THAT OL' DECEMBER SHUFFLE/ 4 THINGS TO SCOPE
MARTIN REV/ TO LIVE/ BUREAU B/ 2003 (REISSUE 2022)
The Martin Rev Bureau B reissue program, which includes this CD, and also the Les Nymphes reissue from around the same time, has been a revelation since I was made aware of it a couple years back. Originally released on File 13 in 2003, the samples and drum machines recall the Suicide album American Supreme released around the same time. It's very harsh and industrial in tone and imbued with an ever present noir-ish menace. Rev's muffled and distorted vocals are dreamy/ nightmarish, depending on your mood. The track Gutter Rock has a strange ooze to it, drifting on a nice melody while you watch a building slowly being devoured by flames. There's a certain distance to this album, on offhand feel that is fun and without the kind of pretentious vibe that mars a lot of electronic/ industrial stuff from this era (and now, to be honest). The wacked out samples, be they guitar or beats, just seem to wander into frame and hover, accented by Marty's rambling voice, Distorted images of house music/ exotica appear and recede, bubbling and weaving. A kaleidoscope of sorts, burning down an endless road. If you haven't given Rev's solo output much attention, reconsider. There's treasure there.
THE RED CRAYOLA/ THE PARABLE OF ARABLE LAND/ CHARLY 2CD/ 1967 (2011 SONIC BOOM REMIX/ MONO/ STEREO/)
A banging cacophony and using the studio-as-instrument approach to dazzling effect, this one just escaped me forever. I think I even had an original LP of this in the late 90's and got rid of it 'cause it was just TOO far gone for me. I picked up this 2CD stereo/mono version here at a record fair a few years back cheap (eh, what the fuck, give it another try eh?). I've always been familiar with Spacemen 3/ Sonic's version of Transparent Radiation as a big S3 head, and for whatever reason, it has now clicked in, BIG TIME. Well, the reason is that I can finally just dig it as it was made, a complete impenetrable and glorious racket of epic proportions, and while melodies/ tunes float up once in awhile (especially WAR SUCKS mantra/raga), this clatter and smear of an album demands to be taken on its own terms. Even for the more "outer" stuff of the same vintage, no one really went this far and said "fuck it, let's go". 12 string guitars sound like stoned aircaft and all is shifting/ sinking/ rising and just plain SIZZLING. It sounds like they set fire to the mixing board at some point and just recorded that. So, yeah, if you want a sozzled head fuck of an album, do it. I put it up with albums like Severed Heads' Since The Accident or John Coltrane's Live At Olatunji as one-off, sounds-like-nothin-else-on-earth sorta jams that BLOW YOUR FUCKIN MIND. That's the point right?
JUNIOR KIMBROUGH AND THE SOUL BLUES BOYS/ SAD DAYS LONELY NIGHTS/ FAT POSSUM/ 1998
To continue on with the theme from above sorta, Junior also is his own thing, You are not going to find much music anywhere in this world that sounds anything like his does. Yes, it's obviously blues based electric music (bass/guitar/drums/vocal) but this is music that takes its time. Unhurried, wide music. Deeply funky moves and unresolved thoughts that drift into the night muttering to it's own selves and whoever else may be listening. It hits like a good conversation that can float along and liven things up. Living the way we do, things are fast and immaterial, inexorably temporary and then gone. This band can, when they were truly on, impart a kind of vastness on whoever's antennae are up and receiving. I can't really say much more, other than to implore you to watch the vid below filmed at Junior's juke joint in Mississippi in 1993. A kind of magic finds a flame, and lights up.
THE EXORZIST III/ GOSPEL JAMMING VOL 1/ XRZXT/ CARDINAL FUZZ/ 2024
Drew St Ivany played guitar in post/ everything group Laddio Bolocko and the equally unclassifiable Psychic Paramount. Here he is joined by Nick Ferrante on drums and Von Finger on bass guitar. The Exorzist III deal in some of the same variables as the above bands. Willfully throwing themselves into some kind of wild fire (an improv of a sort to these ears), shit gets real very quick on opening track Jabber. The arc is UP UP and UP some more, a high wire act involving a rare riff interplay, both AVANT and PURE rawk (and, make no mistake, this is ROCK MUSIC) and concerned, it seems, with making a racket and scattering melodic fragments and swooping debris everywhere. Heady stuff, and it should be noted that this trio is as PSYCHEDELIC as anything going (mind you, that term is overwrought and losing currency by the second). It's really a FORWARD MOTION kinda bag that they seem to be in, highly attuned JAMMZ that can strut and pummel with equal aplomb. Get on it and listen. It's really exciting music that deserves to be heard by MANY people.
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