vocal incantations soar on top of Haikus' lock-groove drumming, making for an absolutely awe-inducing 16-minute hypnosis. "Flight of the Eagle" sees Om return to more familiar territory, as the riffing is heavier and somewhat more akin to their collective past as two-thirds of Sleep. All in all, not your average stoner fare but instead some of the most intense minimal psychedelia in a long, long while. [AK]

Takashi Nishioka's Manin No Ki is surely one of the finest psych-folk singer-songwriter albums I've heard; if it weren't for the fact that it's sung in Japanese it'd probably already be in your collection. Nishioka has had a long and artistically successful and varied career of enough stature that he's been afforded a five-CD box set in Japan. He first came to public attention in the '60s as a member of Five Red Balloons, a group whose music was indebted in great part to the folk revival taking place in America at the time. Where his career really begins to interest us, however, is around 1970, when he was the nominal leader and songwriter of Tokedashita Garasubako (Melting Glass Box), whose members included notable musicians from Apryl Fool and the Jacks. They made one extraordinary and essential album of dreamy and avant-garde psych-folk that stands on par with any thing else of the era. Unfortunately, that CD is long out of print and vinyl copies sell for exorbitant amounts of money, but they do have a fine song included on the Japanese installment of the Love, Peace and Poetry series. After Tokedashita Garasubako dissolved, Nishioka began work on his first solo LP for URC (Underground Record Club), a label that had been started to document the intriguing folk and pop music that was being made in Japan's early-'70s counter-culture, a good portion of their catalog has been reissued and is well worth tracking down. Manin No Ki is far less amorphous than Tokedashita Garasubako, it begins on a foreign sounding note with a short ditty laden with ethnic string instruments and rattling wood blocks. It's probably the weirdest piece on the album and it barely hints at the songwriting to follow.

Nishioka is a master of the lilting melody and he specializes in those mid-tempo ballads that characterize many of Neil Young's greatest moments. Not that Nishioka just sounds like a Japanese Neil Young, far from it. His writing includes space for complex vocal overdubs and he uses a diverse array of instrumental shading, including marimba and xylophone sounds that would make Tom Waits jealous, and whoever engineered his drums is a complete genius. But now I'm starting to come across like a real nerd, because truly the main strength of the album is simply Nishioka's moving songwriting, that the sounds surrounding his songs are interesting only adds to the appeal. Manin No Ki is the album I've listened to the most this year by far and it won't fail to make it to my top ten. [MK]

"Can't Con an Honest John"

"Momento Mori"

Mike Skinner (a/k/a the Streets) returns for his third installment of witty storytelling and catchy beats, but the jury's still out on the outcome. On the plus side, it's his most varied and creatively produced record. As before, odd hooks, children's rhymes and overindulgent singsong melodies mix with grime's snap and rumble, electro's arpeggio, the shuffle of garage and hip-hop's mid-millennium digital bump, creating the soundtrack for his loony loner banter. He continues many of the concepts which were established on last year's A Grand Don't Come for Free, however, this time there are more opportunities for singles and more attempts to bring a pop slant into the mix (coming up with a few nice beats in the process). This being his most personal outing, Skinner's stories often deal with his celebrity status. Featuring more than enough backing support from label mates the Mitchell Brothers (we're reminded that he's also now the owner of a label that "has to sell more records"), Skinner seems to be riding the line between simply taking the piss or digging deep (this time around it's all about him--a male Brit who's become rich and the tragedies of it all). The thing is, even when he misses the mark, he maintains a presence (however silly or disposable that may be) in the world's mainstream. He even takes a stab at an antiwar song. This time around, however, most of us have to decide if we'll take this train, so to speak, or wait for the next one, whenever it comes. Some might say bollocks, others may say brilliant. After a few pints, you'll perhaps say both. Cheers. [DG]

NO-NECK & EMBRYO
EmbryoNNCK
(Staubgold)

"Wieder Das Erste Mal"

"Five Grams of the Widow"

EmbryoNNCK marks the debut recorded collaboration between the Munich-based Embryo and Harlem's No-Neck Blues Band. No-Neck has resuscitated other heavyweights before, but the shared sympathies between these two groups couldn't be more fitting.

Christian Burchard formed Embryo after leaving Amon Düül at the close of the '60s. He is the life force of Embryo and has remained the only consistent member of the group during their 30-plus years of existence. After laying down several Kraut-jazz cornerstones, the band moved into a decidedly pan-cultural direction. Eventually, a newly configured group took off on a two-year journey through the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, during which the group's bus broke down in Tehran in the midst of a civil war. The double album Embryo Reise (1981) captured this musical adventure, as did the stunning documentary film by Werner Penzel, Vagabunden-Karawane (Vagabond's Band). For Embryo, touring is their self-proclaimed "main-life."

Whereas the Sun City Girls may have taped the radio and recorded exotic karaoke in far-off lands, Embryo actually invited the musicians along to join their caravan, recording alongside them, fully immersed in the culture. In this sense, NNCK is like another stop along the way, as they have always been their own indigenous island.

