Arthur Doyle plus 4 - 'Alabama Feeling' (DRA)

I've always questioned the legitimacy of this CD, as the liner notes are written in broken English, and even the 'Tansfer (sic) by Wharton Tiers' credit is a bit suspect. I suppose the sound quality is good enough given the source material which was hardly Dark Side of the Moon to begin with. Doyle's a marginal figure who was briefly resurrected in the late 90s and his reputation rests largely on this record, I believe. It's a powerful blast of free insanity, and Doyle is featured not on sax but on Voice-O-Phone (both tenor and bass), which I think is just a funny way to say sax. Because that's what it sounds like. Well, there's a lot going on here, and the opening cut 'November 8th or 9th - I Can't Remember When' is as memorable as its title (take that how you'd like). There's two drummers here and throughout the disc, doing that thing two drummers often do in free jazz which is making the whole thing a cacophonous propulsive blast. Charles Stephens's trombone is what really dominates, maybe just because of the frequencies, which cut against the electric bass guitar. When Doyle solos, as on 'Something for Caserio, Larry & Irma', it's ripped to shreds, vibrating with an unmistakeable force but about the polar opposite of a Coltrane-like tone. Maybe this is what Albert Ayler would have been reduced to had he lived another decade or so, and lost a sense of control. This isn't to say that Doyle is a bad saxophonist, excuse me, Voice-O-Phonist -- just a raw and primitive one. He certainly brings a power and a scattershot sense of movement, and this is indeed where the charm of this disc can be found. I like chaos and this is mostly that, though it's far from random - these oddball musicians display some sense of timing and the overall feeling is hillbilly-batshit-insane, which is something that separates it quite a bit from Euro free stuff such as Globe Unity, etc. The cover art makes me think of a Braxton composition gone wrong, which is a nice idea, and maybe this disc is not unlike what that would sound like.

Can - 'Ege Bamyasi' (Spoon)

I don't remember where I first heard of Can - probably mentioned in some article or interview. I do remember the first time I decided to listen to them, when I was chatting with a coworker. I was sixteen and I had a job working in a library. There was an older music nerd who worked there and I remember asking him what his favourite bands were. He told me that it was probably Pere Ubu (who I had heard of surely, but not listened to) and Can. To which I replied 'The German band?'. Latter that night I went to a Silkworm gig. Anyway I'm digressing again, trying to babble on about my personal history with this music instead of talking about the actual sounds here. Ege Bamyasi is somewhat of a watershed; things weren't quite the same afterwards though I can't quite put my finger on why. This is a much more smooth, fluid record than Tago Mago. 'Pinch', the opener, is languid and bright, though frantic; it's Jaki Liebezeit stretching out and letting everyone else paint broad watercolour strokes over him. 'Sing Swan Song' is simultaneously ballad and minimalist heartpulse. Czukay's bass is brutal and pummeling despite the soft edges, and Suzuki takes us to a new a place with his emoting. 'One More Night' I can't disassociate these days from the loop that appears as the backing track to a few Joe Frank radio shows, during which you can really focus/obsess on it's disjointed rhythm. I'd like to say that this is a dub approach again, built upon a long jammy riff with most of the changes coming from elements coming in and out - 70's cop guitar, cymbals, Damo's voice, etc. It's three tracks in before you realise that this is a new poppy side of Can, no doubt motivated by the hit of 'Spoon', which is tacked on here as the final track. 'Vitamin C' takes us back to the kinetic repetitive funk of 'Hallelujah', though condensed into three minutes and even more open of a songform. There's enough room here for Damo to get quite lyrical, and while his experimentation on Tago Mago is unparalleled here, by this point it really feels like the man is finding a new voice. It's a Can jam for a mixtape, though it ends prematurely. I always swore it was a lot longer. Irmin brings in a somewhat liturgical organ solo near the end, but this is the church of psychological warfare. And there's a segue into 'Soup', the most 'out' track of Ege Bamyasi. This is a tick-tock Jeopardy game, with harshly squealing white noise and electric piano bumps, all somehow kept contained while constantly threatening to rip itself apart. It's a rocker until it breaks into a more freeform section, sounding almost EXACTLY like an Area record. Damo is even affecting some Italianness (Dago Suzumi? I couldn't resist, sorry), all gutturals, sputterings, and rolled consonants. Irmin is going far more synthy than the soft organs we heard on the earlier tracks, and once again (like the end of 'Aumgn') we have Jaki pushed to the forefront. But it doesn't outstay its welcome (not to imply that 'Aumgn' does!) and quickly takes us to the two pop tunes, 'I'm So Green' and 'Spoon'. The former is an edgy jazz-rocker built around a nice Liebezeit/Czukay shuffle and some arpeggiated jangle. It sets a mood quite similar to what the band did with Mooney, though again with a syncopation they could have only dreamed about in 1968. By the end of it's economical three minutes, we've reached something chaotically psychedelic that I'm still not sure how to read. And 'Spoon' was the tune for a cop show, or something like that. Fair enough, cause it's properly suspenseful, built around an ethereal pop hook, laden in reverb and with haunting background vocals. Hit songs are nothing to be ashamed of, and this maybe manages to capture Can at their peak in just three minutes. I know it lacks the long-form workouts, synth/vocal diversions or instrumental freakouts but there's still something to be said for it. The sense of spacyness - not like Hawkwind, but like Alvin Lucier - is there, despite being a fairly busy arrangement, and while no musician really gets to go for it, there's the sense of collective brainmeld that could only happen when a brilliant band reachers their peak.

