Nico • The Marble Index (Elektra, 1969)

I had reason to return recently to the Burrough of my birth. A long time associate has taken ill and is in the hospital. Traveling to the Crab Nebulae is easier, even if it does require a bone marrow replacement upon re-entry. But not complaining (at least not to my associate) I went...
As he lie in repose I could not help but marvel anew at the revaluation I had upon seeing a family member in the same state - everyone looks so small laying in a hospital bed. It's as if the body prepares for the final act of disappearance...

My associates distress is a mere infection of the leg and he'll be out in no time, so there isn't any need for worry. yet his recovery almost cheats the idea of a medical facility. While it is true they bring life into this world, spend enough time on Earth and they eventually become a repair shop. The flesh falters - life, eventually it'll kill you...

After my visit I had taken opportunity to walk around Downtown Flushing...How much has changed, and sadly not for the better. Where once eldritch buildings stood reflecting an amalgam of styles - Victorian through Art Deco, now everything has pretty much become just another shopping district where every building a glass box better to show off the merchandise residing inside. How sad that the RKO Kieth's sits a rusting mass. If a building could be said to be in a coma and kept on life support, this is it. With not enough potently commerce from it's rehabilitation, there it lies in state. The once grand marque now skeletal, glinting in the Autumn afternoon, as a anti beacon at the end of Main Street.

When one finds themselves in this mood of despairing nostalgia mixed with marvel what does one do? Well, since it's downtown Flushing you go get a roast pork bun, only to find that even that the place you bought them from is gone too...

Little did I remember what I had on my iPod that day. On the train ride in I was listening to various 45's and the Tea Company LP, by the time I reached the Hospital the last song was done playing; Make Love Not War with it's liberal cribbing from Help!. When I had left my associate the first notes I hear come through the earphones are that of a heavy piano chord, followed by airy celesta tones. The Marble Index's brief prelude was playing, clearing all that came before it.

The eight songs that follow occupy a unique space. On Nico's second album she abandons the folk rock approach of her first (Chelsea Girl). That album always sounded like a lesser extension of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And why not? Half of the songs there were written by either Reed or Cale, and the Velvets minus Mo Tucker often supply backing. On the Marble Index it's as if Chelsea Girl never existed, or could have even been done by the same person. The songs are all written by Nico and it is like she's invoking a Psychedelic Dark Ages. While Judy Collins or Odetta were updating sea shanties, Nico was delving deeper to Europe's past looking for melodies from the Black Plague.

Over Nico's simple harmonium sea saw style of playing, John Cale layers on musical accompaniment that at times are at odds to the quiet songs. On Lawns Of Dawn, the song is a example of Catatonia - repetitious lyrics that make little sense when repeated out loud are bathed in all forms of studio trickery. The quiet Celestia, deep tremolo bass, something that sounds like a slowed down Crows caw, slightly rhythmic slapping all swirl around her, sucking you down the Rabbit's hole. For a record recorded during 1968 and released almost a year later, nothing sounded even close, there just isn't any president. There were a few downer records released before it; Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation, HP Lovecraft's II, or even Pearls Before Swine's Balaclava, but almost as if out of nowhere is The Marble Index. It would take the 1980's Goth movement to utilize the sounds trail blazed by Nico and Cale, the melding of Slavic song form with Fluxis playing.

But before it can all be surmised as just proto art music for future generations of depressed teenagers, there is a deceptively simple song called Frozen Warnings. Nico's voice, surprisingly
strong when singing her own compositions is accompanied by layers of Cale's treated viola and organ. Building along the lines of minimalism, going from low C to high, it becomes a moment of clear beauty and respite in a often rewardingly harsh listening environment.

Please click on the review title for selected track: Lawns Of Dawns

Rudy Ray Moore • 1927 - 2008

Get the hearse warmed up, there's one more for the bone yard...
I first became aware of Moore sometime in the mid 1990's. Then - like now, I was going through a bout of unemployment. In that loafing time I was fortunate to have free time and access to a VCR through a then associate.
Kim's Video had just opened a branch at the former site of the Saint Mark's Baths. The 3rd floor of that former Bacchanal indoor pool was given to video rentals. At this point of the 1990's the gates of obscuria were creaking open. I often equate this to convergence of two events; CD production was becoming cheep, and almost everyone had a computer. Information was beginning to be freely shared. As so often when ancient knowledge is played with there are some down sides - fungoid entities with indefinite body shape are invoked resulting in their attempting to reclaim the Earth, or diseases that normally would only cause blindness in lampreys is modified to attack foreign peoples, such malfeasance is tempting.

