For Against "December" (Chameleon, 1988)

Artist: For Against
Album: "December"
Release Date: 1988
Label: Chameleon
Genre: Indie-Pop, Dream-Pop, Shoegaze, Post-Punk
Mood: Intimate, Gloomy, Bitter, Wintry
Reminds Of: The Sound, REM, The Chameleons UK, Echo & The Bunnymen
What People Think: SplendidMagazine, PopMatters
Definitely Worth Buying: CdUniverse, RedSunRecords

Tracklist
1. Sabres
2. Stranded In Greenland
3. Svengali
4. They Said
5. The Effect
6. December
7. The Last Laugh
8. Paperwhites
9. Clandestine High Holy

Nebraska's lone entry into the dream pop world, For Against initially consisted of bassist and vocalist Jeffrey Runnings, guitarist Harry Dingman, and drummer Greg Hill. Dingman and Hill left after 1988's December to form the Millions, and they were replaced by Steven "Mave" Hinrichs and Paul Engelhard after a replacement lineup failed to work out. (Dingman later returned for 2008's Shade Side Sunny Side.) Since its inception, Runnings' band has consistently produced a drifting yet distinctly rhythmic sound, soldiering through the myriad alternative scenes of the '80s and '90s. With one foot in the British post-punk of Joy Division and the other in the gliding atmospherics of Kitchens of Distinction, For Against are treasured by shamefully few; geography and infrequent touring have not helped.

For Against's stark and chilling second album is their best, one of the most powerful dream pop releases of the late '80s. Harry Dingman's icicle shots of chiming guitars, Greg Hill and Jeffrey Runnings' agile rhythmic thrust, and Runnings' boyish (but every bit as forceful) vocals rarely combine for a less-than-riveting listen. With its fluid bass-and-drum punch and enveloping twists of guitars, December's most fitting reference point is the Chameleons' Script of the Bridge. Balancing the aggressive with the reserved just as well as its prime inspiration, December's nine songs float, skip, and roam with a level of immaculately-paced grace that can't be heard on most albums of the era. Runnings' anguished expressions of despair, resentment, and embittered bile hit with the same scythe-like precision of Bob Mould's best output -- in fact, given the atmospherics and complementary production at play (including the ideal amount of reverb), the songs are even more haunting than Mould's relatively pure-pop leanings. "The Last Laugh" is one of the first places to go for an example of the album at its best. After Runnings accuses a partner of giving him a nervous breakdown and pleads to get his life back, the song shifts into a dextrous tempo change that recalls the controlled jerkiness of post-punk's upper tier and spins catharsis back into fraught tension. At 36 minutes, December plays briefly but leaves the effect of an epic. Understated but full of ambition, it's a sticky trap. Though it was released on a respected label -- albeit one with limited distribution and exposure -- it's frustrating to think of how revered it would've been if it had instead featured a 4AD catalog number.

(source: AllMusicGuide)

“Deceptively boyish delivery…”

The Pop Group "Y" (Radar Records, 1979)

Artist: The Pop Group
Album: "Y"
Release Date: April 1979
Label: Radar Records
Genre: Post-Punk, No-Wave, Experimental-Rock, Noise-Rock
Mood: Dramatic, Intense, Cathartic, Literate
Reminds Of: The Slits, Sritti Politti, Public Image Ltd., Swell Maps
What People Think: AllMusicGuide, Boomkat
Definitely Worth Buying: Boomkat, Amazon

Tracklist
1. She Is Beyond Good And Evil
2. Thief Of Fire
3. Snow Girl
4. Blood Money
5. We Are Time
6. Savage Sea
7. Words Disobey Me
8. Don't Call Me Pain
9. The Boys From Brazil
10.Don't Sell Your Dreams

