more late night listening

Kraftwerk’s debut record finds the core duo of Ralf and Florian deep in the heart of Krautrock experimentation. Four extended cuts feature the brittle coldness and abrupt sonic detours which were part of that still fascinating ‘70s German art-rock movement’s aural palate. For those that love that Motorik beat as exemplified by Neu! and Kraftwerk’s later AUTOBAHN (and also absorbed rather smartly into the Stereolab sound), well you can find some of that here. The total sum of the record’s duration is a far more abstract proposition, however. I’d be okay with Radiohead playing some future Super Bowl Halftime show if only for the miniscule chance that they’d decide to pull a cultural fast one and cover this record’s “Ruckzuck”: it’s got a great beat and you can dance to it.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME continues The Mountain Goats’ progression into the large, warm, unashamedly polished territory that is coming to define the 2nd or maybe 3rd “era” of John Darnielle’s work. As raw and startling as the early boombox stuff was (is), it’s really starting to feel that his more recent, more “pro” (sorry) albums are going to define this dude’s legacy for subsequent generations. But hell, he’s still got a long way to go. And the mutually beneficial relationship between the sound of Darnielle’s voice and the sturdy beauty of his lyrics continues: when he utters the line “I will do what you ask me to do/because of how I feel about you” in “Genesis 30:3” it gets me every time. As great a record about faith and humanity as I can think of right now.

Lowell Davidson’s sole recording, a 1965 trio date for ESP Disk featuring Gary Peacock on bass and the mighty Milford Graves on drums, is a major work in advanced piano studies. Davidson’s style is comparable to early ‘60s Cecil Taylor in its spikey determination to forge new paths, but his playing also rubs up against the great harmonists Monk and Herbie Nichols. There is higher density and moments of increased momentum on display in Davidson’s sound that when coupled with Peacock and Graves’s righteous refusal to even momentarily entertain the idea of falling into a trad piano trio accompanist role basically insures Davidson will never leave the margins of outsider jazz lore. Only recording one album doesn’t help matters either. Oh well. It’s there if you want it.

Can’t say that I’ve ever really been seduced by the sound of Sinatra. Sure, the stuff with Riddle is a major achievement, particularly when heard on a sweet hi-fi setup, but so much of the guy’s output inspires little else in me than the desire to chain smoke cigarettes and regress into outmoded social mores. Sorry. I kept hearing people speak highly of WATERTOWN however, often making comparisons to Scott Walker. And I’ve only listened to this a few times, but I feel it’s a good one. It may grow into a great one. It definitely has an open desire to engage a rock-era audience, though it never trips up and falls prey to ham-fisted attempts at being hep. There is a lushness and grandiosity that’ll certainly make fans of Walker and Serge Gainsbourg stand up stiff and salute. Did I mention it’s a concept album? No? Well, it is. An ambitious and, dare I say it, classy piece of work.

James Carr has been described at least once as the Syd Barrett of soul. “The Dark End of the Street” is his most famous tune, and while he was never considered a hit maker (seven of his singles made the R&B top 40, though), he’s justifiably legendary for the depth and range of his emotive abilities and for the focused uniqueness that defines his work for the Goldwax label. Carr excels in my ears at mid tempos, where he recalls the sturdiness of Otis Redding while never sounding even remotely like a rote copyist. The bands backing up Carr on THE COMPLETE GOLDWAX SINGLES are simply shit hot, landing in classic southern soul territory defined by Stax and Muscle Shoals, but with more modest recording circumstances lending the music a tougher, more garage-like feel. And frankly, there’s not a bad song in the bunch. Even a dangerous endeavor like covering the Bee Gee’s twee-pop nugget “To Love Somebody” succeeds. Every bit of James Carr’s retroactive status as a deep soul superstar is deserved.