It was in this proverbial Library of Alexandria that while paroozing through the Blaxploitation video isle loaded with titles I had only heard of, my eyes came upon one that made my mind stop in it's paces; "The Human Tornado".
Pulling out the box I had no reason to read the blurb on the back. The grainy photocopied cover with passable artwork was all I needed to know. There depicted was a stiffly drawn middle aged black man his fist caught in mid air swing, bad guys and their cars strewn in the air, buildings breaking apart, my eyes were on fire! It then dawned on me...this was the often spoken with absolute reverie...Dolemite...

I immediately paid the rental fee and brought it back to my then associate Mrs. D. We sat in jaw dropping awe as Dolemite Kunk-Fu'd in his tacky polyester pants, read dialog as if he just learned it that morning, destroying all logic going from scripted sentence to rap, and had no shame in exposing his person naked while in bed with a woman half his age. This one love making scene brings the roof down...literally...along with the walls and the floor.
This was heaven - true Mrs. D and I had seen Soul Cinema before, but there was nothing like this. Adding to that what were the odds that this was playing anywhere outside of Newark or Watts.

About the time of this discovery, Moore seemed to be having a career revival. There were small roles in low budget movies, ie: Bapps, and a return to live dates on the East Coast. By then when he was remembered there was the usual lip service that he was the God Father of rap. Absolute hogwash...Moore's humor while at it's base is blue, concurrently it was free of meanspiritedness, something that raps practitioners are proud of.

On one of Moores east coast dates he plaid Maxwells in Hoboken. How could I not go? As often the case seeing a legend coming out of retirement one is shocked as to how old the famous become. And there he was, on Maxwells small stage performing like someone's dirty Grandfather, admitting to his age (or at least around it), still sharp as in youth. Every raunchy line intact - no doddering around, no fumbling. Best of all he eschewed the urge to update his act. Jokes had clear beginning's, middles, and ends. It was all Borscht Belt via the Chitin' Circuit. Like so many other smaller performers he had a merchandise table set up. Besides posters and CD's there was the Official Rudy Ray Moore Back Scratcher, with extra reach...for your nuts...

The second time I had seen him was at the Lakeside Lounge, located on the Lower East Side - and regretfully in the year or so from the Maxwells gig the ever insatiable hipsters had elected him the must know of the moment. There was little if any give and take with the audience. Buy now he was regarded as an animatronic museum piece. His performance was still as sharp as before, but the crowd wanted the wild man of the 70's movies, and when presented with Moore sans Kung Fu and multiple camera shots, lost interest. There was a intermission leading to a second set, and growing weary of the room I elected to just catch him the next time he came to town. I don't believe he ever played here again...

So Rudy, as you leave this sometimes humorless mortal coil and travel stellar I bid you farewell. Confident that you will suffer no "Rat soup eating Motherfuckers" anymore.

Please click on the obituary title for selected track: The party goes on, part 2 - Crack me some nuts / Grow by the minute

Beaver & Krause • In A Wild Sanctuary (Warner Brothers, 1970)

It's a quiet Sunday. Outside the air is occasionally punctured by the cries of a child playing...odd though, no one else seems to be joining in...I'm reading the paper online, amazed how long the Presidential  campaign has lasted...it seems so 2007...and while this day lazily moves from one side of the sky to the other, playing in the background is Beaver & Krause's In A Wild Sanctuary.  This is what I was attempting to listen to when the next door neighbors went about their dally routine...I guess on Sunday they play pretend behave for the Lord.

Beaver & Krause will be readily known to those who read album liner notes. 