When The Pop Group first came onto the scene in late 1978 they were being hailed in the UK press as one of the saviours of rock and roll, and with good reason as the group's music made almost everything being created at the time seem old hat over night. The Pop Group's debut single "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" released in 1979 was an instant classic and one of the landmark recordings of the 1970's, it was a seething tense piece of aggressive funk/punk/dub/free jazz that demanded attention. It sounded like nothing in the world at the time of it's release and gave me the same feeling as when I heard Public Image Ltd.'s first single, it seemed to hint at endless possibilties for rock and roll. The B side "3:38" should also mentioned this was a pulverizing dose of mind-numbing dub that seemed to look ahead to Pop Group lead singer Mark Stewart's trailblazing work in the 80's with Mafia. A CD re-issue of "Y" in 1996 strangely omitted this great track from the release, WHY?
Anyway the original release of "Y" opened with a stick of dynamite called "Thief of Fire" which was the group at it's best, this is a blistering ride through the bushes of Viet-Nam highlighted by Simon Underwood's funk/dub bass playing, the twin Beefheart guitar attack of Gareth Sager and John Waddington, and Mark Stewart's shrieking "my face is on fire" vocals, Sager also provides some squealing saxophone in the song's mid section. I remember a Melody Maker piece on the group around the time of the release of this album where the band admitted to listening to loads of King Tubby and Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" while they recorded the album, which makes perfect sense.
The next track on the album is a very experimental piece called "Snow Girl" which is driven by some Cecil Taylor type piano, shotgun blasts of guitar from Waddington and Sager and gutwrenching bass slaps by Underwood, Stewart provides a bizarre but strangely catchy vocal. The next track is the truly frightening "Blood Money" which is a nightmare soundscape where Stewart screams bloody murder in the background, he seems to be screaming about spiders being all over his chest, he sounds like Damo Suzuki on that track on Can's "Tago Mago" where Damo seems like he's being tortured, the music on "Blood Money" is thrilling it's a real meltdown of all the instruments into one, Gareth Sager plays some sax lines that sound like the bagpipe wizard Rufus Harley.
"We Are Time" is my favorite track on the record and comes at you like a commando raid on your brain, this track is truly terrifying and singer Stewart sounds like he is coming out of his own skin, the guitar playing by Sager and Waddington is dazzling. The group then throws you a big league curveball called "The Savage Sea" this one opens with an almost melodic piano and it could almost be a Pop Group ballad!, Stewart is a little more restrained on this number, I think the piano part was nicked by The Teardrop Explodes on their great B-side "Window Shopping For A New Crown Of Thorns" and The Pop Group's influence can also be felt on the Teardrops other freakout B-side "Strange House In The Snow".
"Words Disobey Me" is another wildly experimental piece in the style of "Blood Money". "Don't Call Me Pain" opens with a sax riff that sounds like it is being played by Traffic's Chris Wood, on this one Stewart screams "Don't Call Me Pain, My Name Is Mystery" and who am I to doubt him, the song is wrapped up with a fine free jazz baching track. With "The Boys From Brazil" it's back to free jazz territory, again Sager's sax reminds one of Chris Wood while Underwood plays a great funky bass riff, the guitars collide with each other at the end and it is just plain awesome. The record finishes with a stripped down dirge called "Don't Sell Your Dreams" where Stewart sounds totally spent and on the verge of collapse, the musical backing is superb, full of space and it reminds me of the Pharoah Sanders group on "Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt" the guitar playing is full on Sonny Sharrock!, the record then just fades quietly into oblivion leaving you feeling totally drained.
After playing "Y" you wonder how the group ever hoped to top it, they never did, but their second album was great as well but just not as good as "Y", few albums are. The Pop Group finished in 1981 and splintered into groups like Rip, Rig and Panic, The New Age Steppers and most importantly Mark Stewart and Mafia, Stewart really carried the flame from the original Pop Group and much of his work with Mafia is on par with the best of The Pop Group yet his records have been totally ignored.
"Y" is the best place to start to get to know the music of Mark Stewart and company, in my opinion it's one of the most original and inspiring records ever made.

(source: Headheritage.co.uk)

"It was a very young attempt to mix up poetic, existensialist stuff with political yearnings. The idea of love as a revolutionary force-the way it kind of switches on a light, makes you hope for a better world..."

Television Personalities "And Don't The Kids Just Love It" (Rough Trade, 1980)

Artist: Television Personalities
Album: "And Don't The Kids Just Love It"
Release Date: January 1981
Label: Rough Trade
Genre: Post-Punk, New-Wave, Indie-Pop
Mood: Rousing, Witty, Boisterous, Freewheeling
Reminds Of: Robert Wyatt, Syd Barrett, Swell Maps
Definitely Worth Buying: Amazon, CdUniverse

Tracklist
1. This Angry Silence
2. The Glittering Prizes
3. World Of Pauline Lewis
4. A Family Affair
5. Silly Girl
6. Diary Of A Young Man
7. Geoffrey Ingram
8. I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
9. Jackanory Stories
10. Parties In Chelsea
11. La Grande Illusion
12. A Picture Of Dorian Gray
13. The Crying Room
14. Look Back In Anger

