Cheap Seats 3: A Day in the Studio

The blog is back, and why is that?!  Last week I reached a surreal milestone in the recording of my next album--I've pretty much finished tracking overdubs; just one more drum session and we're on to mixing, mastering and release!  This means the blogging time I had to sacrifice to recording-related work is all freed-up and you can expect resumption of a steady stream of reviews and Cheap Seats content!

To keep the Cheap Seats ball rolling, I've decided that the next logical step is to delve a bit deeper into the technical details of the recording process itself.  Based on conversations I've had with friends and family, most people are pretty unfamiliar with the process by which music is recorded in a professional studio.  This blog's readership includes quite a number of music enthusiasts who probably have an above-average understanding of the recording process and terminology--at the risk of insulting your intelligence, please permit me to define some of the basics as I describe a recent day in the studio.

.......................................

April 25, 2012: It's day three of a five-day session week.  The recording is in its twilight phase--we're starting the 20th day of what will probably be 26 total studio days to track the whole album.  At this point, almost all of the songs are pretty fleshed-out and Justin and I are adding some of the final parts to the songs at Cloud City Sound.  Things are starting to get a little bit surreal, as the project has been going for almost six months and we're finally getting to the point where we're doing "the last" of things--yesterday we recorded the last of the woodwind parts (good riddance, as far as I'm concerned--my wind chops plateaued in 1999) and today's going to be most of the final guitar parts.  What we're doing is called "overdubbing," a process where new parts are added to a pre-existing recording.  Most recording sessions start with what's called "basic tracking," where several members of the ensemble record a number of instruments simultaneously; usually it's at least the rhythm section with at least the bass, drums, guitar, keys etc. laying down a recording of the song's core parts, after which the vocals, extra guitar parts, horns, etc. are overdubbed.  Of course, every recording and group is different--for example, a lot of jazz groups are doing everything live, so there won't really be any overdubs, whereas a lot of rock groups may have four members playing on a song with three or four guitar parts, so it won't be physically possible the play all of the parts live, and vocals are often overdubbed because of the technical issues of getting a hi-fi recording of a voice while lots of other noise is happening.  In the case of this project, where I play almost all of the instruments, there wasn't really such a thing as basic tracking--for each song there was a day when I recorded the first part (usually either an electric or acoustic guitar) to a "click track" (a recording of a metronome) which will be used as a guide throughout the rest of the recording project and removed in the final recording--everything else from there on out is an overdub!

It's been a fun week so far--we've worked on a lot of songs, recorded a lot of different instruments (including the studio's awesome vintage Hammond B3 organ) and made some serious progress.  Monday was a fun day because my jazz pianist friend Peter tracked some slick piano on three of the songs, making him the second musician besides myself to contribute to the album (more on the special guests later!).  Being a one-man recording project has its positives and negatives.  On the one hand, I've usually got extremely specific ideas and goals I want to get across and playing every part gives me the maximum amount of control and cuts down on the sometimes difficult process of communicating desires and instructions to other musicians.  On the other hand, it can be extremely time-consuming to compose, arrange and rehearse (if I even get around to that phase) parts for numerous instruments--some of which I am barely familiar with--and in spite of my confidence in my own ideas, I'm always humbled by the fresh air that a skilled collaborator can breathe into arrangements that are in danger of becoming claustrophobic; it's thrilling to see someone else's ideas transform a piece of music I thought I'd considered from all angles into something more. 

Emboldened by my recent woodwind accomplishment, I've decided that today's the day to finish most of the final electric guitar overdubs.  Justin's job title is audio engineer, which means he performs a number of different duties crucial to the recording process.  Firstly, there's the physical engineering of the sound--selecting the microphones and preamps best suited to whatever instrument we're recording, and setting the volume and compression levels to get the best possible sound for the part.  Secondly, there's the actual recording of the instrument--Justin uses his thorough knowledge and years of experience with industry-standard ProTools recording software to set up tracks for each instrument, hits "record" over...and over...and over...and applies editing wizardry where needed to compensate from the fact that this isn't actually a live recording and to make things as smooth and seamless as possible.  Later, these skills will reach their culmination when we mix and master the raw tracks we've been recording.  Simply having a professional engineer means that this project is instantly worlds more high-quality than In Not-Even-Anything Land, and Justin's particular expertise and sympathetic attitude to the material has really taken things to the next level. 

When it comes to recording guitar for this album, we've used countless combinations of mics, guitars and amplifiers to give each part a distinctive character and ensure that this will be a kick-ass guitar album with awesome tone that matches the often ear-challenging guitar parts.  We start our 10-hour day two hours later than usual at 12 pm, loading three amps into the isolation booth (the tiny room next to Justin's office where I've been recording vocals, horns and various acoustic instruments).  From there, we'll send out cables and I'll sit right next to Justin while I play and he records.  The guitar parts for this album can be roughly divided into three categories--composed rhythm parts, composed lead parts and more improvisational textural parts.  Today, we're recording some of both of the latter two categories.  While it's anathema to what a lot of musicians and music fans think the recording process "should be," the creation of this album has been an unusual and painstaking one.  The process starts at home, where I compose the parts in demo form using Apple's free recording software, GarageBand.  The sound quality is horrible and the performances are often pretty lackluster, but the main function is to figure out what the instruments are playing and give me a chance to hear what things sound like together, as I work primarily by ear.  At this time, if I'm "working smart," I'll also be transcribing the part I'm composing either with standard music notation onto a five-bar staff, or onto a guitar tablature sheet for later reference in the studio (one of the earliest lessons I learned is that the inconvenience of transcribing a part as I'm writing it pales in comparison with having to go back and figure out what I played two weeks ago).  Ideally, I'd then practice the parts at home in advance of the session to ensure smooth reproduction of the ideas for the final recording.  In reality, though, my time is limited--I work to pay for the privilege of recording this music, and during the last six months my free time at home has been more often spent writing, arranging and composing the next parts for whatever songs are coming down the pipe, and my rehearsal discipline has suffered accordingly. 

When it comes to recording the parts in the studio, I sit with my notes in front of me and a copy of the demo queued up on my iPod for immediate reference.  Here's where things start to become anathema to some people's expectations.  Of the aforementioned three guitar part categories, the first two are meticulous in their specificity and can be extremely time-consuming.  While some believe that guitar parts should be recorded all in one pass or compiled from several complete takes, that's simply not how we've recorded the guitar for this album.  ProTools has a function called "punching in," where the engineer can roll the recording and start and stop recording with the click of a button.  The function is designed to fix small mistakes, continue a take where maybe the first half was keep-able but the performer stopped playing, etc., by giving the performer a chance to play perhaps just one missed note correctly without having to record a whole take.  From what I understand, this process has been around since the analog days, but digital technology makes punching in much easier and more controllable.  Not to pull the curtain back too far, but in the case of my sometimes-labyrinthine composed guitar parts, they are most often recorded using a punch-heavy technique where sections of the part are recorded one at a time.  The composed rhythm parts tend to be less difficult and can be recorded in larger chunks, but some of the more difficult lead parts eventually have to be broken down phrase-by-phrase in order to accurately achieve the part I've composed, often including a formidable amount of rigidity and precision  in terms of interlocking parts and counterpoint.  I'm sure some purists scoff at the approach and I can understand why; it's natural for a musician's ego to demand an uninterrupted live performance, which is one of music's core avenues of expression.  In truth, I would love to have prepared the parts to technical perfection and recorded them in just a couple of passes, but the reality is that some of the parts I wrote are so difficult that rehearsing them all to perfection would probably add another year onto what's already been a half-year-long recording process!  Beside, the "off the cuff" approach is pretty much abandoned the minute you decide you're going to record a one-man project. 

