Albert Ayler - 'Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings' (Impulse!)

The other piece of the puzzle is here - longer, unedited and more orchestrated material from the 1966 band heard on the Lörrach/Paris 1966 LP. This time the recordings come from Albert's side of the big pond, though the Dutch violinist Michael Sampson is still present. Also present on some tracks are Joel Freedman (cello), Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, George Steele and Sunny Murray; the personnel changes across the two long compact discs but the energy and resonance never drops a beat. This is the great celebratory music of the American experience, here allowed to extend to 10, 12, even 16 minute pieces. The Ayler brothers remain front and center - I would even go as far to say that Don has near-equal footing with Albert on these discs - though there's some incredible string work and the drumming is the most full-on and upfront of any Murray or Harris recordings we've heard so far in this blog. The second track of the first disc, 'Truth is Marching In', is one of those bold, masterful cuts that I would rank among the best in Ayler's entire discography (though we still haven't really digested the Holy Ghost box, which is exempt from this blog). Every single superlative you can lay on what makes this music great - the incorporation of folk/spiritual forms, bold melodic gestures, exuberant energy, amazing interactions, a heavy focus on timbre and resonance, a lockstep understanding of drama and tempo - can be heard in the 12:42 of 'Truth is Marching In'. To be fair, all of disc 1 is energetic and explosive, with long tracks that stretch out the melodic motifs and repeat them ad infinitum, but also extend and meditate upon them. Oh yeah, there's also a nice -- pardon me, breathtaking -- ballad at the end of disc 1 with nice Fats Waller-style piano runs ("probably" by Cal Cobbs, Jr. who I think was the dude that played harpsichord on Love Cry?) and Ayler showing just how deep the wavering tone can dip (it's enough to touch your soul). It's called 'Angels'. So disc two starts with 'For John Coltrane' who had died shortly before this improvisation. It's somber, as expected, with the cello and double basses (meaning two of them) somewhat indistinguishable from another but working perfectly with Sampson's classical background. Albert is on alto and the track is quite a bit different from anything else he ever recorded because of this. Now because I've listened to these so many times, the digipak is pretty battered and disc 2 skips quite a bit, rendering 'Spiritual Rebirth' and 'Infinite Spirit' near-unlistenable. But the skips work out for 'Omega is the Alpha' , by which point John Philip Sousa's been thrown into a blender with Robert Johnson, Stephen Foster, and Bessie Smith; what comes out is chopped up even further. Repetition, repetition, repetition - 'Light in Darkness' features every musician playing the same lines (or thereabouts), falling in and out of sync with each other and sketching 100 years of celebration and sadness in the space between the notes. Timbres shift, adjustments are made. The beat goes on and on, the strings and plucked and bowed, and the brass continues to bleat. This music is eternal.

Albert Ayler and Don Cherry - 'Vibrations' (Freedom)

This is one of those questionably packaged CDs that gives equal creedence to Don Cherry though he's not really there the whole time, and the cover art is just Ayler anyway. But in 1964 Cherry was much more established than young upstart Albert so I understand the need to bill things this way. This is the Spiritual Unity trio with Cherry coming in on his cornet or trumpet or whatever it was; so I've always taken this as a live document of the group in 1964, with some hints at the great trumpet/sax interplay to later come with Albert started playing with his brother. We get 'Ghosts' twice, sounding like an increasingly darker part of the yard where these musicians are chassing an errant whiffleball. But 'Holy Spirit', coming at the end of the first half, is a real scorcher. Opening with an atonal convergence of brass birds, it develops into an open yet passionate piece that swerves towards chaos but is continually pulled back into check by it's melodies. Gary Peacock kicks out some deep, thick bowing near the end; the piece grinds to statis after this. The second half has the title track and 'Mothers'; Cherry is fast and wispy but Albert steals the show. This is a live recording so it's hard to know what sort of room they played in, but Ayler sounds like he's playing through a SpaceEcho pedal or something. I guess this is just his magic vibrato occasionally repeating itself to the furthest horizons.

Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist - 'Danse Manatee' (Catsup Plate)

This is the one that blew it open, for me at least. The sound of a New York-cum-Maryland underground circa 2001: psychedelia, contemporary electronic aeffects, and spazzy freakout stuff minus the traditions of West coast composition, free jazz, minimalism, post-punk, etc. Yeah, it's a new breed that's certainly paid dividends in terms of followers, eight years later (not to mention surely some rich rewards monetarily). But here's something different indeed; a songcraft exposed but melted, finding the point at which it's something more than just deconstructing "normal" songs. The compositions themselves are damaged, so these arrangements flow naturally. Listen to 'Meet the Light Child' - or any of the songs here, really. They hadn't embraced the Sung tones yet, cause this is as cold as it gets. And it's also one of the tinniest records I've ever heard. Even when there is some low end it has a metallic shimmer, or some warbling birdcalls layered on top to cut through the thickness. The percussion here, by Mr. Panda Bear, is insanely fluid and free, reminding me at the time of Lightning Bolt (really! cause they were a big deal in 2001) but more open and less aggressive, of course. They never had such flutering cymbal work on any other record and there is an improvised feel to this despite the fleeting harmonies. And what a blast of bright white light this was. Music could be relentlessly experimental and direct at the same time! A pop hook can be an even more wonderful thing if it's the balancing beam between two avant-garde textures. And while this all sounds commonplace now, and this album has been actually kind of forgotten among their more popular works to follow, I can't help but turn back to this with the same wide-eyed wonder during which I first heard it, in a car, in late 2001. I remember the car was fairly loud - an old clunker, can't remember where I was going or who played it for me, but the finer nuances of the higher registers were completely lost to my ears thanks to the sound of wind and road noise. I was still struck by the rhythms, the singing, and the general messy structures that were still structures. When I heard it properly, while stationary, it was like a bucket of sticky glitter that I hadn't heard before was caked over most surfaces. It's easy to say that an artist was more "innocent" on their earlier work, especially if their breakthrough records found a larger audience, but I don't think that's the case here. The vocals are surely less present, so maybe you could argue for a timidity that disappeared later on, but there's nothing innocent about this music. It was made with the firmest of intentions, and lit a flame that later became a spotlight.

Atman - 'Tradition' (Drunken Fish)

"Featuring Anna Nacher", whose vocals are all over this thing, this Atman album buzzes and howls through the dark Polish woods, years before Dead Raven Choir. Where renmant ghosts of Nazi tanks still remain, melting voices from the spiritworld blend with rampant ethnoacoustics. There's a Hendrix cover and a bunch of crazed shoutingYELPINGmuttering, lotsa instruments you don't know the names of, and a general woodland vibe. Sixty-three minutes of it, too! But like future band the Magic Carpathians, that forest atmosphere is taken into a recording studio and all the tricks are in place. There's a funky electric bass, some synths, and a general layer of gloss over everything. This pagan approach to psychedelic music, with the rock all sucked out, surely influenced all those bands in Finland that came along later. Except that while those bands used lo-fi hiss to make their sound more otherwordly, distant, etc., Atman seem cool with the idea that music can actually be well-recorded; thus if you are so inclined (and have nice high-quality speakers or headphones and stereo audio equipment) you can really lose yourself in the joy of recorded instruments. The pure, inherent psychedelia of a reverberating string is on display here, though layered and with madcap vocals threatening to distract. The whole "other" aspect of the Polish language gives Tradition an air of exoticism to this native-English speaker, though maybe they're just singing about girls, fast food and cars. Ten years ago, when I got this CD, it was like discovering a new world of insane atmospheres, and from my ancestral homeland as well! But listening now, it feels less impressive; maybe because I've got another decade of hearing similar sounds, some predating Tradition by 20 years or more. But maybe I've just moved further into my own; the pagan thing carries nothing exotic anymore, I've been to Poland now, and my tastes have moved away from crazy folk-based psych. And maybe I demand something a bit more concise now; 63 minutes is a lot of Atman, where 40 might have sufficed. But not to be hard on this - as I haven't listened to this for a few years it was a pretty nice flashback.

Ashtray Navigations - 'Four More Raga Moods' (Ikuisuus)