Burning Star Core - 'Blood Lightning 2007' (No Fun Productions)

I've always liked when a year appears at the end of a title, such as Death Race 2000 or Airport '77, and the 2007 is probably an essential component of this Blood Lightning, cause, after all, there might be a Blood Lightning 2011 in the works. Adorned by perversely wispy anime/erotica, this 51-minute slab is primarily C. Spencer Yeh on his own, at least until the fifth track which knocks the whole album out of balance somewhat with a big live jam. Taken as just four tracks, Blood Lightning 2007 is an amazingly consistent album, bookended by 'The Universe is Designed to Break Your Heart' and 'The Universe is Designed to Break Your Mind'. The former begins with some pause-button edit vocals or other such murmurings, leads into some electronic drone, and coalesces into the rain-on-gutter electroacoustic wash that is the signature Burning Star Core sound. It's almost like a reader's guide to Burning Star Core, and a good intro to the album. 'A Curse on the Coast' brings in slow, grinding pulses and looks most overtly at Throbbing Gristle's influence on Yeh, though in a somewhat more inquisitive manner than most TG I've experienced. 'Deaf-Mute Spinning Resonator' and the above-mentioned 'Break Your Mind' don't give as much breathing room, but instead work from what sounds like a collage of lo-fi recordings, slow movements, and vocal garblings. The drone is pretty immense by the end, which descends into unidentifiable springy gasps. It's like the perfect antidote to the first half, and a perfect closer -- which makes the fifth track, '10-09-04 Horrible Room, Lexington, KY' all the more jarring. It's a slow starter, all open-form poetics and open-mouthed jazz. It takes on a darker growl after about five minutes, and then the sea of unchanging madness begins to spread out. There's piercing electronics courtesy of Shiflet and Beatty, spazzing out but in very tight confines; Tremaine must be content to tap about on the cymbals while this absolute wall is mortared in. Once it's there, they get going again, but in a dark, punchy way, unlike the Operator Dead swing. If I seem a bit irritated by this live track, it's because it feels like a CDr or cassette release track, tacked onto the end of what's otherwise a very concentrated, focused and cohesive recording. Maybe Challenger is the record to go to for cohesiveness, and this is a more varying document.

Peter Brötzmann/Die Like a Dog Quartet - 'Little Birds Have Fast Harts No. 1' (FMP)

This might speak more to my current state of free jazz enjoyment in 2010 but my favourite aspect of this Die Like A Dog marathon (67 minutes!) is the presence of one Toshinori Kondo, a trumpeter who quite frequently employs digital effects on his sound. What this does is provide a balance to the meat n' fire blowing of Brötzmann and the great, yet earthy rhythm section of William Parker and Hamid Drake. The first track is 43 minutes long and it started with Brötzmann exuberantly and/or aggressively bleating away before the band bursts in. Over the course of the whole movement it's hard to really focus as a casual listener, but I guess you aren't supposed to listen to this stuff casually. Kondo's extended vamps are certainly what stands out, being saturated in delay and flange, yet still fleeting and light. It's not like the affected trumpet sounds of Spaceheads, but used more as an accent. Sometimes he flares up and the processing distorts a bit and it has the feeling of sunlight on a freshly Windexed pane, with a minute glimpse of a rainbow refraction. Now, this band is a tribute to Albert Ayler, certainly not the first but there's nothing wrong with that. Ayler's influence on Brötzmann is profound, in terms of wide vibrato and emotive soul-baring thrusting. Kondo works as the Don Ayler, I guess. There aren't any identifiable Albert licks here, but 'Part 2' begins with the sort of melodic wandering that you'd hear in Ayler's Michael Sampson band era, though it quickly erupts into a ball of free not unlike what track 1 sounded like. This is an incredibly long time to spend in a fairly similar musical mode. The band plays, everyone is free, and at points there are solos. It's free jazz as it was in 1997, which is to say an awesome thing to behold and not bad to listen to either. Hamid Drake is an amazing master of rhythm but almost an odd choice for an Ayler-inspired band, as his drumming is much more centered than Sunny Murray (who I would think of as the 'definitive' Albert Ayler drummer, if there is such a thing). He's played with Parker for so long that they have a really natural interaction, and Parker's wild thudding provides a thundering belly over which Drake can dance. When I saw Die Like a Dog live, which I'm guessing was a few years after this, Kondo was gone and Roy Campbell was in his place. I was disappointed on finding this out, though Campbell proved to be a much more emotional player, and his passion was an adequate substitute for Kondo's trickery. The furious nature of the band means that and more deep listening elecroacoustic jazz experimentation is gonna get lost in the shuffle. Don't get me wrong, things do slow down at times -- just not for long. The second piece is a bit more subdued than the first, with a very sparse improvised melodic bit that does have some processed noteless blowing from Kondo, and an odd phasing effect - but it's too little too late. Kondo is a fascinating musician, but I can't stop thinking this isn't the right venue for him. Though Albert Ayler would certianly have been curious to explore electronic experimentation had he lived - I am convinced of that, for whatever reason. The primitive and folky aspects of Ayler's music, which emerge for me more and more as the reason, are probably better tributed in the Art Ensemble's 'Lebert Aaly', or from a tribute group not yet formed. I realise I've always filed this under Brötzmann, following the artist name on the spine, rather than the front of the CD which would put this under 'D'. It also says 'Composed by Peter Brötzmann' which sounds like a bit of credit-claiming cause if this isn't majorly group improvised, then I dunno what is.