There's also the objection that the element of spontaneity is lost when all of the parts are pre-composed.  In relation to my artistic goals, this objection is beside the point--the ultimate goal here is the final product, which is the total experience of an album-long recorded piece of music.  Whatever it takes to get there is what has to be done.  Again, I'd love to be able to simply improvise these parts in the studio, but my guitar part goals usually center on coming up with the most out-there and cliché-avoiding parts possible; only improvisers of unbelievable skill (i.e., definitely not I) are capable of ad libbing such parts (indeed, most improvisation actually tends toward the spontaneous reassembly of what can fairly be described as...clichés), and the benefit of hindsight allows me to fine-tune the parts I've written in order to improve them before they're set in stone.  It's true that I could eliminate the middleman by doing the part-composing in the studio, but that situation would remove the option to tweak the part later and would not be a cost effective use of my studio time--for every hour I spend reproducing a composed part in the studio there's at least two to three hours of hair-pulling and composition at home.  The punch-in recording method is likely to be a surprise for a lot of music listeners, but the truth is--though they aren't using the functionality to quite the same painstaking extent--almost all recording artists use punch-ins, editing and take compilation to create the best recordings possible.  In the case of my project, it's simply what the process is--the compositions, ideas and listening experience are the ultimate goals, and those goals take however much time and whatever means necessary. 

So, Justin and I sit down to start the day, choose a song, and fire away.  I've decided to use the morning's freshness on one of the more difficult parts left to record, and away we go--there's lots of "again please, same punch," a lot of swearing on my part, and a lot of digital clean-up needed when all's said and done, but the parts get done and it takes as long as it takes--the record for this album is five hours for a four minute lead part!  Whatever it takes for the ultimate goal!  At this point in the session Justin and I have gotten our system in place and things tend to go faster--one to two hours for a difficult lead part, and I've been playing so much guitar that I've gotten much better at hitting the parts in fewer tries.  At this point Justin performs one of his most important duties: quality control--paying attention to timing and synch while I do my best to hit the parts and keep the energy up in what's often an energy-draining situation.  Today we've got three difficult lead parts (two of which are in the same song) and some more textural, improvised stuff.  Each song change necessitates a change of guitar and amp, a resetting of levels and another adventure--luckily we can alternate between tough parts and improvised/textural ones, which gives me a break from the demands of brutal precision, and gives Justin's punch finger and patience a much-needed break.  We break for lunch around 2:00 (today's a big milestone; I'm redeeming my buy-seven-get-one-free coupon at the Safeway deli) and get back to work around 2:30.  By 8:30 we've recorded guitar for eight different songs and the scheduled guitar program is finished.  I decide to spend the last 90 minutes hitting a few backing vocals, which provides a nice cool-down for a day of hard work.  Tomorrow will be the final acoustic guitar overdubs, more vocals and starting the last of the bass recordings. 
.......................................

And that's how it goes...the days are long and things can get frustrating, but hearing everything together (which has been happening more and more as time goes on) is worth it for many reasons, not least of which is that the sound quality blows the demos out of the water.  This'll probably be the last really "technical" post until we get to mixing (others will probably focus more on the artistic and aesthetic aspects), but a lot of people have been asking me since as early as January, "So, you're almost done?"  I hope the detail here has helped clarify my "No, it's going to be a long time" reply and, as is the overarching goal of the Cheap Seats series, I hope it's given you some more pieces of the puzzle of what exactly goes into the production of an independent album and the way we can attempt to quantify and express the ultimate value of this kind of thing.  More soon!

Cheap Seats Part 1
Cheap Seats Part 2: Non-Commercial Music

Laike - Långt från stadslivets dån

Today I've got the pleasure of writing about an independent artist's album on the day of its release.  Laike is a Swedish artist whose debut solo album Långt från stadslivets dån is released today on British label Les Cousins, one that's got a special place in my heart for reissuing most of Davy Graham's back catalog and making possible his welcome (if painfully shaky) 2007 swan song, Broken Biscuits.  Laike is the artist moniker of a sort of one-man show in Christofer Ståhle; he writes, sings and plays guitar, piano and flute here, though he's joined by a number of friends performing various instrumental duties.  Laike's album notes refer to a recent enthusiasm for 1970's British folk rock bands like Fairport Convention and The Pentangle (I also hear some Comus in the violin parts), and I think there's a lot here to compare with that music but there's also a lot more here.

I spend a lot of time as a musician and writer worrying about originality and distinctiveness--not necessarily expecting others or myself to produce a musical product that's never been done before, but rather hoping to avoid the decisions that have been made so many times by other artists that they're both clichéd and (for lack of a less snobby word) lazy.  Listening to Laike's debut I come to the realization that the fact that much of the music here sounds stylistically familiar really isn't a problem.  As a listener who's pursued some of the same bands, I feel that the progressive folk, acid folk, eccentric singer/songwriter (or whatever you want to call them) fields are specifically underdeveloped and any contemporary artist who makes a point of further exploring those areas has both a rich and varied template to draw from, but also a multitude of unanswered musical questions and new directions to explore.  Perhaps I'm biased, but I think that as long as the personality, enthusiasm and artistry match the music heard on this album, there's plenty of room for more music in these areas and it'll be quite a while before their ideas are exhausted.

On to some specific impressions--on first listen, Laike's debut is an unassuming collection of straightforward, gently floating melodies framed by accessibly organic arrangements of mostly acoustic instruments playing parts that are sometimes instrumentally impressive but always designed to serve the songs.  As always hoped-for with this kind of music, further familiarization shades the hookier aspects with all kinds of subtle nuances (like psychedelic electric guitars you won't even notice until the third spin) and details that both broaden the experience and speak to Laike's craftsmanship and judgment.  For the most part, the songs are split between buoyant folk-rock like tunes as found on the opener "Modeslavarnas marsch," "Gladiatorkamp," and "Du är mer än vad jag ser" (where the violin riff, bass line and Dave Mattacks-like drumming most closely recall the aforementioned British bands), and quieter acoustic numbers like "Ensamhetens borg" (where Laike's guitar takes on a Jansch-esque swing), the playful melody of "Bygger stegar upp till himmelen" and the spare-yet-trippy "Städernas tid blev inte lång."  Then there's the stuff that's something more, where jazzier tendencies meld with overt pop instincts and melodies like the great guitar riffing and grooving Fender Rhodes on "Långt från stadslivets dån" or the frantic 5/4 piano riff that anchors the valedictory "Tankefabriken."  And let's not forget the spacey field recordings that bookend a few of the tracks, pitting Laike's voice and flute against boundless natural reverb with great textural and thematic effect, not to mention how far they stretch past the folky feel of the rest of the music. 

Laike's voice, guitar and flute run throughout as cohesive threads, his voice especially providing an ethereal lightness and impressive depth of expression to the songs, at times reminding me of singers like Duncan Browne and Jorge Ben in its deceptive delicacy.  I only read the English lyric transcriptions Christofer sent me after listening to the album a few times--I'm surprised how dark they are in relation to the music, dealing with themes of the oppressive nature of urban life (the title translates Far Away from the Noise of City Life) but also isolation and a frustration with the state of the world.  Luckily, the beautiful melancholy of the music and a few moments of hopeful idealism tug the emotional feeling back into the satisfying realm of coldly shining Scandinavian bleakness.  Långt från stadslivets dån is an album I'm both happy to share and an album I'm looking forward to getting to know even further--congratulations to Christofer on a job well done and best of luck as he continues on his artistic path and releases this music to the world! 

Get it here.

