John Fahey - 'Requia' (Vanguard)

I don't have any Fahey records on vinyl, but would love to find at least America (as it differs from the CD version), as hearing his guitar picking bathed in scratchy, late-60s vinyl atmospherics is surely wonderful. But despite my general dislike of the glass-mastered format, the mastering job on Requia is done right. The first sharp tones of 'Requiem for John Hurt' jump out of the speakers, so clean, and right up against my ears as if they're right over my shoulder. Maybe we're all used to listening to music through laptop speakers now, but this is music that still feels alive, even though it's approaching a half-century mark. Requia is also notable for it's 4-part, musique concrete-laden 'Requiem for Molly', which occupies most of the second half of this album and finds Fahey at his most experimental, at least until Womblife came around in the late 90s. And for those trying to truly understand Fahey, maybe this is the key. The liner notes explain how he started playing guitar in the 1950s but he failed to find the freedom he sought; while not directly relating this sense of constraint to the tape experimentations of 'Requiem for Molly' it's hard not to draw the parallel. As a tape piece, it's all over the place. Sped up loops and voice samples recall Steve Reich's tape work from around the same time; the incorporation of marching bands, funeral music and other earlier American styles, over which Fahey alternates between a mournful chordal progression and more abstracted slide playing and frantic picking, makes a chaotic tapestry that nonetheless retains its appropriate colour throughout. Actually, it makes me feel a bit of the same ur-Americana as Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, released nearly the same time. The other tracks on Requia are solid too; 'When the Catfish is in Bloom' is described as a 'cantica' (along with the closing beauty, 'Fight On Christians, Fight On') and it's alcohol-fueled composition, described in the liner notes, makes me wonder if Richard Brautigan was sitting in the coffee shop where it was composed. The cover of this is also wonderful - Fahey looks a bit like a traveling door-to-door salesman, with his tweed jacket and skinny tie. His position is straight-forward, the way a "folk" record should portray him, as he just looks like a nice young man. There's nothing visible here to indicate the far-out sounds on (imagining this is a vinyl original) side two. But they're not actually that far-out. Compared to the forced surrealism of, say, Zappa's earliest work (which we must admit we'll probably never reach in this project) or even After Bathing at Baxter's, the tape collages of 'Requiem for Molly' are naturalistic and even subtle -- making this a musique concrete work that you could play for your grandmother. Especially when it's made by what looks to be such a nice young man.

The Ex - 'Tumult' (Fist Puppet)

My dalliance with The Ex begins in 1983, with this first step away from the straight Crassisms of Disturbing Domestic Peace and towards the discordant, improv-based experimentalism that would occupy their next 30 years of existence. It begins with 'Bouquet of Barbed Wire', with long guitar drones and slow, throbbing drumming over which G.W. Sok intones his invective; here, as on much of the record, it's an observation about fear in society. He sounds almost bored as he chants, but he's just getting revved up, and over the next 50 or so minutes, the Ex pluck, plod and pound away at the shell of capitalism. Boredom might be a theme of the record, despite being called Tumult -- 'Happy Thoughts' is drenched in ennui, with hints of drum programming (!) following Sok's distant 'Wait for the big bang' repetition; is this depression following oppression? Martial law is invoked on the next track, 'The Well-Known Soldier', but I've always found the Ex's political strides slightly compromised by the fact that they come from Holland. As oppressive as they may find all governments to be, they're coming from one of the most progressive places in the world, where punk rock bands can be supported by the state and squats are everywhere. That's not to say I'm calling bullshit on The Ex, but that they are a often a testament to the truth that things can always be better. Throughout Tumult, the band is happy to fall back into fast 'n furious punk at times, such as 'Red Muzak', and any sort of melodic, anthemic qualities are avoided in favour of the shouted polemic and monotonous rhythm. Their interest in Ethiopian jazz and their dalliances with Han Bennink are a long way away, but will come with time. The cover art boasts a red warrior, faceless as part of the proletariat, bending the bars of a prison, but I think the red and black, the pure leftie outlook, is already about to evolve. Some gems litter Tumult, but the Ex are never a band great at self-editing, and 53 minutes is pretty long (especially knowing I have a few more Ex records ahead). This album came just before a run of brilliant records, from Blueprints for a Blackout through Aural Guerilla and then the genius work with Tom Cora, so it feels like a penultimate glimpse of an open sky, just over the horizon. Mixing metaphors, yes, but Sok's as guilty of this as I am (just check out 'Hunt the Hunters').