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.
Their 3rd full-length album, second on Drag City, second self-titled release for that matter, follow-up to the noise-clot double LP “Twin Infinitives,” Royal Trux (s/t) has just been re-issued. It’s really good … low-fidelity, low-budget, and somewhat more (deliberately?) noisy and sloppy than I can imagine it really needed to be … but the songs are there, and they are solid songs, and the instrumentation is sparse and effective (usually rhythm even acoustic guitar, drums, vocals, maybe bass, often a distorted electric lead … reminds me in many ways of the sound on Cats And Dogs, which makes sense as that was the follow-up to this, or even a low-budget Accelerator, which makes less sense except in that it is of course the same band and was all along … but they sure sounded different for a minute there on Thank You and Sweet Sixteen, and again on Veterans Of Disorder and Sweet Sixteen … so, what?)*
Anyway, I’ve played it twice and I’m digging the hell out of it and I might finally be ready to go back and give Twin Infinitives the proper examination it requires / deserves.
Also currently listening to (on CD … dammit … though it comes with a DVD which I haven’t looked at but fully expect to be amazing) and also from Drag City is a recording of Moroccan Gnawa trance music … which is unreal good, like maybe it’s the cool glass of water of musics. Especially when you take into account water’s potential as a spiritual conductor.
And also listening to a disc on Sublime Frequencies by Group Doueh … so lo-fi it makes Royal Trux sound the Dave Matthews Band … but if you have ears, you gotta listen. It’s desert guitar from Ali Farka Toure’s barbed wire nightmares. It’s the best use of a cheap flanger pedal, ever.
* Or was it the same band, really, since they (uh, “deliberately”) changed sidemen/rhythm section constantly, album to album, tour to tour … it was the same guiding mental lights, anyway. I might have to try and learn all these songs (offa s/t), just to see what they look like in the light.
Current listening includes “Fight On, Your Time Ain’t Long,” a collection (sans liner notes) of acoustic gospel including a track by Bukka White and also a whole lot of amazing stuff I’ve never heard of with lines like “I wouldn’t mind dying / but I got to go by myself…”
This LP is fun to play GO to. Really. Just ask John Norwood. It’s on Mississippi Records, if that helps you any.
On cassette I am playing close attention to “Good As I Been To You,” an early-90s recording of acoustic folk-blues by Bob Dylan. Favorite tracks on there include “Blackjack Davey” and “Jim Jones” though “Froggy Went A-Courting” is hard to deny. Bob still using his ’80s voice for the most part. He settles back down through-out his next, similar, album, “World Gone Wrong” and has regained his fullness by “Time Out Of Mind” yea unto the present day. Go Bob!
And, of course, anything that sounds good in the rain is welcome on my turntable today. Time for coffee and staring into the clouds.
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.