Cheap Seats 2: Non-Commercial Music

I'm 11 studio days and nine songs deep into my next album and thinking hard about how the work so far measures up to my standards, where I'm going next, and what's coming in the distant future in terms of post-recording production and an eventual release.  Though writing, arranging and recording is a challenging and difficult process, it's mostly straightforward to me and is still ultimately rewarding even when it's frustrating.  When it comes to thinking about how I can best represent my music once it's released and how to reach the kind of people who actually might be interested, things get a lot foggier. That's what a lot of this Cheap Seats series is about--what else (and there's potentially a lot of it) besides writing, recording and performing goes into the average independent musician's quest to be heard.  One of the fundamental issues that continues to plague my thoughts is the issue of non-commercial music and how it fits into today's bizarre musical marketplace. 

The struggle to define the phrase "non-commercial music" instantly reminds me of the classic US Supreme Court opinion on obscenity and pornography--creating a concise definition is all but impossible, but "I know it when I see it."  In the case of non-commercial music, it might easier to define its opposite--commercial music.  To me, "commercial music" is broadly music that is specifically created to appeal to the widest audience possible and consequently maximize sales.  This is neither necessarily a bad thing nor an absolute category, but under this definition, it's pretty easy to "know it when you see it."  In terms of musical characteristics, commercial music is almost always concise (songs under, say, six minutes), utilizes conventional harmony (major or minor keys with occasional implementation of jazz-related harmony), lyrically appeals to specific emotions that most people feel on a regular basis (romance-related, nostalgia, euphoria, sadness [use sparingly]), is full of easily recognizable elements that are catchy and memorable, and often identifies strongly with the conventions of a particular well-established musical genre in order to provide listeners with a clear connection to music they already like.  If it hadn't started becoming such a pejorative term and associated exclusively with corporate-produced mass market music, I'd even say that "commercial music" is synonymous with "pop music," but let's not narrow the definition unnecessarily with negative connotations.  Like I mentioned before, none of these characteristics are inherently bad and they describe a lot of great music, but surely they don't describe the only way to make good music?  It would seem that problems arise when the characteristics that describe commercial music become the only guiding principles in making music.

Indeed--they aren't; all kinds of great music has been made across the years with varying levels of non-commerciality including attention-span-testing song lengths, unconventional dissonant harmony or atonality, unconventional song structure (or complete lack of structure), inaccessible lyrics, a focus on less straightforward hooks, expression of less attractive moods and emotions, lack of easy identification with recognizable genres, and all-around weirdness in the sound of the music and especially the sound of the singer's voice.  Naturally, the list goes on and these descriptors have and will be freely combined, mixed and matched with each other as well as with characteristics associated with commercial music.  The point is, the more non-commercial elements you employ, the tougher it's going to be to achieve significant commercial success.  However, just as making the decision to produce purely commercially-oriented music doesn't guarantee commercial success, plenty of non-commercial music has (eventually) achieved widespread commercial success.  Tom Waits is an artist who immediately springs to mind; these days he's a hallowed saint of the independent/weird music world, but it took him a long time to break past the cult status to which his now-classic 1980's albums initially resigned him.  So, commercial and non-commercial music aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and non-commercial music can succeed commercially, it just has a bit less going for it in terms of accessibility.  However, it seems reasonably undeniable that certain types of music will never be commercially successful by the conventional measures (like, say, the Billboard charts)--but they have to have some kind of value, right? 

I think the Tom Waits example speaks well to the tough-to-quantify value of non-commercial music.  Simply put, if you're slavishly working toward the goal of creating music that's as commercial as possible, there's a good chance it's going to come across as boring.  There have been innumerable artists treading the exact same path, and the characteristics that define strictly commercial music limit your artistic options from the get-go.  Yes, there's joy to be found in those options, but there's also the soulless thirst for the lowest common denominator that makes so much commercial music hackneyed to the extreme.  There are many artistically-justifiable reasons non-commercial music is valuable, including one that can even be connected to the all-sacred dollar--the fact that it plays a key role in refreshing what qualifies as commercial music.  It's been happening throughout history, from Beethoven to Elvis--the avant-garde does something weird and against the rules, enough people like it and prove that it can make somebody some money, then it becomes an acceptable convention for the mainstream.  Tom Waits is a great example, especially considering the fact that a lot of his Captain Beefheart-influenced material introduced just enough commercial elements for Waits to eventually succeed where the Captain utterly failed commercially.  Good ideas have a way of rising to the top, and in addition to being aesthetically enjoyable for its own idiosyncratic reasons, each type of non-commercial music is always ultimately connected to the mainstream, whether it's valued monetarily or not. 

After working on this music for several months, I have no illusions that nearly all of the songs I'm working on qualify as non-commercial music.  Personally, I find an exciting freedom in non-commercial music (which explains why the majority of albums I review here display varying levels of non-commercial characteristics) that means anything goes, as long as it's expressing an interesting idea.  If you're not afraid of breaking a rule that'll cost you sales, then your options are unlimited.  Of course, it's a double-edged sword and each non-commercial choice you make further limits your potential appeal to the average listener.  And aesthetically, the further you tread from the established rules, the more subjective the evaluation of the quality of your work becomes--who says what I think is an interesting or dull idea is interpreted the same way by others (a principle amply demonstrated by the response I've gotten to some of the critical reviews I've written)?  This ambiguity is one of my favorite parts about art, since I believe it's ultimately true even when evaluating art that abides by strictly established rules. 

So, I personally believe that non-commercial music is valuable both artistically in terms of the potential for innovation and the unlimited scope of expression, as well as for the role that it plays in propelling forward the slower-moving behemoth of popular music.  Choosing to make non-commercial music means I'm subject only to my own artistic whims, but it also means I'm further narrowing the already-limited avenues through which I can seek success as an unknown independent musician.  It's not a matter of "being discovered" at this point (since there's no major pop label that would be interested in trying to sell this kind of music), but rather a matter of finding ways to connect with the disparate but very real audience that could potentially be interested in the music.  It's the how that continually occupies my thoughts--how does any non-commercial musician access the narrower and diffuse selection of people who are interested in non-commercial music, and what does it take in the present day to achieve enough commercial success with that audience to sustain and continue the artistic process?  The answers are probably extremely complicated and different for every band or artist, but repeatedly considering these questions will be a key part of this series as I continue trying to outline the labyrinthine choose-your-own-adventure that faces today's independent musicians. 

Cheap Seats Part 1

David Gray - A Century Ends

After a busy couple of weeks in the studio, here I am back again to talk about some more music (another Cheap Seats installment should be issuing forth pretty soon as well).  I first got into David Gray since seeing him live in 2001 when he was just breaking through with White Ladder.  Since then I've stayed a fan as his popularity has ebbed and flowed, but it wasn't White Ladder that cemented my support--it was Gray's back catalog, and especially Flesh and A Century Ends, his 1993 debut.

Though Gray's first couple albums display his liking for Van Morrison and Bob Dylan a lot more than his more recent stuff, they're also a lot more focused on pure songwriting than fusing electronic and accessible acoustic elements than his breakthrough albums are.  The arrangements mostly center on Gray's acoustic guitar, though there's some uncharacteristically (for Gray's music) overdriven electrics that accentuate some of the album's edgier tracks.  What always draws me into A Century Ends is the fact that it's much angrier than Gray's later works--as he's matured his cynicism has often been re-routed into less recognizable forms as he strives to keep his music accessible and prolong his mainstream popularity.  Here, though, Gray rails against the apathy and decline he sees in society on songs like "Let the Truth Sting," "Birds Without Wings" and the title track, singing in a sometimes growling brogue and spitting bile with every line.  Revisiting this album I occasionally feel that Gray's poetic lyrics are occasionally a bit florid and sound exactly like the kind of stuff an earnest, angry 24-year-old writes (which probably explains why I liked it so much when I was a teenager), but he repeatedly delivers goods that offer insight beyond his years with lines like "when the cat comes/we're just birds without wings."