In the late 60's any record that had a Moog on it most likely was played by either Paul Beaver or Bernie Krause.  For a quick reference play Star Collector by The Monkees and you'll have the concise Beaver & Krause play book. But where other players using the Moog were interested in either mimicking regular instruments or creating far out sounds without any restraint, B&K had a sort of organic approach. There is a warmth to their choice of timbre, which came most likely from their excursions in field recording. This is used to great effect on Walking Green Algae Blues. Sounds of animals in residence at the San Francisco Zoo are treated and used as backdrop to a slow Chicago Blues riff. I normally detest when blues riffs are used, it just seems so easy. Yet the reason why it works here is the laconic of the playing allows the nature sounds to take center place.

There is a theme prevalent to In A Wild Sanctuary; contrast and similarity. Side one is devoted to electronics. The opening track the only one with a back beat, from there on its floating music that never gets soft. A happy balance is struck between melody and sound. Stately church like hymns are wrapped in  spacey electronics. By the time side two comes in with a cheeky take on Thus Spake Zarathustra, heralding the new focus; electro acoustic sound and rhythm. The electronics work now behind a band (like that mentioned in Walking Green Algae Blues), or are abandoned all together.  There is a somewhat suspicious sounding field recording done in Peoples Park. It's just a little too clean, but if it really is a live take done on the outside then B&K's studio prowess were quite formidable.  Just about finishing up side two is a spoken word piece over a bed of proto industrial music, people saying the word war with all forms of contempt and incredulity. The final track is back to the electronics of the first side, but this time with a brief contemplative tone poem. After all, someone said war, you know those things aren't fun...

Please click on the review title for selected track: So Long As The Waters Flow

NON • children of the black sun (Mute Corporation, 2002)

Lifting up a rock one day, I was fascinated anew to see how various forms of arachnid live so closely  huddled together...keeping cool in the feted dampness...coming home, and hearing the South of the Border ommp pah pah music obscenely bleeding through my walls, I realized that another type of collective was near...and lucky me, I didn't have to bend over to reach that rock...

So what does one do when their neighbors cultural low IQ makes it self known? Surely you just can't sit idly by...wishing to escape, and thinking of the lovely dark matter void that is space, I put on Beaver & Krause's "In A Wild Sanctuary". For as much as I love that recording, it just wasn't doing the trick. The electronic tones were way to ethereal to overcome my next door idiots...what does one do...

While standing in front of my CD collection, my minds eye brought up images of Triumph Of The Will. I had it, NON! If there was ever music for a non specific Reich, this was it. 

Most of NONs output is abrasive tape loop music, with sources coming from the most innocent of places; Girl Group records, Children records and the like. It seems that after his collaborations with Douglas P., Boyd Rice has started to get more musical. The result is a Teutonic mood music. Pick any movement that has matching uniform and architecture, and Boyd is now supplying the score. It's a locked grove take on Wagner. Slowly played instruments mixed to sonic homaging quoting the best of any opera -  the death scenes. 

After the opening tack with it's lilting harp, it becomes a showcase for heavy echo and reverb. In this sludge you have a hard time distinguishing the violins from distorted guitars, or even the marital french horns. So engrossing is this music that I can barely tell if my next door dunces are continuing their day laborers holiday...by the time Fountain of Fortune drifts in, with it's bed of treated choir loop and burning sound (or is that water?) I can barely tell...but then again, my minds a million miles away, and I'm sitting on the front porch of either a bunker or plantation...I really can't tell...but it's oh so peaceful here in the deep south of Bavaria...

Please click on the review title for selected track: Black Sun       

sunn 0))) • 3: Flight Of The Behemoth (Southern Lord, 2002)

Pure unmitigated nihilism...low frequency drones layered on its self, band members dressed as cartoon Heavy Metal monks. This is the Dream House over run with thoughtful knuckleheads, this is the beauty of Sunn 0)))...everything here smacks of intellectual put on. As the old saying goes, is you can't laugh at yourself, someone will do it for you. They escape the trappings of attempting to be the heaviest band on earth by taking the art route. 

Heavy Metal when striped of it's inept vocals is often not too far from drone. Perhaps there are more changes involved and it's played a little faster, but that most likely is because the musicians are coming from pop sensibilities. By now, thanks to the Internet, anyone with a little free time can track down the nearly hidden work of Charlemagne Palestine. Marry that sound to a bunch of guys who love Sabbath, Venom, St. Vitus, et al, and you have Sun 0))). Added to the assault is noise master dilettante Merzbow for remixing of two tracks.  

