Flop - 'World of Today' (Frontier)

And here the Flop story ends, and it couldn't happen in a more beautiful and fiercely contemplative manner. Actually, if we're talking pure aesthetics of sound, World of Today only slightly pulls back the big, loud hard rock sound of Whenever You're Ready; the grandiose, stadium rock riffage is still here, recorded like a brisk autumn wind, and on this November morning I couldn't think of a more suitable record to listen to while watching the grey sky slowly brighten. World of Today was released after the band broke up, back on the Frontier label, and is a rare album that I prefer to have on CD than vinyl, since it was squeezed onto a white 10" that is mastered terribly. Maybe someday it will get repressed with the extra 2"s that it deserves, but I'm going to have a slow campaign of winning over fans to Team Flop until then, to build the potential market. Oh, capitalism - if there was justice in the world, then every man, woman and child on earth would receive a 12" 180g vinyl pressing of World of Today in their postboxes tomorrow, and together we could start to understand the frustrations and resentments of mankind, collectively. Because this is an album that is very much about the torment of the individual, struggling to acclimate through schooling ('North Mason Middle School'), child-parent relationships ('Eggs and Ash'), post-adolescence ('Of Today'), childbearing ('April Ate Our World'), labour (the brilliantly existential closing cut, 'Two Martians Working', as perfect a coda as could be) and escapism ('Waste of Space'). If this sounds like a bumpy journey, well it's true that World of Today is less accessible than And the Fall of the Mopsqueezer. The only single was the opening cut, 'Act 1, Scene 1' which is a dark, existential rumination on the corporeality of being, and sets the tone for what is to come. There's unmistakeable darkness throughout this record, and you can hear it in Willoughby's voice - it's hitting a slightly higher register, and there's none of the exuberance heard before on songs such as 'The Great Valediction'. That's not to say he underperforms here - in fact, there's still an enthusiasm and joy for music, and exhibit A of that would be the cover of 'Yellow Rainbow' by the Move. This is a remarkable rendering of an already remarkable song, and the 60s acid imagery of the original takes on a malevolent tone with mid 90s guitar production behind it,  and in the context of the rest of this album. Yet throughout, the essential fairytale nature of the song is never lost as Willoughby sings with almost reckless abandon. If I'm making this out to be a dour, miserable trip, then I'm doing a bad job of conveying the pure joy (no pun intended) of World of Today, at least as a listener. The catchy hooks and musicianship are more integrated than ever before, and you get delicate guitar jangle ('Eggs and Ash' is a beauty to listen to with Kurt Bloch's production) and shifting time signatures ('Of Today'), as well as some of the most earworm-forming (albeit dark) lyrics imaginable. Imagine a fifteen year old version of me singing 'You'll get more disillusioned with age ... you wait!' alone in my bedroom. (In case you're wondering, he was right, I did. We all do, which is one of the lessons of World of Today). This record represents the peak of Willoughby's songwriting in Flop, and some of the most personal moments that I've discerned from his work.  Hell, it represents the peak of songwriting in general, from just about anyone. It's hard to pick a single highlight but maybe it's the penultimate track, 'Miniaturize', which begins with a masterfully epic jangly buildup before it's autobiographical raison d'être is delivered with such mastery that I wish stadiums and arenas were filled with thousands singing along: 'Solemn as a child / in stoic reticence'. The melodic high point may be the back-to-back punch of 'Around' and 'We've All Seen Better Days', the latter being one of the moments of relief and empathy that comes here. I  can only wonder about the residue of failed relationships here, as well as a general questioning of one's purpose in life. That this came out of the Sony-catalysed bad juju makes sense, and if it's a band falling apart then it's channeled through one man questioning everything. I meant to post this a few days ago but once I started listening to it I kept listening to it over and over, so I've listened to this about ten times in the past week and just want more, and I've been listening to it consistently since 1995. I've never met another Flop fan in person, and only a few people who remember them at all; certainly no one whose life was so affected by this record as a teenager. I realise that there's a lot of great records that had I invested my formative years into them might have impacted me as much as this one, but I'm glad I ended up with this one being so important.

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 - 'Pokkeherrie' (Ex)

Pokkeherrie is Dutch for "so much noise", at least according to Google Translate, and it's a nice to hear their native tongue, even if G.W. Sok "raps" in English throughout this and other Ex records. Situated chronologically slightly after Tumult, this isn't miles apart from that record in sound, if anything being a bit more straightforward than it's predecessor. There's some longer songs, some successful ('1,000,000 Ashtrays') and some less so ('Soviet Threat', which gets bogged down in its own wordiness and quotes Eliot's world-ending whimper, which I'm getting sick of hearing about). If mid-80s Ex has the tendency to turn into endless tom-tom pounding over distorted mush, here guitarist Terrie palm starts to develop his unique technique that works so well later in the 90s in both improv jazz and 'world' music contexts. It's a bit more palm-muting, more errant notes, and a willingness to break away from the rather staccato rhythm section of Katrin and Luc. This is not a quiet record in the slightest, living up to its title, as even when a track starts out in a creaky, exploratory mood ('Hit the Headlines', 'Rumours of Music') it falls into that Ex sound quickly. The artwork is classic black and white crust with lyrics written out so you can follow along, with some bizarre, Ettamogah Pub style cartoons on the back. Everything is done according to plan here, and it's a solid record, but it feels a bit superfluous after just listening to Tumult and knowing what was soon around the Cor(a)ner. 