Also noticeable throughout the set is a sort of dingy grit that comes with the life of a frustrated young artist--"Debauchery," "Living Room" and "Wisdom" abound with grimy urban imagery and a sense of urgent desperation that rarely appears in Gray's works these days.  This might be most evident on the quietly simmering "Lead Me Upstairs," which focuses the album's themes of innocence lost and disillusionment into the image of a single romantic encounter.  What really balances Gray's youthful angst, though, is a few unassumingly gorgeous tracks that blend the singer's exuberance with an open-ended bittersweetness and depth that's occasionally lacking on some of the collection's more straightforward material.  The opener, "Shine" continues to be one of Gray's finest heartbreak songs, based on open-tuned guitar and rising to a crescendo that sees the singer experimenting with Van Morrison-like vocalizations.  "Gathering Dust," further develops a quiet sense of searching, featuring one of the album's most memorable melodies (delivered by Gray's wordless na-na-na's).

While it's probably true that A Century Ends presents some of David Gray's least mature material, it's also refreshing to hear someone singing passionately and obviously caring about the subject matter, even if the wide-eyed sincerity of youth is a little overly-apparent.  And while the music sometimes suffers the characteristic fate of existing merely as a platform for Gray's voice and lyrics, he does present us with a lot to enjoy in those departments.  I've heard Gray speak mildly disparagingly about his first few albums and say that the too-familiar folk rock arrangements were part of the reason he didn't achieve success before White Ladder (not to mention that this album is a way too British-sounding to find widespread success overseas).  That may be true, but listen to both albums in 10 years (or maybe even now) and I bet this collection sounds a whole lot more difficult to date in comparison.  While Gray has continued to tread middle-of-the-road territory with his recent albums, he always seems to show glimmers of the insight and un-poplike impulses that made his early stuff so compelling.  He's got his fair share of detractors who validly point out his overplay and recent blandness at the expense of recognizing his well-developed craft, but I live in hope that his continuing maturity and subtlety will again result in something that aims to challenge more than it does generate another safe adult contemporary hit.  A taste of success seems to often instigate a hunger that's fraught with compromise, and that feeling is never evident on A Century Ends.

Get it here.

Dillard and Clark - The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark

The other night I was having trouble choosing something to listen to--ultimately, instead of one of my recent jazz purchases, I reached for this--Gene Clark's first (of two) albums with bluegrass virtuoso Doug Dillard, sandwiched between his post-Byrds solo debut Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers and the stunning White Light.  While a lot of country rock aficionados like to place this album as one of the first country rock collections, I prefer to think of it in the context of Gene Clark's discography as both his first masterpiece as a performer and songwriter as well as the only full album where he's complemented by an instrumentalist with an equally impressive and distinctive personality.

It's a Gene Clark album, so of course there are some great songs--"Train Leaves Here This Morning" is likely many people's favorite with its laid-back swing and one of Gene's best ambiguous chorus lines since "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better" with "there's a train leaves here this morning/I'm not sure what I might be on."  The arrangements still show a Byrds-like penchant for thick harmony vocal arrangements, but to my ears Dillard and company provide considerably stronger accompaniment.  Also quickly noticeable are "Out On the Side," which showcases Clark's aching emotional vocal delivery backed by a full band (organ included) arrangement, and "Don't Come Rollin'," which starts as a loose harmonica jam and builds into a buoyantly conversational tell-off replete with some fast-talking from Clark, not to mention a hash reference. 

As usual, though, the songs that withhold their treasures for patient attention are ultimately just as interesting--"She Darked the Sun" proves Clark was able to adapt his songwriting to an old-timey bluegrass aesthetic while at the same time dropping crushingly modern lines like "with the length of her mind she darked the sun."  Even more affecting is the album's one-two closing punch--the jubilant banjo and familiar bass pattern of "The Plan" belie Clark's desperate existential searching, and "Something's Wrong," focuses the songwriter's profound melancholy into one of the most powerful coming-of-age songs I've ever heard, full of childhood reminiscences and a devastating bridge--and with its album-closing fiddle denouement it still clocks in under three minutes. 

These would still be great songs even if Clark were just singing them with an acoustic guitar, but Dillard (as well as Bernie Leadon) provide a shimmering backdrop of banjo, mandolin and lead acoustic guitar that adds both depth and warmth to Clark's songs as well as playing that's worthy of focusing on for its beauty alone.  Dillard's banjo skills in particular are mesmerizing--his speed is remarkable, but even more so is his ability to change up his picking patterns on the fly, providing a rhythm/lead accompaniment that constantly and fluidly changes.  It's also worth noting how well the album incorporates subtle psychedelic production elements--the harmonies in particular lend themselves to such treatment, as the brilliant instrumental section, break, and final chorus of "With Care From Someone" demonstrate, and the inclusion of harpsichord on a number of songs adds a sort of exoticism that again reminds us that what we're listening to is more than just a bluegrass album with original songs--check out the trippy swelling atmosphere at the end of "The Radio Song"--it was 1968, after all. 

Even though this album clocks in under 30 minutes and the follow-up utterly fails to live up to its predecessor, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark lives on in my collection as a perfect collection of songs and performances--listening to it the other night was like having a conversation with an old friend.

Get it here.

Tony Williams - Life Time

By 1965 and this--drummer Tony Williams' first set as a leader--the then-17-year-old had already been working with a slew of talented and innovative jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Jackie McLean and Grachan Moncur III (not to mention his recent incorporation into Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet).  Listening to Life Time, it's clear that Williams was listening closely to what the latter two were doing, especially on the sessions for McLean's One Step Beyond and Moncur III's Evolution.  For me, this album represents one of several high points from the period when it comes to a distinctive brand of avant-garde jazz that seems to favor space over wild soloing.

You know from the eerie, quietly intense opening melody of "Two Pieces of One: Red" that this isn't going to be a typical bop album, but as Sam Rivers' tenor fades out and dual bowed basses from Richard Davis and Gary Peacock gently arpeggiate it's apparent that this subtle opening isn't going for the explosion your ears might expect.  One of the bassists takes the first solo, and from then on you can rest assured that we're not returning to the usual structures or sounds for the rest of the album.  "Two Pieces of One: Red" and the rest of Life Time are typified by a restrained, spacious atmosphere wherein solos take place with very little backing instrumentation (aided considerably by the fact that there's no piano on three of five tracks) and rarely take off into the rapid-fire solo excursions popular even with some of the players on this disc--Sam Rivers is surprisingly subdued here, but he manages to ride the transition with little difficulty, relying more on dynamics and the presence/non-presence duality that's much more of an option when you're playing in a musical landscape as open as this one.  Indeed, the overall sound of this album owes as much to the theoretical advancements of John Cage as it does to free jazz pioneers, setting up blocks of silence as both an effective compositional tool (making it easier to tell when the sometimes skeletal compositions are moving to another section) and as an invisible member of the combo, giving the players another (absence of) sound to play off and somehow adding depth and intensity to the sounds that are actually present.  Williams' drums in particular seem to particularly smolder in the open, reverb-heavy environment, with his brushwork lifelike in its texture and his cymbal work especially benefiting from miles of reverb and a lack of competition with other instruments (and himself, for that matter--this music wouldn't be so great if the players didn't match the mood by leaving a little space in their own playing).

