Flying Saucer Attack - 'Further' (Drag City)

Right about now feels like the time that Dave Pearce's music is due for a comeback, not that he ever went away, or became unfashionable. He just became less prolific, and seems a million miles away from any sort of music scene politics these days, still making music how he wants and releasing it now and then (the last being the Instrumentals 2015 record which I have not heard yet). I remember reading about Flying Saucer Attack in zines and other pre-Internet media in the early 90s; reading one particular publication, the name of which I can't remember, it seemed (to me) that FSA were aggressive sci-fi space-rock, as they were reviewed alongside more punk-orientated material. My teenage mind couldn't handle that type of diversity yet, because when I finally got around to hearing them (these were the days where one had to struggle to actually hear the things one read about, especially on a high schoolers budget) I was disappointed; it sounded too abstract, too empty to me. Of course that changed later on, once I started to investigate minimalism and drone, and to make my own music which wasn't a million miles away form this sound. Further is probably now the record of theirs I appreciate the most, as it feels like the best balance between all of FSA's various tendencies (folk song vs drone piece, harmony vs dissonance, lo-fi vs hi-fi). Owning it on CD gives it a glassy shimmer, and on a track like 'For Silence', which moves between all of these tendencies, I can only imagine how it must sound coming from vinyl's dynamic range. Acoustic guitars are dominant, and there's quite a lot of arpeggiated picking, making this more obviously folk-based than I was ready for as a teenager. Listening now, I can really hear the saturation in British traditional music, even if 'To The Shore' sounds more like Labradford than Shirley Collins. This reinvention of British folk form was something else totally lost on me not just as a youngster, but later when I discovered and really fell in love with FSA; it's only now that I really feel this is truly the next step in a lineage. Rachel from (the wonderful) Movietone was still a core part of the band here and her voice on 'Still Point' creates a spooky ambience that most directly recalls the strong tonality of the British female voice; that the song is drenched in delay and reverb doesn't inhibit this comparison, but if anything amplifies it. This is music that can be taken in peripherally, as a semi-ambient bouquet of suggestions, or full-on direct into the centre of one's skull. 'In the Light of Time' and 'She is the Daylight' function perhaps as the two anchors of this record, both built around Pearce's earnest voice, over delayed arpeggios, the mildest percussive elements (just tapping the guitar body, I think) and then the bright light tones that drift overtop, like the album artwork rendered into sound. This music has aged very, very well, and the close connection I feel to my physical body when listening to it separates it from that which is based in trends or the cultural context of the time. It's easy to lose oneself in this record, and somehow it feels short even though it's 'proper album length'. 

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.

Cerberus Shoal - 'Bastion of Itchy Preeves' (North East Indie)

With excesses in check, this is the Cerberus Shoal record I was waiting for, quite literally for years. The live band that I saw in 2000 or 2001 was a really mystical, strange creation that somehow touched on things antiquated and historic, yet was obviously innovative and forward thinking. And while this was released after Chaiming, they started recording it in 2001 and just took ages to finish it. Bastion of Itchy Preeves is another 70+ minute disc, but this time it's split over ten songs. There's a strong reliance on xylophones or steel drums, making tracks like 'Bogart the Change' resemble a mutant Talking Heads. Flutes and recorders are so integrated into their sound at this point that it's barely noticeable - just part of that whole Cerberus Shoal thing, y'know? And vocally, there's some beautiful, haunting harmonies - the chant of 'Baby Gal' with it's sharply over-enunciated inbreaths is pure Edward Gorey. The songs tend to open up more, and they aren't afraid to build up thick drones and occasionally erupt, but there's less of a need to have thunderous post-rock structures behind everything. And the humour is far more restrained which can be a good or a bad thing depending on your personal take. 'Grandsire' opens things up with a thick rolling blanket of pure tonal bliss, a strong post-Homb step towards melodic convergence. There's sample voices, processed through damaged electronics, but only as icing on the cake - the core of all of these songs is the notes, rhythms and voices generated by very human hands. I think my enjoyment of Itchy Preeves is somehow set by the artwork, a monochromatic modification of a TV schedule -- it conveys something antediluvian, but clearly contemporary - a true hodgepodge of sensory juxtaposition which is probably the best way to describe Cerberus Shoal. But I go into this disc with a certain mentality that's much more austere than the technicolour Chaiming. I mean, there's still elements of Chaiming's goofy, art-rock cocktail here. It's most notable on 'Tekel Upharsin', I think. That track builds up around around a repetitive, circular bassline, with notes slipping around on their intonation in a way that somehow reminds me of uber-primitive synth work. Over this various ethnic stringed instruments pluck out a melody, along with accordion and violin, and then group singing that's like a mentally insane village party, but without any trace of Wicker Man-style tones. It feels a bit like being stuck in a chicken coop at parts. A lot of Itchy Preeves falls into neo-prog territory, though the band is far more focused on textural exploration than displaying chops or composing complex song structures. The closing track, 'A Head No Bigger Than a Man's Cloud', takes on a Cocteau-like atmosphere with it's undecipherable, breathy vocals, and a twee music box dances overtop of the things. It's almost distracting from the gentle tide that lies underneath, making this a lovely finale.