Late night listening

Pere Ubu’s THE MODERN DANCE is one of the strongest and strangest debut records to ever lose record company money, a wild, weird, and tough as nails mixture of punk and experimentalism that could only have been birthed in the dark days of 1970s Cleveland: a little chugging, some misshapen dub, blown out tire rubber on the side of the highway, broken glass and synthesizer shrapnel, and frontman David Thomas as Dadaist ringleader. As intellectual and idiosyncratic a piece of punk rock that ever was, yet fiercely proletarian. Ground level stuff, dig?

And THIS IS DESMOND DEKKAR is as soulful a slab of island ska as you are likely to find. Slinky grooving with just the right amount of backbone, this stuff (at least for me) sounds best on warm and breezy summer days while lounging half crocked (or half baked) in a lawn chair imagining those big fluffy clouds are really smoke signals from giant invisible Indians. They’re trying to tell us something.

Certain recordings possess a greatness that resists being adequately expressed with brevity of language. They really must be heard, soaked up in real time, allowed to impact the mind and body with the totality of the sound, the inexhaustible and irresistible nature of the creative impulse, and THEN if you write 50,000 words on the workaday brilliance, the genuine offhand mastery of Sam Cooke tearing down the house LIVE AT THE HARLEM SQUARE CLUB (just one night among many), you might get lucky and land somewhere close to the ballpark of doing the record some serious justice. Two figures tower behemoth-like over the creation of soul music: Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. If you need a primer in the genius of Soul Stirrer #1, this will hand yr ass to you but good.

SCORPIO is a vital document of free-jazz in the late-1960s expatriates in France style (BYG/Actuel division), featuring three horribly under-recorded guys: session leader Arthur Jones on fiery post-Shepp-ian sax, Bob Guerin doing a sweet and loose variation on Jimmy Garrison stylistics on bass and Claude Delcloo splashing and slapping and skittering in a slightly (Sunny) Murray-like manner on drums. The trio mingles and melds minds in a very attractive fashion, setting the search-mode to simmer instead of full boil. Small group free-jazz is most often still about communication (in contrast to large group excursions where the objective is collective catharsis and wall pinning mania). SCORPIO holds much warmth and thorny beauty in its two grooves.

Bert Jansch was one of the prime UK folkies of the 1960s. His playing and singing deftly mixed toughness and prettiness, weariness and smoothness, and it’s no wonder the guy remains so revered by those turned on by the starkness of acoustic guitar and a nude voice. These are the assured initial efforts of a major artist. If you dig pre-psyche Donovan and don’t know Jansch, then you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle.

Some films watched and reflected upon (the nature of how this place works....)

TRIAD ELECTION is a fine piece of artful modern gangsterism from the Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To. A sequel to a film I’ve not watched, it holds up well as a stand alone work, though I look forward to re-watching this after acquainting myself with the original ELECTION. To’s style is tough, vivid, compositionally precise and focused on momentum: He’s an action director par excellence. I look forward to delving deeper into his work, the better to examine the recurring themes that are noted regarding his oeuvre.

Lucrecia Martel’s THE HEADLESS WOMAN is a prolonged meditation on class, allegorical in nature and perhaps difficult in its unconventional (lack of?) structure. The story presented here could work as a big-budgeted Hollywood suspense film, but in Martel’s hands it’s profoundly post-modern, a bit like Akerman and a touch like ‘80s Godard, but also with flashes of an almost Bunuelian sensibility. Yeah, this baby crawls to its conclusion, but it does so like a budding young genius in a colorful cloth diaper. Uncompromisingly major, it would work well in a double bill with Todd Haynes’ underrated and misunderstood SAFE.

Jim Jarmusch is one of my faves, maybe my personal tip-top American director post 1980 (his only real competition being Wes Anderson and Dave Lynch). THE LIMITS OF CONTROL continues his unabated string of mastery, and I found it to be a sweet little accidental bookend to Martel’s WOMAN, in that CONTROL feels sorta like a movie about a hit-man made in 2009 by Antonioni circa 1962, all the suspense beaten flat and replaced with studied deliberateness, ennui, and a predilection for the integrity and beauty of small gestures. All shot wonderfully by Christopher Doyle. Along the way, observations are made, characters arrive and fade out, and an agent of imperialism comes to the end of his foul journey. I love happy endings.