"Two Pieces of One: Green" is the album's longest track, with Rivers contributing some more of his characteristic fire and blasting some really juicy overtones, while Williams explores the toms and un-snared snare.  While the subtle melody of some of the album's other tracks gradually reveals itself, this track is one of the freest of the bunch, demonstrating amply that free jazz doesn't have to always consist of several instruments blaring at the same time.  "Tomorrow Afternoon" comes closest to hard bop in melody and swing, but gradually breaks up into greater and greater caverns of space, like the floor is dropping away from the comfortable atmosphere that was so briefly established.  "Memory" drops Rivers and brings vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and Herbie Hancock in for a bassless free improvisation that sees Hutcherson and Williams riffing off one another quite effectively, with the vibes providing just enough of a tonal anchor; with Williams' wood block and other hand percussion providing yet another noticeable textural contribution.  The arrangement is so sparse that when Hancock finally asserts himself around 5:30 with a brief chord, it sounds like the loudest, most melodic thing you've ever heard.  The album ends with "Barb's Song to the Wizard," a piano and bass duet with no drums--the tense melody nods to Williams' aforementioned work with Moncur III and McLean.  Unlike those great albums, though, Williams always seems to take things one step further, providing no real traditional bop tunes to appease nervous listeners and committing fully to the album's mission statement.

The fact that this album works so well with such a piecemeal, rotating assortment of players exclusively playing the compositions of a 17-year-old drummer is a testament both to Williams' skill and unheard-of musical maturity at the time, but also to whatever it was in the air at the time that made all of these players so assured in their judgment, synchronicity and adventurousness.  Life Time is a grower in the best sense of the word--sounding like nothing much on first listen but gradually unfolding into a paradoxically dense work, considering its relative quietness--and every time I listen to it I find myself asking "Why isn't there more free jazz like this?!"  Luckily a little research into the discographies of the artists involved here yield further pairings in the same time period and several great albums in the same vein.  While Williams would go on in the next few years to collaborate with some of avant-garde jazz's most acclaimed albums (as well as Miles Davis' less challenging but equally iconic work [I bet he hated this album]) before heading into fusion territory, he did reconvene with some of these players for the nearly-as-excellent Spring, but no album I've found has done such a good job of fusing an AMM-like free improv space aesthetic with "traditional" free jazz harmony and melody--recommendations welcome!

Get it here.

Picchio dal Pozzo - Picchio dal Pozzo

To round out this week's Canterbury Scene focus, here's one of the best examples of how the scene's sounds eventually transcended their geographical and physical origins, and a few even more obscure groups in Europe carried the Canterbury influence in an expanded and often quite interesting and artistically successful direction.  On their 1976 eponymous debut, Italian group Picchio dal Pozzo manage to fuse the gentle synth atmospheres and vocalizing of solo Robert Wyatt with space rock jams not unlike those of mid-70s Gong, all the while sticking to a very Canterburian classical-jazz instrumentation that's heavy on flute, xylophone, oboe, keyboard and fuzzed-out bass and guitar.   

Like so many of my very favorite albums, part of what I love about this album is simply how the music sounds--from the first fade-in acoustic guitar notes of "Merta" the tone of this album is like a warm bath--enveloping, soothing and somehow comforting in spite of its more challenging moments.  Though it's easy to trace this group's influences to Canterbury, there's something about their hazy, dreamy sound and penchant for mischievous wordless vocals that is totally their own.  "Cocomelastico" follows with a direct segue into an awesome-sounding guitar/saxophone counterpoint melody underpinned by layers of spacey synths and some sort of twisted lounge music with suitably gently goofy singing.  As you can see from the lyrics provided on the band's official website, the few words to these songs are mostly nonsense and whimsical wordplay; perhaps one of the Canterbury scene's greatest strengths in terms of longevity is that, unlike most progressive bands, its groups never seemed to take themselves too seriously!

The album's darkest track and arguably its centerpiece is the magnificent "Seppia," beginning with a minor ostinato and some well-chosen dissonant note pairs in the bass before stating a dramatic oboe-led melody and dropping into on of the most deliriously hypnotic fuzz bass riffs in Canterbury history for a synth/xylophone/vocal jam that lasts a good six minutes before dropping suddenly into a quietly avant-garde flute/xylophone/bass trio and closing the tune with some spoken word and a stately, mysterious reed-led section.  The number of sudden surprises, dynamics, details and layers of beauty in a track like this are my total ideal--it's at once accessible and traditionally melodic, while at the same time playing with dissonance and bizarre choices.  The genius of Picchio dal Pozzo's approach seems to be their use of gentle instruments and textures to explore these potentially grating musical moves; they're not going to offend anybody too blatantly, but if you pay attention you realize that there's a lot more going on here than it might initially appear.

"Napier" and the rest of the tracks present more densely-packed, swiftly-moving ideas, quirky but accessible melodies and almost narcotic timbres.  While the last couple of tracks are perhaps less obviously memorable in terms of melody and structure, their humble beauty does improve with further listening and the texture and atmosphere suits the rest of the album's mood so well that the disc trails off in a dreamy whisper that makes me want to start over immediately.  Though it can be argued that the heavy Canterbury influences make Picchio dal Pozzo's debut a bit derivative, as far as I'm concerned we could do with a few more great Canterbury albums and the quality of this music is so consistent and the atmosphere is so uniquely dreamy that it really doesn't bother me; sometimes doing something really well trumps doing something first, and you'll often find there are subtle wrinkles of originality hidden within.

Picchio dal Pozzo is one of my favorite Canterbury albums and is probably favorite Italian progressive album (though there are only a few Italian progressive groups who have actually clicked with me; Stormy Six, Area and Museo Rosenbach and maybe one or two others who manage to do more than rehash the less interesting aspects of symphonic prog).  I'm also really excited to say that this album is back in print on CD--just reissued by Italy's Goodfellas label at the end of 2011.  Now I can review it guilt-free and point you to one of my favorite online storefronts, Recommended Records, as a great place to purchase this CD and support these artists. Obviously, this album is highly recommended, as is the group's second and final studio release, the more challenging and RIO-flavored (but equally rewarding) Abbiamo tutti i suoi problemi, which has been consistently commercially available--more on that album later!

Hatfield and the North - Hatfield and the North

To delve further into the dense stuff of the Canterbury Scene, Hatfield and the North's 1974 debut is a great place to explore how the scene evolved both personnel-wise and sound-wise as the 70's wore on.  By this time Soft Machine was firmly on a jazz-heavy fusion route, with Robert Wyatt long-since departed, finished with his next project Matching Mole, a paraplegic and releasing his first masterpiece, Rock Bottom, the same year.  Gong and Caravan were already very different bands, with drummer Pip Pyle gone from Gong (to drum for Hatfield and the North) and guitarist Steve Hillage added to the fold, and bassist Richard Sinclair departing Caravan, also to work with the Hatfields.  By the time of this album's recording, the core group was rounded out by Egg (among other groups) keyboardist Dave Stewart and Matching Mole/Delivery guitarist Phil Miller.  My intention isn't to get overly cluttered with names and group references, but rather to show just how intermingling the Canterbury Scene was (and continues to be, to some extent)--Hatfield and the North can in some ways be considered the first Canterbury supergroup as it was formed from members who had already demonstrated their abilities on the classic albums of other Canterbury groups.

Sound-wise, Hatfield and the North amply demonstrates how the Canterbury sound continued to get more sophisticated, more refined, and jazzier.  Unlike mid-70's Soft Machine (or the trace jazz elements found in Caravan, for example), Hatfield and the North's debut sound is one of fusion of jazz harmony, complex composition and improvisation with appealing, gentle melodies.  The complexity of these compositions is far from the relative pop-simplicity of Caravan's songs, yet Richard Sinclair seems to have no trouble accommodating his bass skills to the material.  And don't think that this group is just going to sound like a summation of all the things the members did before--this album is rife with seamless transitions and sub-one-minute segue tracks, and the mission of the vocals (the lyrics for which are mostly tongue-in-cheek nonsense) seems to be to give listeners an accessible insertion point into what's often complex and difficult-to-get-the-first-time music.

