Sonic Youth has released a series of records on their own SYR label, many of which consist mainly of improvisations recorded in their studio during rehearsals or between and among album sessions. Most if not all of these releases are labeled in languages which are not English. The reasons for this are obscure…
I own two of these releases (#1 and #2, I believe …) and I like them quite well. I’ve had #2 for longer and played it more often, so last night I got out #1 to listen to while reading a short story by Irvine Welsh (which mentions heroin only briefly so sppbt to his reputation … we’ll see how the collection progresses, but so far the writing is really solid good and I would recommend it, the book is called The Acid House).
The Sonic Youth record was mellower than I recalled, pleasantly droning and pulsating, and after a minute or two a little light went on in my brain and I realized it was one of those increasingly-common large-sized 45rpm releases, which I was playing at 33&1/3.
I let it go. It sounded good. I will listen to side two today in the same manner.
It has become typical that I prefer those large-size 45rpm releases when played at the wrong speed. This first came to light during Marc Cantlin’s visit to Los Angeles back in the spring of 2009… said visit documented here:
Right around that time I had purchased a record by Akron/Family called “Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free.” I sat down to listen to it and was really enjoying it a lot, really into it … and it took me half of side one (of four) to realize I was listening too slow. Or rather, the record was moving too slow. Perhaps I was listening too fast.
I returned the album to its intended speed and started over … to my great dissatisfaction. It was weak, lightweight, affected, even silly!* (On the other hand, I had discovered afro-grunge.)
Since that time I have found in my collection also a record by Omar Rodriguez Lopez called, I think, “Please Heat This Eventually” with guest Damo Suzuki which I’ve been playing on the wrong speed for years and never realized. It’s better that way, trust me.
* To be fair to Akron/Family, who are a worthy group, the album sounds pretty good, especially sides 2-4, if you have not just listened to it at the wrong speed first. Contrast is, in this case, everything.
I picked up a record by Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter … I’ve always thought it was a beautiful band name, but a little outside my genre of interest (don’t really dig “country-rock” … excepting certain exceptions … see below) … though I bought Jesse and co’s split single with Steve Turner on BURN BURN BURN a few years ago and really fell in love with their song, “Moon Over Troubled Town” (but it always sounds different every time I play the record, which I guess is a good thing. I blame it on the labels being pasted on the wrong sides of the vinyl) …
The one I just bought is a full-length, called “Like, Love, Lust, and the Open Halls Of The Soul” … and I’m not sure what, if anything, I was expecting.
But I play in a few bands which include elements of country and also elements of rock, blues, funk, whatever … and that means those bands can be called, at least in part, “country-rock” … and that means it behooves me to find a place to stand in that alleged genre.
So I bought this Jesse Sykes album, thinking maybe a record by a country-and/or-Americana-inflected artist who I liked pretty well, maybe that could give me some ideas of how to position myself.
OK, well, it did that.
I’m a guitar player, but the guitar player on Jesse’s album isn’t the first thing I noticed (although he is wonderful). The first thing was her voice, which is astonishing. She sings like an old, old woman in a young woman’s body. She sings as if she lives in a burrow dug into soft earth in the roots of an old, old tree. It is wonderful.
And next I realized how badly the sounds were causing me to miss the Pacific Northwest. Bad enough to cry. It won’t leave my mind.
In this music there is rain, and pine-tree-lined horizons, distant mountains, and an awareness of mist. There is a cool humidity, a northern languidity, a massive heft of tone and a psychic impact delivered laconically but nonetheless with force.
The guitarist is Phil Wandscher. He’s great. I plan to study him closely in the future. And while I like what he’s doing quite a lot, I also know now how what I do is going to be different. Thank you, Phil, for the inspiration.
The production and mixing are very complimentary to this group. The musicians sound like epic stomping monster gods singing sweetly in the deepest darkest forests of the mythic overworlds. But the music itself is so intensely chill that I can only listen to one side at a time (there are four) lest I fall into a trance from which I will not emerge.
(And it’s solid background music, too … for Tai Chi, Yoga, feeding the cat, but a little too subtle to wash dishes to … that’s good, we need music like that)
…Exceptions being (”country-rock” that I like): “Exile On Main Street” and related Stones. Certain Bob Dylan records. Certain Neil Young records. Lots of stuff by Leon Russell. (I like just about everything these people ever did, but their output varies, as you probably know, in terms of genre).
And I like certain things (but not everything) by The Band, Ry Cooder, JJ Cale, Danny Barnes … the “country-blues” ie Robert Johnson, Skip James, maybe Elmore James (tho, yes, I know, that’s edging into a Chicago blues bag, but Elmore is early and influential enough that I think I can call his “blues,” “country”) … Things from the Harry Smith Anthology Of American Folk Music. Hank Williams 1.
Not sure what else I’d really put in this category to any major degree, tho of course there are elements in many and diverse places (Black Crowes, Earth, blah blah blah) …
Had the pleasure of a few days visit from Team Evan & Woody, roving Seattle musical tag-team.
In between playing a ridiculous amount of music with everyone we met, we stopped into Origami Vinyl and made some financially-ill-advised-but-aesthetically-sound purchases.
(Woody abstained from purchasing. Way to buck the culture!)
We started with Mr Bishop, whose tones are thick and mystic chops formidable. The first track is a lengthy unaccompanied rumination for middle-east-inflected electric guitar, featuring round, warm, diamond-edged tone that is just about everything I could want in a recorded guitar sound.
The band kicks on track 2, and from there on the songs are long and they groove mightily. Think about something between Medeski Martin & Wood’s “Shack-Man” and Marc Ribot’s 2nd Los Cubanos Postizos, “Muy Divertido” … but it is nothing like either of those, really. They are the closest reference points I can think of just now.
It was a brain-cleansing listen, from the beginning of side A straight to the droning, Joujouka-escent closing track on side B.
Then we threw the Tortoise platter on the table and basked in a whole big pile of oddly electronic sounding instrumental grooves for bass, drums, keys, and occasional sips of guitar, all of which was recorded PERFECTLY, the tones so big and round and warm that it could perhaps have been done on a 4-track. You could call that kind of sound “hi-fi lo-fi”. Totally amazing record.
We capped it with a listen to the “West Coast Post-Asiatic Sampler” record, vinyl edition. We were so caught up with examining the truly lovely multi-colored record itself that we failed to navigate the side-selection issue properly and listened to side 2 first. (Not that sides are anything like plainly marked on this release). But I think it was OK, and supplied a properly weird vibe to the end of the evening.
BTW:
A few nights later I stayed up with Woody listening to Tim Buckley’s “Blue Afternoon” and “Happy/Sad” records. I esteem “Blue Afternoon” highly in a wide array of ways, and although I have been intensely fond of “Happy/Sad” for years, I have generally thought of it as a gem made perfect by its very flaws.
Opinion revised. “Happy/Sad” is a perfect album. Period.