Four tracks, four raga moods? Well a deliciously ornate foldout CD-digipak is a nice start. The opening track, 'History of Psychedelia', begins with a weird cut-up tape moment before Ben Reynolds starts to play the acoustic guitar in a Takoma-esque flowery style. There's some variable speedwarble and a few dips and then it creaks to a halt. I'm not sure if this covers the whole history of psychedelia in such a short time, but I guess it's a start. And then onto 'Hey Sunflower Motherfucker': Phil Todd solo, and it's a 10 minute "typical" Ashtray track, though that's not to denigrate it - it's a deep, dense buildup of drone and feedback with some drumming as well. As a venue for Phil to show what he can do on his own, he excels here. 'The Pete Nolan Effect' is Pete and Phil and Mel Delaney and Reynolds, and it opens with ten minutes of melodies buried under a ridiculous amount of tape hiss - before the proper "jam" comes in, with a flange-heavy distant recording technique. Said jam starts slowly - very slowly - and over the course of the next twenty minutes it moves little. Pete Nolan is on guitar so it doesn't come in with any thunderous rocking; in fact, it's difficult to determine what, if anything, is "the Pete Nolan effect". The final track is another twenty minutes of deep dense droning, this time featuring Chris Hladowski, Alex Neilson and Matt Cairns, from the Glasgow band Scatter. This weirdo hybrid is spooky and foreign-sounding due to the presence of dijiridoo and "magic bouzouki", but somehow true to the vibe of the record. Everything is still staticy and crackly, and it's actually quite a gem from the discographies of all of these gentlemen, yet one that is probably forgotten by being buried at the end of a 70+ minute Astray Navigations CD that no one will ever listen to the end of. Despite the deluxe gatefold CD packaging and the crisp CD sound, Phil Todd made sure to keep enough noise and static on here to show his roots. And despite having four different lineups on four different tracks, it feels coherent -- like a proper "album" done all at once, even though it's nothing but. But it wouldn't quite be Ashtray Navigations if the cellotape and band-aids didn't show on the outside.

Ashtray Navigations - 'The Love that Whirrs' (Last Visible Dog)

This trio lineup of Phil Todd, Alex Neilson, and Ben Reynolds stuffs this disc with guitar tones, decaying note ambience and stale cigarette-infused air. Despite the minidisc-style recording this feels quite slick - after all it's a "proper" CD and not the usual edition of 20 -- and though you can hear the general room sounds, it sounds great. Maybe this shows what some proper mastering can do for you. I had a discussion a few years back with someone, back when this whole underground noise/drone CD-r/cassette scene was experiencing a flareup, and they said that they still viewed full-length LPs and "proper" CDs as the major statements/albums -- and the tapes/CDrs as "singles". I've seen it that way ever since and I think a lot of artists affiliated with that scene do too, even if they may not articulate it as such. The Love that Whirrs is truly an album then, as it boasts a few 'big' tracks. 'Psychedelic Psamosa' is the centerpiece, beginning with Reynolds' acoustic fingerpicking while Phil and Alex build up a thick blanket of scrapes and drones around it. I love how spacious the sound is, yet you can tell it was certainly recorded in a tiny room or dingy Leeds basement - it's a false expansiveness, a cavernous facade on council housing. The acoustic guitar (also present on the final track) creates some distinct notes to poke out of the air, but it's quickly consumed by the all-encompassing sound blanket. The Vibracathedral Orchestra comparison is easy to make, particularly as they just live down the street and both groups indulge in thick minimalist psychedelia with acoustic instruments, but Ashtray introduce a great deal more tension into their interactions. Plus it's a smaller group to begin with, and Ashtray aren't afraid to branch out into harsh noise, musique concrete or straighter-folk forms - all of which are present, in glimpses, on this record. This came out reasonably close to Four More Raga Moods yet it's this one I tend to pull out most frequently, as it feels generally more cohesive.

Ashtray Navigations - 'ssssnares' (Memoirs of an Aesthete)

This 3" CDr was issued by Phil Todd in 2002, documenting 18 more minutes of Ashtray Navigations, though I have to say that listening to this now when most of my Ashtray collection consists of the sludgebucket years of 2004-2007, I'm quite taken by it. This is six tracks, some only seconds long but enough to catch you off-guard with their weird dissonances and hiss; and others are longer 'workouts' (an overused word, for sure, but one that I always think is applicable to the marathon-like Ashtray Navigations pieces). 'Discoversion of America' isn't really disco, at least not like fellow Leeds artist Astral Social Club, but does have a ringing tonal lead, probably guitar or cheap synth, that makes it into an anthem of sorts. 'Point thine ears' is the longest piece, with C. Jarvis' "rat guitar/electronics" - dense garbageman psychedelics that give a strong hint to the Ben Reynolds/Mel Delaney years that will follow. There's parts on the early tracks, particularly 'Irons' and 'Smoke & Mirrors Fucking Shit' that recalls Todd's earlier band, Inca Eyeball - ramshackle acoustic messes that are clean yet ragged. Definitely this is one of my favorites among the zillions of Ashtray CDs I own - well, it's more like 12 but most of them won't see the light of Elbow Cinderblock Glass Mastered Constructor Bags since none have spines. This, packaged in a sturdy plastic case with a nice thick spine, has always gotten to sit at the "big" dinner table with the other spined jewelcases, so there you are.