I think the strength of Jason Reitman’s UP IN THE AIR actually rests on the strong abilities of its cast, since the directorial style at work just largely looks (to me) like television. That look isn’t really a bad thing, since these days TV doesn’t really “look” “bad”, but I guess my point is that it seems “undistinguished”. Maybe I just need to see more Reitman. The bigger picture Re: AIR is how well acted and powerful its story is, how that story is complex and ambiguous in the way it tackles the subject of the alienating effects of life in late-Capitalism, and by extension how that alienation bleeds into every aspect of our personal lives. And, y’know, I’m not even sure if that’s what the filmmaker’s intended. With a stronger visual approach it could’ve been a flat-out masterpiece. As it stands, it’s merely great.

THE BOOK OF ELI, on the other hand, is drenched in visual stylization, with varying degrees of substantive achievement. As far as post-apocalyptic westerns go, it’s got some good things going on, but it also has some big plot holes, or maybe more specifically gaps. There are some fine shots courtesy of the digital Red camera, Denzel and Oldman are both very strong (Jennifer Beals, also), but overall it can’t shake being just slightly above average. The Hughes Brothers are capable of so much more…

Listening to the sounds of the recently departed: Chesnutt, Mitchell, Reatard, Howard, Pendergrass

One of Vic Chesnutt’s strongest attributes was his desire and ability at collaboration. And he seemed to have an unerring sense of just the right people to partner with in adapting his songs and shaping them into complete works that make his discography such a thick and hairy joy to absorb. AT THE CUT is the second of Vic’s team ups with Thee Silver Mt. Zion/Constellation records crew/Guy Picciotto, and it’s just as darkly folkish and moodily transcendent as NORTH STAR DESERTER. Sadly, there will be no more collabs, but the man’s music will provide endless rewards.

In addition to being a fine musician in his own right, Willie Mitchell sat in the producer’s chair at Hi Records and helped to craft some of the finest soul expression to ever hit vinyl: Syl Johnson, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright and of course the great Al Green, whose GETS NEXT TO YOU is not only a near perfect example of the Reverend’s soul testifying, but is also a major spotlight on how Mitchell worked at harnessing and directing the energies and artistry of such a galvanizing and uplifting vocal force as Green’s.

From one Memphis great to another, the soon to be deservedly legendary Jay Reatard, doing what he did best (IMHO), on SINGLES 06-07. The guy’s short and direct bashing was surely and unapologetically in the garage-punk tradition, but his sound also encompassed such wide ranging elements as bent pop ditties and synth-punk wig-outs. He had heaviness in abundance and more hooks than a goddamned bait shop. That a compilation of his singles could solidify and flaunt the feel of a fully realized album seems like a strong and fitting tribute to a guy who left us far too soon.

I tend to think that The Birthday Party get something a bit like short shrift in the histories of the whole global post-punk scramble, and when they are discussed it’s often to just spotlight the early career of Nick Cave. Yeah, Cave was of course a huge part of what made The BP such a zonked and brutal concern, but the truth is that Nick has always been beholden to the players that surrounded him, the late Rowland S. Howard in particular. PRAYERS ON FIRE may not be the best example of Howard’s dense and damaged guitar style, but it’s surely not far from the top. Raw and thrilling sounds.

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were fronted on their classic early ‘70s recordings by Teddy Pendergrass, a singer so emotive and simultaneously sure footed in his range that he spent a significant amount of time as certain discerning soul aficionado’s make-out maestro of choice. This is the group’s first LP from ’72, featuring the smash classic “If You Don’t Know Me by Now”, and the grooves in total are a fine testament to the sound of soulful Philly, and to the power of Pendergrass.

The confluence of great minds is more than just simple coincidence...

...don't you think?