Big Star - 'Third/Sister Lovers' (Rykodisc)

I just finished writing a post on our sister blog about how Radio City is Big Star's finest hour, but I'm about to babble so much about my love for Third that you'll think I was lying then. I mean, some would go as far as to call this "the best album of all-time", but those people probably talk to ghosts. I knew this guy in college who felt that way. He considered this his all-time favorite record and to be honest, he's the one who turned me onto it after an initial listen (a few years earlier) failed to move me. "So many artists try to make these really depressing records," he told me, talking about Joy Division I think, "but Alex Chilton was so genuinely miserable you can really hear it in every song." You know how sometimes you hear a record again but it sounds different because of how it's framed? Well, his saying those words definitely made me hear things differently -- for example, the guitar whizzles in "Kizza Me" sound to me now, like, I dunno, pain. But is this actually a Big Star record, or the weird transitional period between Big Star and solo Alex Chilton? (Much like Instinct by the Moles is really a Richard Davies solo album). Or has Big Star just shed another member, replacing Andy Hummel with a bunch of session dudes, Steve Cropper, and some strings but retaining their essential "band"-ness? This CD issue claims to restore the 'proper' sequencing but that's never been agreed on anyway. It opens with 'Kizza Me' which is one of the filler tunes - a perfectly adequate power rocker that would be fine on #1 Record, but apart from the above mentioned guitarwhizzles feels a bit limp. I think it's just because I want 'Thank You Friends' to be the opening cut. Has anyone in rock music before ever realised that sarcasm can be suffering? The liner notes would indicate that Chilton's major problem in the mid-70s was his own failure to become a rockstar, though methinks things are probably a bit more complicated. Either way, 'Thank you Friends' is a wonderful kiss-off, masquerading it's bile behind a spry chord progression. It goes right into 'Big Black Car' which just sounds like a man exhausted, on the verge of giving up. I think the big celebrated cuts (at least by This Mortal Coil), 'Holocaust' and 'Kangaroo', have always confused me a bit. Are they the masterpieces, or the exceptions to true misery? Is 'Holocaust' just a tad on the wrong side of overwrought? 'Kangaroo's dramatics don't bother me quite as much, maybe because the 12-string guitar is so beautiful, but 'Holocaust's piano just feels a bit too overboard. The real holocaust is between the doors of the Big Black Car. Except, sometimes 'Holocaust' sounds amazing to me, and moves me almost to tears -- music is subjective and weird like that, dontchaknow! But back to the first half - I'm not fussed about the 'Femme Fatale' cover, and 'O, Dana' doesn't do a lot either. But Jesus Christ, 'Jesus Christ'! Religion can be suffering too. So yeah, past the 'Kangaroo' hump we get 'Stroke it Noel' which is a song that I love almost beyond description. I love the jaunty strings but only because they are so undercut by the way Alex sings 'Do you want to dance....' with about as little enthusiasm as possible. And then Jody Stephens 'For You' which is utterly beautiful and the perfect balance needed at this point. I don't know what needs to be said about the closing trilogy that hasn't been already said or covered by others. 'Nighttime' makes me think of other songs; the one by (fellow purveyor of some genuine depression) Smog, where he sings 'I walk the city streets at night / and I'm scared shitless' and also J-Church's completely different song of the same time that is everybit as sentimental and bittersweet. We'll hear at least two covers of 'Blue Moon' and one of 'Take Care' before we finish the Cinderblock tour, so I'll just quote this brilliant line - "This sounds a bit like good-bye / And in a way it is, I guess" -- and then we'll start to wrap this up. But wait, there's bonus tracks! If you get past 'Nature Boy' and a rather rote Kinks cover, w get to 'Dream Lover' and 'Downs', which are real gems. I've started to think of Radio City - Third - Like Flies on Sherbert as a trilogy of sorts, and you can certainly here the progression: joyous, slightly loose rock and roll --> bent-out-of-shape Tonight's the Night Style bashing about --> utter ramshackle insanity. 'Dream Lover' is halfway into Sherbert, and 'Downs' pretty much all the way there. But because that's in the C's, we're gonna have to wait awhile to get there.