Black Sun Ensemble (Camera Obscura)

Guitar Jesus comes to life in this debut release, reissued in the 90s with some bonus tracks and resequencing from the original mid-80s private press. Black Sun Ensemble occupy a unique, sun-drenched southwestern band of instrumental psychedelia. They're confident enough in Guitar Jesus's licks that there's little need for effects, studio fuckery or vocals. What this really is about is the guitar playing, and some of the songs are fairly improvised over a rhythm section that locks into similar chord progressions and patterns on every song. The end result is a patchwork of blistering electric guitar solos, glistening hollow-body/12-string blankets, and tunes that all kinda sound the same. The liner notes subtitle each track with descriptions like 'Wacko guitar solo', 'Improvisation in C scale', 'Blues in B Minor' etc. but somehow it all melts into a unified whole. I bought this when it came out after reading a review that praised it as first-rate psychedelia, but at the time I thought all psychedelia had to be insanely exaggerated mind-bends or maximallist pop like Mercury Rev or something -- I found this kinda downbeat, not disappointing per se, but not what I expected either. But I still liked it because I was also going through my Fahey/Americana-guitar phase, and I realised that this was a record to bridge the two schools. Guitar Jesus knows he's the star and he's mixed so far up that everything else sounds like an afterthought. If there's one criticism it is that the Black Sun Ensemble defined their sound too much, because the weird strum-pattern is so similar from track to track that it feels almost limiting. I know they made later records and I think still exist to this day (though Guitar Jesus is the only one remaining) so maybe they branched out since this was recorded (which was 1985). Much of the 'success' of this CD, to these ears, is owed to the early 80's DIY recording quality. You're really in the room with these guys, yet it still somehow captures the 'Dove of the Desert' feel (to borrow a phrase from track 5). There's something 'inside' about this psychedelia and it's a great mood-setter in the midst of a long winter. Liner notes by Byron Coley!

Black Forest/Black Sea - 'Radiant Symmetry' (Last Visible Dog)

The duo of Black Forest/Black Sea clearly did some traveling (outside of their native Providence) in 2004, because Radiant Symmetry feels like a tour diary. Three of the nine tracks feature the band alone, while the rest is abundant with guest musicians, and the unnamed tracks are listed by where they were recorded. Despite being taken from a bunch of live recordings, this is edited together quite well. Most of the pieces flow together, and a few times you wouldn't guess that you were jumping from country to country. There are a few times when I start to get bored by the thick bed of cello and guitar notes, although it's a pleasant, welcoming sound. Nick Talbot's acoustic guitar is a welcome addition to the Bristol session, and grounds it just enough to keep things from devolving into that noodly neo-folk experimentalism that often knocks me unconscious. There are a few moments of real tension, particularly in the opening track recorded with Glasgow musicians from Volcano the Bear, Nalle, and Traveling Bells (though in 2004 before those latter two project existed). Here the five musicians are all pulling away from each other and it's a pretty intense way to open the disc, suggesting things to come which actually don't. The final track, recorded in Stoke-on-Trent, is thickened with an Indian harmonium and it somehow is the most focused and most meandering track of the disc. While I'm tempted to get impatient and the musical noodlings, the waves of cello and harmonium keep pulling me back under the surface. As a document of communication and music exchange, probably particularly significant to them as it chronicles their friends, this is probably an important disc. For the rest of us, I'm not sure it's the most necessary recording ever, as its inconsistency makes it occasionally frustrating. But I'm no hater so this remains in the Elbow Cinderblock Glass Mastered Constructor Bag, cause you never know when you might want to dip yourself in its sonic tar.

Black Flag - 'The First Four Years' (SST)

The mainstream acceptance of 1980's underground rock music means that Black Flag have now been inducted into the canon, at least enough to make me feel a bit weird trying to write something about The First Four Years. Though, while Rollins does iPod commercials, what is Chavo Pederast doing these days? Dreams, legends and lifestyles were made here but I personally think I only really got Black Flag after reading Rollin's awful/amazing book of tour diaries, Get in the Van. Cause pretty much everything that's been written about Black Flag has been wrong, in the sense that it was not about lifestyle or politics or choice - it was only about the music, man. Now this is pre-Rollins, when Ginn's interest in experimentation was much more focused on structure and aesthetic experimentation than guitar playing innovations, though there's certainly a little of that here (like his solo on 'Wasted'). The debate over "who's the best Black Flag vocalist" has raged in a million shitty punk houses and parties and this CD is what everyone refers to. Why doesn't anyone ever make an argument that, say, Raymond Pettibon reinvented psychedelia in a new post-Watergate America? I'm gonna refrain from choosing my fave vocalist, though the path traveled from Morris to Cadena is an interesting one. We start out with fists pounded against dry wall; the music of curfews, sexual frustration, and directed anger. By the end the anger has widened its vision and we're punching concrete instead. 'Damaged I' is a good portal into the future, even hinting at the horizontal gruntfests of the heavy metal late Flag sound. The best thing I ever heard of all the ballyhoo for Black Flag is someone who said "this was soul music for white kids from the suburbs". You've all heard this, hopefully, so what more do I need to say? This CD is only 26 minutes long which is a bit surprising because for some reason I remembered it being about twice the length. Packing four years into 26 minutes should say something about precision, concision or maybe just incisions.