There is a lineage to the post rock bands of the 1990's, Jessamine or Experimental Audio Research come to mind, with the use of over amplification and artful sludge. But here the proceedings aren't as polite, and it's wrapped in cheep polyester Satan's robes.

Please click on the review title for sample track: Death Becomes You     

Alan Sorrenti • Aria (Harvest, 1972)

Haunted toy shops...most annoying of places...Jack In The Box's saying over and over again "I'm going to kill you"...the reason for this annoyance is once the logistics become clear, unless they are going to rip themselves out of the box and sprout little legs where the spring should be, nothing is going to happen...I remember this one establishment in West Virginia, I believe it was in Doddridge County. It seems the Skin Walkers infested all the inanimate objects, as they are want to do. Betsy Wetsies were heard to moan "Fuck me Daddy" to real fathers, fully embarrassed, brows damp with sweat, trying to steer their daughters past the plastic Lolita's. 

While in this store, I came face to face with a Noddy doll doing his best Arthur Brown. Shrieking away, proclaiming he was the God of Hell fire...well that's what I thought he was saying...after all he was speaking in some spirit world tongue...come to think about it, he could have been doing a mean Alan Sorrenti impersonation...

Sorrenti's first album "Aria" on initial listen could be easily dismissed as a pale Kingdom Come, or Van Der Graff Generator. You would only be partially wrong. There's no electric guitar in sight and the songs employing long form, but short of flashy playing.  The most shine given is supplied by Jean Luc-Ponty guest appearance. On the title track Sorrenti is in company to Arthur Brown's cackle and the sneer of Peter Hammil. But because Alan's voice doesn't have the full theatrics of Kingdom Come behind him, it seems almost lost in the mix. This also may be due to my not understanding of Italian. I'm sure that something dramatic is being sung. The music while not as heavy as the cover graphics suggest, does often turn on a dime, going from pastoral playing to cosmic bombast. 

The second side is broken up by relatively shorter numbers. Somehow, it's from these songs that a single was selected. I would love to hear how these were pared down to fit a 45. Like side one, everything is in a state of flux.  

As I wrote earlier that off hand he could be dismissed as a pale imitator, but that would be unkind.  There is a high strangeness factor that elevates this to note worthy. The whole album, and certainly the title track gives the feeling of a opera, but without the heavy handedness that usually happens when rock is welded to classical. 

Please click on the review title for selected track: La Mia Mente

Dead Can Dance • The Serpent's Egg (4AD, 1988)

What to do, what to do...a man with free time is a dangerous thing...all sorts of odd notions can be acted upon...using this (regretfully) open time, I found my self at http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/

Fascinating read,that website. It amazes me how stupid humanities mind can be...the evidence is there...but then again, if the United States is unlucky, we'll pretty soon have our first woman President convincing us that the earth is only six thousand years old...

So with a mind full of mysteries, my tastes this afternoon brought me to the Dead Can Dance's masterpiece; The Serpent's Egg. In the history of Goth Rock, nothing sounded like this. Where other bands attempted to emulate the sound of non specific eon old rituals using cheesy synths and drum machines (I don't recall hearing Roland 800's during the wild hunt), the DCD perfectly invoke the mood. Perhaps it is by this point they were using strings and brass, and more importantly, the compositional talent to not be a 101 String Orchestra version of Joy Division. Where most 4AD and alike bands thought that playing in a minor key was all you needed to sound heavy, the DCD had scope to draw on Popol Vuh and Ennio Morricone.
The air of catharsis hangs heavily on the album. You are always somewhere between dawn and dusk. Either the funeral has begun, or the corpse has come home to comfort the aggrieved. This state is the most exquisite of horrors. Thinking back to the Mars Anomalies site it is just a mater of time before people get the idea that something is happening up there, that there is life on Mars. What will happen when everyone figures this out? Will there be planet wide panic since God has lied and there were others beside us, or resolution. The pressure is off since we're not that special after all...

Please click on the review title for selected track: Severance