The music on EmbryoNNCK is wildly visual. Sounds come out like a hot spring burping up thermal rhythms. It is striking how unified the playing sounds given the large number of musicians involved. Both groups seem to complement each other, sort of making a super version of their previous forms. No-Neck's feral drum jams are tamed by Embryo's well-heeled jazz improv. At times the recording evokes Don Cherry's Eternal Now-era explorations or even recent Gang Gang Dance. This one's a keeper and definitely calls out for a closer investigation of Embryo's varied catalog. [JR]

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Hacienda Classics
(EMI)

"Voodoo Ray" A Guy Called Gerald

"Belfast" Orbital

"Hashim (The Soul)" Al Naayfish

Peter Hook of New Order provides the definitive documentation of the Hacienda. The story of the legendary Manchester club has been written, and filmed, a million times before but the music contained therein has never been compiled quite like this. Over three discs, Hooky mixes early-house (Mr. Fingers, Joe Smooth, Derrick May) and acid house cornerstones (808 State, A Guy Called Gerald) with Manchester staples (Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, New Order) and electro classics (Shannon, Al Naayfish). Over four hours, the mix builds and drops (thanks to a few perfectly timed chilled-out jams, including Orbital and Future Sound of London) and builds back up again before exploding into a final massive crescendo of Rhythim Is Rhythim and Sterling Void into Candi Staton's "You Got the Love." Oh yeah, Black Box's "Ride on Time" is on here too. What? You scared?

This is essential for anyone interested in the beginnings of house music, club culture, Manchester and good nights out. File under religious. [AK]

TOM VERLAINE
Songs & Other Things
(Thrill Jockey)

"Blue Light"

TOM VERLAINE
Around
(Thrill Jockey)

"The O of Adore"

Two unassuming titles standing in front of some major new works by Tom Verlaine, his first solo releases since 1992's understated Warm and Cool. In that time, Television reunited and played some shows … and that's all we really know. Clearly Verlaine has had some free time to let the songs on these two brand-new discs--one lyrical, one instrumental--kick around and grow naturally. The wait has paid off, with the legendary guitarist stepping out with a welcome continuation of the work he committed as a solo artist in the '70s and '80s (Songs' opener, "A Parade in Littleton," even kicks off with the same sort of tom fill that started 1979's "Souvenir from a Dream"). It can safely be assumed that, particularly in the latter half of the interim years, Verlaine's been alternately inspired by the renewed activity and hustle in the world of rock music, and remained unfazed by its trappings of reinvention and genre-hopping.

Many people don't like to hear the name Steely Dan bandied about, but on Songs and Other Things, Verlaine has achieved that group's balance of rigorous musicianship framed within a casual, natural gesture, only applied to the studiously bent early-rock-meets-virtuoso level of fusion that he's mined since the dawn of Television instead of jazz and pop. Four songs in and I connected instantly with "Blue Light," a stormy, minor waltz of a ballad shorn from "Torn Curtain" and fashioned into something emotively crushing and persistent; it's easily one of his most striking songs, and made the wait for these records worthwhile. The other 13 tracks run through a range of styles, from lounge-lizard blues ("Nice Actress") to Meters-esque hustle ("Shingaling"), from corn-fed ramble ("From Her Fingers") to focused urgency ("The Day on You"), all of which will be familiar to fans of his work, but shot through with a forcefulness in the production that vaults the material into the spotlight. He's joined by Jay Dee Daugherty (The Patti Smith Group) and Fred Smith of Television on a handful of tracks, but the grand links to Verlaine's past would be present even without their contributions. Around slims the studio ensemble down to a trio of Verlaine, bassist/producer Patrick A. Derivaz, and Television drummer Billy Ficca. Across 16 instrumental tracks, Verlaine explores sonic landscapes lit by moonlight and torch, vacillating between playful ethnomusicological sway, austere blues, and bleary-eyed 5 A.M. sessions of textural dreamscape. Both releases showcase Verlaine as what he is best remembered as: a groundbreaking guitar innovator and a stately presence among the old guard. [DM]

SECRET MACHINES
Ten Silver Drops
(Reprise)

"Lightning Blue Eyes"

"Faded Lines"

From their work in the off-season, collaborating with the likes of Neu!'s Michael Rother, you might expect that Secret Machines' sophomore release would take their brand of heavy psychedelic rock further down Krautrock lane. The band has always crafted throbbing, rhythmic rock and roll washes of sound, but without forging a dramatic about-face, Ten Silver Drops actually slows things down a bit, lightens up, and probably will bring to mind radio-friendly psych like Mercury Rev or Pink Floyd's slick classics, rather than any vintage freak-outs. To their credit, the group thinks big: huge crashing guitars, walloping drums, majestic piano chords. Contrasting frontman Brandon Curtis' thin warble, the album speaks in bold, broad strokes, like Connor Oberst fronting U2, toying with fragility, but always holding the power card. [JM]

CONRAD SCHNITZLER
Blau
(Captain Trip)

"Die Rebellen Haben Sich in Den"

"Jupiter"

As music critic Yogi Berra once said, "It's deja vu all over again." Well, it's been impossible to get the original CD reissues of Krautrock pioneer Conrad Schnitzler's "color series" since he put them out on his own Plate Lunch label a few years back. We were chuffed the last time they were around, saying then: "One of Krautrock's most creative, prolific, yet restless souls, Schnitzler (at that time recently a student of Joseph Beuys) founded Tangerine Dream in 1968 with Edgar Froese and Klaus Schulze. Following their debut masterpiece, Electronic Meditation, he departed to form Kluster (later Cluster) with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. After recording three albums in 1971 (Klopfzeichen, Zwei-Osterei, and Schwarz), Schnitzler went solo for good."