Jean-Jacques Birgé / Francis Gorgé / Shiroc - 'défense de' (Mio)

Bring on the space juice! This intensely visionary work was recorded in 1975 and it resembles little else in the sound universe. You can hear some hints of similarity, particularly with other French weirdness like Berrocal's early records, and some jammy synth jazz, but this is some of the weirdest shit you'll find this side of Sun Ra. There's a sense of free jazz in how's it played, and some Krautlike echo, but I'm really not doing it justice by comparing it to antecedents. Shiroc is the drummer and his style is wonderfully fluid, with long runs that dance all over the stereo field like a wild buffalo. I write all this in reference to the original album (tracks 1-4) and the bonus tracks that take this CD to the remainder of its 75 minutes. The second disc included here is not under review, because it is a DVD and thus outside of the scope of this blog. Also, I'm copping out on trying to tackle the insane amount of content packed into the DVD - in addition to Birgé's film La Nuit du Phoque (which, if I remember correctly, has oodles of male nudity in it), there are over six hours of audio material comprising every session that Birgé and Gorgé ever played together. So, this is a hell of a bargain and a pretty "essential" component of a record collection that looks NWW-listward for its cornerstones (though, I hate when people say any sound recording is 'essential' since you don't need it to live and breathe). But the album itself is what created the legend around this music, if you can call anything that a microscopic community of music fans cared about "legendary". I'm sure the original vinyl goes for shitloads now so thanks to Mio for making it available again - and while I don't like CDs, this is a nicer way to have it than a MutantSounds .rar file. The breaths here are gorgeous though - sometimes pure sound exploration and sometimes focused on the act of human beings interacting with each other. This is definitely from the school of "get some studio time and take in as many instruments as possible", but back when this was a novel idea and there was really something to say through the process. There are a million sound-generating devices at play but it doesn't sound spoiled. There are two other guys who play here, one of whom was later involved in Urban Sax, and they seem to thicken things without overloading anything. French outsider music, which I often call "prog" because, even if it sounds nothing like Crimson, is definitely progressive -- it has a sense of time that is uniquely its own. I don't understand completely what makes something sound French vs. Italian vs. German vs. British - I wonder how much these constructs are cultural. Would I say the same thing about this if I took a blind taste test? I think I would, at least with material from the great decade of the 1970s; with today's melting pots I don't know that I'd be up to the challenge. Here I guess I'd probably see a connection to art brut, and all that stuff, but maybe that's just my limited knowledge of 20th century art movements creeping into my sense of perception. Anyway, I can't say much else here besides: get this.

Birds of Delay - 'Gateway to Feather' (Alcoholic Narcolepsy)

This is an artifact from the explosion of underground UK noise-drone that peaked around 2006-2007. Birds of Delay are two guys that like feedback, and everything is recorded with the thick soupy drone + feedback layers that characterise their sound, at least at the time. 'Sandcastle Brain' opens it up with 15 minutes of monotony, to the point that the other track, 'Creamed Abandon', sounds lively by comparison. The latter applies bending and twisting tones to create a more psychedelic effect, though since everything (on both tracks) is breaking up through digital distortion, it feels very compressed. Music like this demands space, and there is space here but not much; you can't help but feel claustrophobic, even a bit frightened while listening to this. What this whole scene did is remove the trancelike/hypnotic elements from drone and leave the bad hangovers and nasty backlash. I'm trying to think if there's something distinctly British here, like the taste of a warmed Wetherspoon's pint or scampi fries, or if this might as well be from anywhere. I don't know what actualy would characterise US vs UK vs Korean drone, except that I can say Starving Weirdos sound nothing like this. I guess it's like a Jackson Pollock piece, where you can pick a sound and let your ear wander around on it, except it would be like looking at a Pollock painting in a really poorly lit room. I know that lo-fi is a choice and this aesthetic has its advantages. but you'd have to be deluded to think that a super quality recording wouldn't benefit these blokes. Or maybe you'd just realise how cheap their equipment is, because it sounds like it's all held together with gaffa tape.