Though it's not his group, per se (at least not as much as later incarnation National Health was), Dave Stewart's keyboards provide the most noticeable framework for this music--fluidly transitioning between Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, various synthesizers and acoustic piano to provide both texture and melodic substance.  "Son of 'There's No Place Like Homerton'" boasts some of the most Egg-like contrapuntal puzzle keyboard of the album, with a complex, ever-shifting atmosphere abetted by airy, ethereal contributions of the "Northettes" (background singers Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal, who also contributed to Egg's Civil Surface album, released the same year).  Robert Wyatt guest vocalizes on "Calyx," eventually joined by Richard Sinclair in a delicate, wordless duet.  It's these kinds of complex but unassuming moments that make Hatfield and the North's two albums so rewarding on repeated listens.

I have to admit that it took me quite a few before my attitude shifted from mere respectful appreciation to all-out enthusiasm--I'm beginning to think that there's something about the language of jazz harmony that's fundamentally different from that found in most rock and pop--you have to have to acquaint yourself a certain amount with it before it stops just sounding like silly noodling and the multiple facets possible with extended harmony start to shine through.  The songs here don't often "rock out" (even by Canterbury's gentle standards), and the often major-key extended harmonies are much more reminiscent of later smooth jazz music than their darker minor counterparts being explored by Soft Machine and Henry Cow.  The band does manage to get pretty uptempo and a little more aggressive in sound on the fast-paced "Rifferama," which features Gong saxophonist Didier Malherbe and on which Dave Stewart coyly quotes the "I Never Glid Before" melody.  "Shaving is Boring" is likely the album's most epic composition, treading some darker territory with some Mahavishnu Orchestra-like ostinato patterns, gnarly Canterbury fuzz organ and an uncharacteristically distorted and noticeable contribution from Phil Miller's guitar (we won't quite get to see him cut loose until National Health's Of Queues and Cures, which fulfills all of Hatfield and the North's promise and then some).  Richard Sinclair does his best Robert Wyatt in the vaguely sexual "Licks for the Ladies," displaying that his sometimes subdued vocals aren't without a considerable amount of nuance.  He also manages some of the album's funniest quirky Canterbury nonsense vocals when "Big Jobs No. 2" recapitulates the second track with metacommentary on the band's hopes for commercial success.

It's interesting to see how all of these Canterbury figures continued to develop their distinct but collective musical visions while at the same time working for some kind of commercial success.  As the band morphed into National Health and progressive music became less and less popular in the late 70's, it became clear that the golden days of having label support and a mouthpiece through which to broadcast these ideas were drawing to a close.  Luckily several of these musicians have soldiered on to make more worthwhile music, but we also have a legacy of densely enjoyable recordings and ideas to engage in the present.  This album is warmly recommended along with the band's sophomore effort The Rotters' Club, as well as National Health's self-titled debut and the aforementioned Of Queues and Cures--more thoughts on those records later!

Get it here.

Caravan - In the Land of Grey and Pink

It's been a while since I've written about any Canterbury Scene bands, and I'd still like to further explore how the music has expanded past its original physical scene into a recognizable style, but also what it was like when the style and membership of the scene was still concentrated in just a few bands.  You can't do that without talking about Caravan, which--aside from Soft Machine--probably has the most members closely tied with the early Canterbury Scene.  Like Soft Machine, Caravan started in the late 60's, boasting members from the formative Canterbury band Wilde Flowers.  Also like Soft Machine, Caravan was instrumental in defining what has come to be known as the Canterbury sound, although in a considerably different way from the Softs.  Even at its early poppiest, Soft Machine's sound was always firmly rooted in jazz, while I'd say Caravan is more tied to psychedelic rock with some elements of jazz and progressive, and by most accounts they perfected this distinctive blend with this, 1971's In the Land of Grey and Pink.

In case you were worried, the bouncy opener, "Golf Girl" assures us of this album's origin--the trombone, flute, juiced-up organ and goofy lyrics ("on the golf course/we talk in Morse") are undeniably Canterbury.  Compared with Soft Machine, though, this is definitely rock, and while it seems Robert Wyatt was mostly just screwing around (albeit quite entertainingly) with his lyrics, there's a sincerity with Richard Sinclair's words and delivery that adds a dimension of warmth to Caravan's whimsy.  "Winter Wine" turns a 180, with a psychedelic folk bent and a bunch of fantasy imagery that seems to support the album cover (which, by the way, is fucking awesome--I want to go there).  Though Sinclair's vocals do seem a little inconspicuous on first listen, a surprising amount of nuance becomes apparent when you come to learn the songs a bit better.  The mutual Canterbury influence is apparent in how he and guitarist/vocalist Pye Hastings make up a sort of two-man approximation of Wyatt--Hastings' vocals rest in the thin, upper register Wyatt treads so often (check out the delirious cowbell pop of "Love to Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)", while Sinclair's lower range seems to prefigure the fragile humility so often found in Wyatt's post-Soft Machine work. 

The title track revisits the "Golf Girl" feel with some more stoner-hippie-fantasy-nonsense imagery ("we'll pick our fill of punk weed and smoke it it till we bleed--that's all we'll need") as well as some sparkling piano and a great organ solo.  I find it interesting how the band employs a classic Canterbury (Mike Ratledge) innovation like the fuzz organ, but use it in a totally different way.  This brings me to the epic, side-long closer "Nine Feet Underground," which assures us without a doubt that Caravan's lead solo instrument is Dave Sinclair's organ.  While the other Canterbury groups are no strangers to long solos, Caravan seems content to set up a fairly straightforward rock riff-based jam and allow Dave Sinclair to stretch out with several minutes-long organ solos.  While it's a repetitive approach and Sinclair's style is nowhere near as technically erudite as Mike Ratledge's or Dave Stewart's, for example, there's something about Caravan's hazy/catchy psychedelic atmosphere and the tone and Sinclair's tone and note choice that just clicks perfectly.  It's amazing how well a 22 minute-long song can mostly subsist on jams and organ solos (though Pye Hastings and Richard Sinclair each contribute a vocal section) but I think it owes to memorable, melodic chord progressions and Sinclair's willingness to effectively alter the tone and effects of his instrument to expand his ideas and change up the palette.  The song's conclusion pits barnstorming riff sections against some of Sinclair's most groovily aggressive soloing (though some say it rips of "Sunshine of Your Love," I'm not sure Cream can really lay creative claim to an entire musical interval--suffice to say the two riffs are similar-sounding and Cream's came first).  Amazing--that is, if you like longform jamming.

It seems there's a Canterbury Scene band for every mood and season (well, not really, but the scene demonstrates surprising depth while still conveying a distinctive sound), and for me Caravan is the catchiest, most mainstream of the lot, which is probably why they remain one of the bands who is more often discovered by younger listeners, even achieving mention in Mojo, which sports nary a mention of most other Canterbury luminaries, except Robert Wyatt, who seems to show up several times an issue these days.  This album is warmly recommended to psych/prog fans as well as Canterbury disciples, and it's worth mentioning that If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You and Caravan for Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night are nearly as rewarding.

Get it here, or deluxe here.

Please enjoy the back cover, too:

Davy Graham - The Guitar Player

If you're interested in delving into the influential and often mind-blowing rabbit hole that is Davy Graham's guitar playing and inimitable fusion of jazz and blues with folk from across the world, I urge you not to start here!  That's right, it's another installment of the only-very-occasionally-controversial Know Your Enemy series.  This time it's not really poor Davy or his fleet fingers, but rather his presumed audience who's the enemy.  It's got to be pretty much impossible to reckon how many great artists' originality and instincts have been stifled (either by their record labels or by themselves) in hopes of presenting their music as inoffensive and appealing to the largest and most middle-of-the-road audience possible.  By this album's 1963 release, Davy had already been doing the things that made him a legend among many British musicians who would find considerably more fame (things like showing up to a party and playing a single-guitar arrangement of Ravel's Boléro).  Instead of committing his unrivaled guitar excursions to tape, Pye subsidary Golden Guinea decided it would be more commercially accessible to pair Graham with a jazz session drummer and record an inoffensive mix of jazz and blues standards.