Originally made in ludicrously small vinyl batches, with these five color records, Schnitzler cemented his place at the forefront of experimental electronics. Schwarz is in collaboration with his mates in Kluster and is a gnarly crackling set of electronics mixed with guitar and low-tuned toms. Documenting this early age for such spacious and kinetic explorations, these 20-plus-minute explorations anticipate everything from Voice Crack to NNCK, Marcus Schmickler to Ricardo Villalobos, always challenging ears and expectations. "Eruption" off of Schwarz is just that, bubbling and tarry as its namesake suggests. Rot, from 1973, is deceptive in its own right, with "Meditation" being far more tumultuous than its title would imply, and it's curious to compare Conrad's concept of "Krautrock" (the other sprawling side) to Faust's own a year on.

Carrying on through other colors of the spectrum, the series is capped off with Blau. Long a store favorite, here's what we wrote: "One the most innovative and challenging albums of its era, possessing both compositional complexity and an intricate rhythmic sophistication. Too aggressive in its way to be categorized as ambient, Blau visits that special juncture where psychedelics and electronics converge. Spaceman 1? Originally two side-long tracks, the reissue adds another remarkable 22-minute piece (mysteriously indexed as 5 tracks!) recorded around the same time. Highest recommendation!" Repackaged by Captain Trip in a choice card stock with no print on its sleeves, these faithful reproductions make for a tactile new way to learn your colors in German. [AB]

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY / THE LOST
Waleeco / Space Kids
(Arf Arf)

"Feelin' Much Better"

"When You're There"

Oh to be a young band in the '60s. The first half of this reissue features Flat Earth Society, a local Boston area act who had secured a contract to compose a commercial jingle for the FB Washburn Candy Company. The real icing, however, was that inside each candy bar was a coupon advertising Flat Earth Society's LP for the mere cost of $1.50 and six candy bar wrappers. Waleeco is the result of a not quite week-long session spent in the Fleetwood Recording Studio, this digitized version restoring the master tapes back to its intended stereo sound. While I'm sure the collector status of the original pressing of Flat Earth Society's lone record is more due to its scarcity, there are several gems worth checking out. Opener "Feelin' Much Better" reminds me of prime-era West Coast psychedelia (Jefferson Airplane, Love), complete with layered minor-key vocal harmonies, backwards guitars, and lots of reverb on the whole mix. The band also dabbles in Beatles-esque baroque pop with "I'm So Happy" (the song's trippy refrain shamelessly lifts the bassline from "Taxman"), pretty coffeehouse folk with "When You're There" (an album highlight), and some spooky keyboard atmosphere on "Dark Street Downtown."

Tacked on to the second half of this CD are 15 minutes of incidental music that fellow Bostonians the Lost produced in 1967, for a children's show on local PBS affiliate WGBH (the same station that commissioned deep, distorted funksters Stark Reality for another educational program.) Also included are two tracks containing the entire audio for the half-hour production of Space Kids. Think Super Friends meets Speed Racer, or any late-'60s children's story record. [GH]

An Other Music exclusive! Finders Keepers pressed up a limited number of 45s by two femme-folk-funksters, Chris Harwood (featuring musicians from Yes, The Strawbs, MacDonald and Giles, Juicy Lucy and produced by the legendary Miki Dallon) and Susan Christie, featuring two tracks from a future LP issue, an album that NEVER came out! Christie's single is a psychedelic take on country standards, her handcrafted tales of inner-city solitude are backed by a break heavy folk-funk rhythm section.

JOHN FAHEY
Selections by John Fahey & Blind Joe Death
(Takoma)

A true-to-form vinyl-only reissue of the original recorded version of John Fahey's private-press Blind Joe Death. This is THE first version that Fahey later rerecorded as The Legend of Blind Joe Death for his Takoma label, and it's a bit rawer. It's as unlikely and at least as special, if not more, than the reissue of Marclay's Record Without a Cover, and cheaper too. This is the one that Fahey had pressed up all by himself and planted in thrift shops so people would think that they happened upon an undiscovered Skip James-type ("Wigga Please!"). Easily described as the original version of one of his all time best albums. [SM]

THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS

[AB] Adrian Burkholder
[DG] Daniel Givens
[GH] Gerald Hammill
[MK] Michael Klausman
[AK] Andreas Knutsen
[JM] Josh Madell
[DM] Doug Mosurock
[SM] Scott Mou
[JR] Jeremy Rendina


THANKS FOR READING
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