Bablicon - 'The cat that was a dog, a flat inside a fog' (Misra)

For their final album (the swansong as the Rock establishment calls it) Bablicon are showing their compositional skills. Gone, mostly, are the haywire improv freakouts and the studio dubbery; we're left with a very organic collection of 16 tracks with lots of different instruments and varying personnel. Gone, mostly, is the excitement too. What's left is a too-long mess that is stretched thin; I could be even harsher and say "boring" and "inconsistent". The first half of this double album is The cat that was a dog but there's very little to thrill. The opening track mirrors Orange Tapered Moon's opening track at least in the sense of there being intelligible singing, though this is a much more mellow moonlight jazz number that is certainly inoffensive but hardly incendiary. The Duke Ellington fixation begins here and stays throughout this half of the CD, which would definitely have worked better as two single albums. 'Travelling' is a very lengthy piece constructed around some lovely piano runs but it adds up to nothing more than Muzak to me. The highlight of this half (and maybe the whole CD) is the lengthy 'Saumur/Paris/Teatowels' which has some tape manipulations and a strange, low-level murmuring that reminds me of Graham Lambkin and the Shadow Ring's recent output. It eventually falls into the jazzrockjam that would most identifiably be the 'Bablicon sound', but I liked the murky part best! The second half, A flat inside a fog, is an improvement, as the quirkier stuff is crammed here. 'Distant Morfonger' just sounds like a track for progheads but has some weird electronic gurgling under melodica, which flows into 'Arcdurwish' which continues the electronics before melting into a circular mess of sampled geese, tapes and spazzy drumming. Things at least get a bit loose here but it's too little, too late. Much of 'Bahamut' is unremarkable and 'AEther' takes the spazzy theramin playing from their first album and sets it against another piano ballad (albeit a bleak one). The compositional side goes into overdrive on 'Aphe hall' and 'Atlas' Cousin' with a full orchestral score; it resembles Varèse's work and is pretty excellent, but it just doesn't belong. Everything and the kitchen sink, huh? The drummer (who's the guy from Neutral Milk Hotel) lays out a "fuzz organ' solo track which is at least a bit of dirt and grit like this record needs, but it just feels like filler. 'Pigeon of Doom' is a title given to songs by bands like Bablicon and not bands like Motorhead; the vaguely Monty Python humour spills into the song itself which has some moaning vocals but is otherwise unremarkable. It all ends with 'An Odd Pear', another excursion into fake jazz-trio 'maturity'. I realise I may sound pretty damn harsh but this record feels especially difficult to enjoy because of its length and because it comes as a huge disappointment against the awesomeness that was their second album. So the stars maybe only aligned once over Chicago, for these three; at least we'll always have that 35 minutes and we can ignore these 65.