And so, we have The Guitar Player, whose title and cover promises an aural vision of Graham it doesn't deliver, at least in relation to his historical reputation.  We get "Take Five" and "Cry Me A River" (an earlier filmed version of which secured Graham this record deal) as well as Cannonball Adderly's "Sermonette."  While the material is in places somewhat mundane, Graham's playing is always flowingly organic (the tempo ebbs and flows with quite a bit of endearing imperfection) and it's fascinating to hear him collapse all the vocal and instrumental parts of a song like "Ray Charles' "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" into a single fingerstyle guitar part.  Disappointingly, most of the songs veer toward jazzy blues (or maybe bluesy jazz, as many Graham's mini-fills tend to riff on blues scales), though there are a few outliers that hint at the man's true passion--"The Ruby and the Pearl" injects a satisfying amount of minor Latin into the mix (and the drummer manages to play the sticks in a considerably more complementary way than he often does elsewhere, or maybe it's the fact that it's just acoustic guitar and drums that makes some of the arrangements sound  just a bit hollow).

Re-listening to this album, I'm reminded how much of a joy it is to listen to Graham's guitar playing, no matter what the context--sort of the guitar equivalent of saying you'd be OK listening to your favorite singer singing names out of the phone book.  It's just the knowledge that Graham had much bigger ideas to share and the way the songs are all so self-consciously happy sounding that rings somewhat forced.  The liner notes Davy writes "I sincerely hope you enjoy this record either to listen to or as a background to a good conversation," which just about sums it up--cowering in submission to your hoped-for audience so very rarely produces the stuff from which legends are born.  The CD reissue of this album seems determined to apologize for the original album's timidness, including examples of what actually made Graham legendary (raga-infused Irish folk in "She Moved Thru' The Bizarre/Blue Raga," Greek folk in "Miserlou" and a considerably more eclectic selection of songs from Graham's later-70's All That Moody, including his legendary instrumental "Anji").  Still, the unfortunate truth is that, pleasant as it is, this album doesn't come close to doing Graham's contributions justice.  While Graham would have career-long troubles finding a marketable niche for himself and regularly seemed to make artistic choices in hopes of endearing himself to an intangible audience, he at least managed to create a concurrent legacy of music that more successfully represented his unique and unprecedented vision.  While it's frustrating that he never produced an epic, vocal-less collection of his genre-shattering experiments (I'm sure partly owing to the fact that solo acoustic guitar as a genre was pretty much just getting going in the early 1960's), there are much better places to start than The Guitar Player.

You can get it here.

Plastic People of the Universe - Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned

Recorded in 1974 in communist Prague but not released until 1978 in France Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned is the first album by long-lived Czech band Plastic People of the Universe.  Like a number of other bands in the 60's and 70's, these guys were part of an underground rebellion against repressive communist governments that took the shape of rock music--I can't think of a much cooler reason to make music.

I remember the first time I tried to listen to this album, I was a little disappointed in the opener, "Dvacet;" though it introduces the group's appealing instrumentation (including saxophone, violin, some weird keyboards and delay-treated vocals), the melodic pattern is simple and repetitive, and though I'm aware the Czech poetry (written by Egon Bondy) that makes up the lyrics is probably pretty charged, I can't understand Czech and don't have a source for translation.  I must have stopped listening and switched to something else before the one-minute mark, when the free jazz-informed sax solo starts with a scream from one of the vocalists, and the group's primal groove kicks in.  When I finally gave the album a second chance, I remember kicking myself for not listening just a bit further.  Though it's just a couple minutes long, "Dvacet" is a good example of the group's compositional style, which relies on repetitive grooves and sing-song melodies as a backdrop for some pretty wild soloing.

It becomes pretty apparent how Frank Zappa-influenced these guys are (they even took their name from a Mothers of Invention song) after just a few minutes, but I like how they take the irreverent mood and tense harmonic structure of Zappa and Henry Cow and apply it to a much more primitive structure of simplistic but often brutal riffing.  "Toxica" spaces out a minor theme with effective theatricality before riff-izing it for a great fuzz guitar solo, while "Magicke Noci" starts with some delirious synthesizer before launching into one of the album's most punishingly foreboding riffs, somehow conjured just from bass, rhodes and drums.  "Podivuhodny mandarin" is probably the best fusion of lyrical rhythm and hypnotic riffing on the album--make sure to check out the video of a 2009 performance; these guys are still rocking this material even though they're old and grizzled!

Though a few of the quieter tracks (like "Okolo Okna") might not be as immediate or arresting, the group always manages to set up a unique atmosphere and accomplish some spacey soloing.  I also really like their deeper ventures into satirical territory on the short spoof "MGM" (wherein the group imitates MGM's opening lion roar with their own voices) and the theatrical closer "Jo - to se ti to spi," where the vocalizing is almost Robert Wyatt-like.  Keep in mind that this is an underground recording (the sound quality is pretty low), but the group's untamed irreverent spirit and counter-cultural defiance always manage to show through--you can easily tell that they're not only risking their political freedom to make this music, they're also having a great time doing it!  Good luck finding a CD of this sadly out of print album; luckily it's around for download in quite a few places.

The Doors - The Doors

Jim's left eye is...John Densmore's face?

It's been a while since I've undertaken the carefree task of writing about something really popular and well-known, so why not talk about The Doors' 1967 self-titled debut?  Now that this album is pushing 50, it's a little easier to take its legendary status with a grain of salt, and I find it easiest to evaluate when taken as what it really is--pop music, pure and simple!  When you think about these songs as something "the kids" were supposed to go crazy for and buy in wheelbarrowfuls, the facts that Jim Morrison's "poetry" is mostly inane cliché rhymes and that the music here isn't really challenging or as dark as the image the band cultivated don't really matter--it's pop, and pretty great pop, for that matter.

Not that The Doors wasn't a revolutionary or nearly completely fresh album at the time it emerged--it pretty much made Elektra Records into a successful rock label, proved the marketability of a dark, distinctive version of US psychedelic rock that had little to do with the typical West Coast sound, and demonstrated that there was plenty of room in the pantheon of teen idols for a raw, sexual, and darkly pseudo-artistic figure like Jim Morrison, paving the way for a lot more experimentation in US pop music. 

What made The Doors so different and successful?  To my eyes and ears, it's the fact that they backed up their unique, marketable image with such a distinctive style.  While Morrison's poetic pretensions are often hard to swallow, the rest of the band really did fulfill the dark, artsy image that's represented so well by the cover art--Ray Manzarek's roots were classical, Robby Krieger purportedly never played an electric guitar (he was a flamenco player) before joining the group, and John Densmore's jazz chops are probably the best thing the group's got going for itself instrumentally.  That murky, dark sound typified by heavily-reverbed Morrison vocals (the power of his voice as an instrument is tough to deny, especially when he swings between baritone crooning and animalistic shrieks) and piercing organ high-end was pretty much unheard-of, and even if a lot of the material is ultimately lightweight, it certainly fits the group's image in mood and bluster.  Whoever had the idea to include the Brecht/Weill "Alabama Song" and blues standard "Back Door Man" was on the right track, fleshing out the group's druggier originals with the drunken carnival leer of a sex-crazed pervert that Morrison would continue to embrace, probably to his great personal detriment.  Of course, the original that cements these covers' filthy promise is the immortal "The End," in most parts not so much a song as it is a musical texture backdrop for Morrison's closest attempt at poetry on the album, with some controversial sex noises and mother-f'er talk.