Birch Book - 'Vol 1' (Lune Music)

Birch Book is a side-project of In Gowan Ring and it's just as driven by the personality of Mr. B'eirth. But if you're looking for a vast departure you won't find it - this is an album centered on B'eirth's singing and guitar playing. The difference is that the more psychedelic, traditional and I'd say "medieval"-style sounds of In Gowan Ring are replaced by a rootsy, Americana folk tradition instead. If you like Neil Young's wussier stuff (hey, that's still North America) then you might find a lot to love here. B'eirth's surprisingly direct with his songwriting, and the tunes roll along gently. It has a home-recorded/ProTools feel but there's some nice extra accompaniment in a few places. Viola gives it a nice edge, and the background doubled-vocals are tastefully mixed. A sticker on the package warns of ego-driven, narrative material but that's nothing to be ashamed of. This isn't a place to go for excitement, as you can imagine of someone who would write a song about having coffee in the morning. But if you want excitement, you can go to the the Gowan Ring. I saw them live once and it was a pretty good trip, though one song matched along with 'Shiny Happy People' exactly -- like, you could sing Stipe's lyrics overtop of B'eirth's, which I did, but thankfully in the back of the club where he wouldn't hear me (because I suspected he was a sensitive type, and Birch Book pretty much proved that). Besides 'Coffee Morning' you'll get other tunes with titles like 'Leaf Patches on Sidewalks', 'Warm Wind and Rain', and 'Jerkoff into the Ocean'. Okay, I admit I made up the last one. The closest this comes to the stone circle psychedelia vibe are the opening track and track 12, which are both called 'Birch Bark' -- they are shimmering, delay-affected layers of acoustic notes that fall around the stereo field like dancing raindrops. They're beautiful bookends to a very personal (if slightly unadventurous) album, and I wonder if track 12 is mislabeled as track 13 for some sort of occult reason. This is more NPR than Colin Wilson, but strangely, almost indescribably likeable.

Biota - 'Half a True Day' (Recommended)

It's been about a month away, which we can blame on travel + the yuletide season -- but also on the sheer difficulty of reviewing yet another Biota album. This one is only 69 minutes long, but it's also pretty much instrumental, eliminating those beautiful pop songs that occasionally slice through the layers. I'll reiterate that I do like Biota, enough to own three really long CDs despite a "I hate CDs" philosophy; but maybe I have to question my sanity sometimes. This is the most recent, coming out in 2008 I think. The standard tropes are there -- intense studio processing, zany effects, and a melting pot of melodic structures. But this time, the overly affected percussion is gone - we (mostly) hear a drum kit as a drum kit should sound. And drummer Larry Wilson actually has a pretty great style. It's scrappy, and start-stop, and it vibes well with the backwards-processed sounds. Half a True Day is a great title cause it feels like it takes half of a day to listen to it. There are a few moments of true alien beauty - 'Another Name' being one of them. These parts often conform to fairly traditional harmonic pleasure, in terms of instrumentation and atmosphere, but with something slightly off. The adventurous side is pretty impressive, and probably what drew me to Biota in the first place -- 'Silent Grove' gets into a real mudslide of animal skulls, abandoned duffle bags, and curving tunnels. After I got about halfway through this, I think I realised it was my favorite Biota release. I miss the songs, but the voices are still here and it feels more cohesive -- instead of intelligible lyrics, the vocals are part of the group sound, another instrument. Sure, without the obvious songs to break things up, Biota can be a bit more troublesome to take. This is a monolithic album, and I can't let myself sink into it enough to sense any development over the past decade. But it feels focused, which is something I wouldn't say about the other two. I think the CD format dares you to take one track and isolate it and listen to it alone a few times, but we all lack the patience to do this. There are parts where I get sick of the accordion or the xylophone, but there's also parts where it's both astoundingly chaotic and astoundingly controlled, and those instruments help to create the gel. And the artwork is a notch above the last two discs, though still very steeped in digital rendering and pastel pantones. Age and scenario probably means that these guys 'n gals have long-missed their chance for 15 minutes in the spotlight, but that's what make hidden pleasures so pleasureable.