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.

Nick Drake - 'Fruit Tree' (Hannibal)

What can we say about Nick Drake now? Or rather, what does Nick Drake 'mean'? I'm not above asking banal questions like this - what does an aspect of culture (popular or otherwise) mean? I'm not pretending to be Chuck Klostermann here, but when it comes to writing about music that everyone already knows, I feel more interested in the larger cultural context rather than simply describing the music and adding to the plethora of writings already out there. There's no answer to this question, of course; Nick Drake probably symbolises lots of different things to lots of different people. He didn't mean much in his day, which is part of the whole thing. In many ways, Drake is the archetype of the 'misunderstood genius' who only finds success posthumously. There's plenty of those now, and in the folk genre specifically, the last decade has been cluttered with them. Where Drake ranks among this group depends on one's personal taste, of course. It's hard to reconcile my interest in Nick Drake when I was 17 (who was one of the first 'folk' artists I investigated, I think after hearing Pink Moon somewhere) with where the whole genre rests with me now. And ironically, I couldn't really tolerate the slicked-out Joe Boyd production of Bryter Layter back then while now it's the only one I ever pull out and listen to anymore. But Drake's value, meaning, whatever is inseparable from his personal darkness; no one can get anything out of this music without an appreciation of melancholy. Whether he committed suicide or not, he infused something into all of these songs. When the fingerpicking wasn't special, there's a genuine trepidation in his voice ('River Man' is a good example of this). And as saccharine as it may feel now after a decade of Volkswagen commercials, there's still something that brings me to my knees in the pure beauty of some of these cuts. Yes, not everything needs to have a slicing psychedelic guitar solo or surrealist musique concrete collage in the middle to tick my boxes. I think Drake's music, for many people, has taken on something mythical that isn't really there. Five Leaves Left isn't a million miles away from other British neo-folk albums of its time - maybe there's stronger songwriting and a more mellow vibe than Dando Shaft or The Trees - but the formula isn't anything innovative (and some of the musicians, like Pentangle's Danny Thompson, came from that scene). Bryter Layter takes things up a notch, attempting to be more commercial perhaps but wisely involving Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks and John Cale. It's here that the songwriting peaks, with both 'Hazey Jane' songs as close to perfect as I've ever heard. Somehow it manages to achieve stunning melodic beauty without a trace of the saccharine -- not many could get away with 'Fly', but  it's total magic to me. And then Pink Moon. The little book included with this box set is actually a bit hard to read because it's written so badly, but there's numerous mentions about how sad and difficult Pink Moon is. And I'm not denying that, but somehow I've never quite put it up there in my all-time depression pantheon. Maybe again it's the fucking Volkswagen commercials, or maybe it's cause this has become such a standard barometer for the 'stark downer folk' genre that I've stopped even thinking about it. Which brings me back to having to write about all three of these albums (I have pretty much nothing to say about the odds-and-ends collection, which didn't even collect everything cause those Tamworth-on-Arden sessions surfaced later, and Nick Drake doesn't really work in Incesticide mode, though 'Black Eyed Dog' is awesome) which in some ways just hit my ears and fall right off without sinking in. Maybe Drake is an artist who I like and appreciate but whose music never really felt like it spoke to me -- he's for everyone else, like the Beatles or AC/DC, and that's cool but I'm not going to feel a strong personal connection. But does anyone feel a connection to him? Sure, there's some moving songs here, but I can't say they've ever been more than illustrative of someone else's condition for me. This is music I appreciate and maybe even love, but when I'm brought to tears it's at the construction of it - not because it speaks for me. Maybe this is just my problem, but if others could have connected with Drake maybe he would have been happier. See, there's the tortured genius thing again - it's so essential to his identity as an artist, that I don't know if it's because we've grafted it onto him or because his music grafted it onto us. Either way, he actually left a perfect amount of material (especially compared to some of the other guys of that time) - there's just enough Nick Drake, not too little, not too much. If it were possible to build the legacy on only the music, I think he'd be regarded on the same level as Bert Jansch - which is a pretty high regard.

The Coctails (Carrot Top)

This is the final CD by the Coctails, the cover photo emulating their previous album Peel, only with a feeling of rot and decay here. This is an album that I hold close to my heart - an idiosyncratic, personal favourite that becomes more obscure with each passing year, but that I still feel a strong rapport with. Because I don't own anything else by this band, this is taken a bit out of context. The Coctails were a Chicago band in the early 90s who merged indie rock with eclectic instrumentation and jazz/lounge influence; their earlier LPs, such as Long Sound, were bouncy and owed a debt to Dave Brubeck and stuff like that. Peel took things into a somewhat more guitar-based territory, and then this masterpiece ends up almost totally eschewing the quirks of their early work (with the closest reference being 'Cadali', a jaunty tune that is lovely, but out of place here). The Coctails is a dour, depressed record that's about half-instrumental, half-vocal. There are bright spots - 'Circles' is a major-key instrumental with vibraphones and a really perfect, brief use of casio beats - but even this has a somber tone. The vocal tracks are set by the opening cut, 'When I Come Around' (released around the same time as the Green Day hit of the same name); your typical white-guy indierock vocalist, emoting despite not actually having a great singing voice. This is heard more clearly on 'So Low', where the singer (either Archer Prewitt, John Upturch or Barry Phipps; not really sure) bellows a dramatic dirge. I can't speak highly enough of how wonderful this record is, but I have been listening to it for almost 15 years. The credits reveal the source recordings to come from various points throughout the 90s - 'When I Come Around' and 'Never Knew' were actually recorded with Stuart Moxham back in 1993 (this album was released in '96). So rather than being a cohesive statement of melancholy, this was a collection of what didn't fit on the other records; whatever the motive, it ends up being the most rewarding work of their career (and I think it outclasses anything Prewitt did subsequently in the Sea and Cake or solo). This is guitar-based indie rock, with carefully chosen notes that ring out delicately like a Bedhead record. And like Bedhead's last album, there's one fuzzy stomper near the end of the record that would be out of place except it fits so perfectly - the grunge anthem 'Cast Stones', a snarled rant that feels more frustrated than angry. The Coctails is filled with moments of utter beauty, such as the delicate 'Starling' and the epic 'City Sun'; it closes with a Terry Riley moment, 'Last Organ'. It's a thick, elliptical organ drone, clearly intended as an elegy for the band who I think had broken up by the time this was released. At the time, I'm sure this album complemented the livelier tunes on their other records - completing the picture, and fleshing out the band into a more fully expressive unit. But since it's been at least a decade or more since I've heard even Peel, I'm left remembering the Coctails by this, their Sister Lovers.