What really made the album sell, though, is the wealth of melody and hooks that reside in most of the songs--"Break On Through" and "Light My Fire" combine late night drug imagery (though most people probably haven't heard the unedited "Break On Through," where Morrison clearly shouts "she get high") with pop-perfect breaks and simple melodies delivered with apt doom by Morrison's god voice.  It's impressive how many other potential hits are on here, though, like the funky organ/guitar combo on "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox," not to mention the schmaltzy mystery of "The Crystal Ship."  And surprisingly, a couple deep cuts are just as catchy--the garagey start/stop of "I Looked At You" makes for a great false ending, and the thinly-veiled sexual imagery of "Take It As It Comes" is probably the only thing that held it back from single-dom.

Though their edginess makes them appear unique, The Doors' career started like so many other great, wide-eyed rock bands, with a group whose instincts were pure but whose vision into the future was short-sighted due to the fact that they barely knew what they were doing when they were doing it--there's about three repetitive keyboard basslines that Manzarek recycles across all of these songs, while Krieger's nascent relationship with his electric guitar evidences itself in a limited range of ideas and a virtually identical guitar solo on "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox."  The familiar commercial pressure to repeat the debut's success made for diminishing returns after the group's sophomore album, but when they eventually gained confidence as a working unit their diverse and unusual identities shone through for some weirder and more experimental compositions, but I think the perfect storm and untainted energy of this one will probably stand in most people's minds as their definitive statement.  Just don't take it too seriously. 

Get it here.

Tyler Fortier - Bang On Time

Time for some friend music!  I've known today's artist--Eugene, Oregon-based singer/songwriter Tyler Fortier--since we were both about five years old, having both grown up in Camas, so it's always a pleasure today to track his continuing path as an artist and a special pleasure to feature an album of his here on the blog.  Bang on Time is Tyler's third release of 2011, following February's ...And They Rode Like Wildfire Snaking Through the Hills 'Neath the Scarlet Sun and April's Fear of the Unknown.  The fact that he managed to even find time and energy to write, record, distribute and tour behind three releases (let alone take the care to give each album a discrete identity) is hard to imagine, yet here the evidence is for us to enjoy.

One thing we songwriters and musicians hate to hear is that we've improved or gotten "better"--there's no quicker way to backhandedly dismiss a creative legacy that took years and an immeasurable amount of personal investment to create.  When I say Tyler has improved, I mean that he's progressively honed the aspects of his music that have been there making his albums great since the beginning--he's become more assured as a vocalist, his artistic vision has become clearer with each release and, most importantly, his craft as a songwriter has reached a level of nuance that pushes it well past what many working musicians are even capable of. 

Tyler introduces Bang On Time as stripped-down and lyrically-driven; while I'd hesitate to call the arrangements stripped-down (songs often feature several acoustic instruments, three-part vocal harmony, and there are a few string arrangements), the mood is certainly more contemplative than the rock arrangements of Fear of the Unknown.  The lyrics are indeed the centerpiece, with the irrevocable passing of time being the prime thread that connects Tyler's varied thoughts.  After listening a few times, I'm most struck by a feeling of immediacy, the sense that now is the imperative time for action, whether it's to get out of "A Place I Used To Know," to stop the clock in the title track, to continue moving "To Keep From Growing Old," or to cut the shit and get back to the things we really care about in "This World Is Moving Slow."  Tyler for the most part avoids cliché when dealing with these topics, and overcomes their familiarity to the listener with an earnest emotional authenticity that always shines through.

Of course, melody and hooks never hurt.  Moments like the transition from the chorus "home" to the bridge "home" on "This World Is Moving Slow" come at just the right time, and the restraint and simplicity of a chorus melody like the one on "When The Day Gets Lonely" transform and elevate a track that begins deceptively plainly.  While we're on the subject, one of my very favorite things about Tyler's recent work is his continuing musical relationship with his fiance, Erin Flood, whose harmony vocals blend with and accent Tyler's lead vocals perfectly, amplifying the emotional power and lifting less memorable songs like "Sweet Marie" with enhanced melodicism. 

Equally as exciting as Tyler's attention to songwriting and arranging craft are the places where he starts taking risks outside his established field, like when the breathiness gives way for a naked, strong high or low note in the vocals, or on unexpected songwriting experiments.  While the textured instrumental arrangements occasionally have me wondering if the same result couldn't necessarily be achieved with fewer sounds, a song like the moodily dark "Bang On Time" hangs on its hypnotic bassline, cavernous reverb and multiple guitars, while the album-closing "We Waited For Everything" successfully employs a dense arrangement that includes bells, pre-recorded voices, piano and spacious delay to enhance the song's dream theme with subtle psychedelic touches.  With today's proliferation of independent musicians and the ease of creating and distributing digital recordings, I often wonder what it takes for good music to finally reach mainstream notoriety--hearing songs like these, it seems like Tyler's starting to tap into even more methods that can distinguish him from the host of other Americana acts out there. 

I spend so much time looking for "out-there" artists that deconstruct our fundamental assumptions about music aesthetics that I can forget how equally rewarding more traditional music can be if the songwriting is crafted with minute and loving detail--I look forward to seeing where Tyler takes his rarefied craft with his next release.  For now, you can see him live on his solo tour around Oregon and Washington--I'll be at Nectar Lounge to see him this Friday!

Peter Lang - The Thing at the Nursery Room Window

One of the greatest title/cover art combinations I'm aware of...what exactly is that cursive smoke spelling out?

Especially considering the fact that the "American Primitive" genre of folk guitar was just over a decade old in the early 1970's, I think it's a testament to the depth of the stable of outstanding guitarists Takoma Records had assembled that each one managed to have a distinctive style and purpose.  While genre founder John Fahey wanted to communicate something mystical he discovered by examining the elemental essence of early blues players under a microscope and Robbie Basho strove to reimagine his guitar technique to communicate incommunicable mystical secrets, Leo Kottke and Peter Lang both seemed to be players first and composers second--musicians driven most by the joy of making beautiful sounds come out of their instruments.  While this is an important component to any musician's working life, I think vision is one of the elements that separates musicians who truly have something to say from those who are simply technically proficient.  What I find most interesting about Peter Lang's Takoma debut is the fact that it finds the guitarist at a developmental crossroads, growing past his pure technical roots into a territory with far fewer limits, determined only by his own compositional imagination.

According to the CD reissue's liner notes, Fahey told Lang that he was thinking (as a composer) in too small blocks of time and urged him to allow his pieces to stretch out a bit.  You can hear where Fahey's coming from on the opening tracks "Snow Toad" and "Muggy Friday," where Lang's formidable technique seems bent on making the finish line.  While his rapid fingerpicking audibly owes more to Kottke's style than Fahey's, Lang's approach is subtly idiosyncratic, with a nice emphasis on string bends and slides.  As the album progresses, though, we get to see the fruits of Lang's response to Fahey's critique--"Turnpike Terror," though only slightly longer, starts playing with dynamic and textural changes, utilizing space and strumming to take the short piece in several directions.  The marvelous "Bituminous Nightmare" stretches even further, flirting with much more dissonance, theme development and single note layering (for lack of a better term) that seems to be wholly Lang's trick. 

Though only a few of the songs here fully demonstrate Lang's growth as a composer, his playing is always beautiful, engaging, and (for my money) more emotionally compelling than Kottke's.  He proves himself an able slide player on "Wide Oval Ripoff," a capable balladeer on "Young Man, Young Man, Look At Your Shoes," and unafraid of lightning fast swing on "Quetico Reel."  Satisfyingly, though, the album ends on his most ambitious and adventurous compositions, the nearly 10-minute "Future Shot at the Rainbow," which further explores his penchant for overlapping single note lines to an almost baroque extent, unfolding and refolding a humbly beautiful melody with a real sense of journey abetted by judicious pacing and flow.  While Lang never managed a consistent output, his playing is always delightful and this album stands as one of the most enjoyable Takoma releases and a hopeful nod to the virtue of stretching beyond your comfort zone.

Get it here.