The first full album by Television Personalities, recorded after a four-year series of often brilliant D.I.Y. singles recorded under a variety of names, including the O-Level and the Teenage Filmstars, is probably the purest expression of Daniel Treacy's sweet-and-sour worldview. The songs, performed by Treacy, Ed Ball, and Mark Sheppard, predict both the C-86 aesthetic of simple songs played with a minimum of elaboration but a maximum of enthusiasm and earnestness and the later lo-fi aesthetic. The echoey, hissy production makes the songs sound as if the band were playing at the bottom of an empty swimming pool, recorded by a single microphone located two houses away, yet somehow that adds to the homemade charm of the record. Treacy's vocals are tremulous and shy, and his lyrics run from the playful "Jackanory Stories" to several rather dark songs that foreshadow the depressive cast of many of his later albums. "Diary of a Young Man," which consists of several spoken diary entries over a haunting, moody twang-guitar melody, is downright scary in its aura of helplessness and inertia. The mood is lightened a bit by some of the peppier songs, like the smashing "World of Pauline Lewis" and the "David Watts" rewrite "Geoffrey Ingram," and the re-recorded version of the earlier single "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives," complete with deliberately intrusive prerecorded bird sounds, is one of the most charming things Television Personalities ever did. This album must have sounded hopelessly amateurish and cheaply ramshackle at the time of its 1981 release, but in retrospect, it's clearly a remarkably influential album that holds up extremely well.

(source: AllMusicGuide)

“Can you hear this angry silence…?”

Frog Eyes "The Golden River" (Animal World, 2003)

Artist: Frog Eyes
Album: "The Golden River"
Release Date: 1 July 2003
Label: Animal World
Genre: Indie-Rock, Experimental-Rock, New-Wave, Post-Punk
Mood: Nihilistic, Manic, Angst-Ridden, Theatrical
Reminds Of: Destroyer, Captain Beefheart, 16 Horsepower
What People Think: AllMusicGuide, DustedMagazine
Definitely Worth Buying: InSound, Amazon

Tracklist
1. One In Six Children Will Flee In Boats
2. Time Reveals Its Plan At Poisoned Falls
3. Masticated Outboard Motors
4. Miasma Gardens
5. A Latex Ice Age
6. Orbis Magnes
7. Time Destroys Its Plan At The Reactionary Table
8. Soldiers Crash Gathering In Sparrow Hills
9. World's Greatest Concertos
10. Picture Framing The Gigantic Men Who Fought On Steam Boats
11. The Secret Map Flees From Plurality

It's unfortunate that imagination is so frequently seen as antithetical to sincerity. We expect personal truths and broad revelations from musicians, but we often expect these insights should be delivered through a mundane, relatable form of honesty. Sure, singers often borrow words, ideas and emotions from the experiences of others, ranging from friends and family to long-dead or non-existent cultural and historical figures. But these identities are almost always kept somehow separate from that of the singer, who in turn manipulates these secondary personas into acceptable personal statements and observations. Though Carey Mercer's voice is heard throughout The Golden River, the identity of the album's narrator always seems to be shifting and slipping. The album is less a work of cognizant storytelling than a fever dream. Personal and cultural memory bleed together, as Mercer spins fractured images lifted straight from the pages of Grimm Brothers fairy tales and Homeric Epics. And yet, nothing about The Golden River seems contrived or gratuitously literary: its otherworldly sonic and lyric richness is matched at every turn by the striking immediacy of Mercer's wide-eyed delivery. The result is a record every bit as stunning and imaginative as it is memorable and affecting, and one of the most unique and interesting I've heard in ages. "One in Six Children Will Flee in Boats" opens the album with a flimsy, strummed guitar figure that's immediately, strikingly overshadowed by Mercer's breathy gasp. Suddenly, a rich swell of guitar, drums, and keyboards evokes a grandiosity bringing to mind glam-era Bowie; Mercer captures the Thin White Duke's anthemic and melodic delivery, but couples it with a frenzied, grizzled intensity and the gruff, world-weary sensibility of Tom Waits. Mercer matches this intensity lyrically, singing "Over that ridge, a hunter lives/ Stake him out with broken gifts/ By the light, by the merry men/ Who gave his lives when he gave knives to children/ Raise him up, stake him up/ Grab the sun and drink his blood in cups!" Out of context, it may seem nonsensical, but the conviction with which Mercer sings renders it an unnervingly powerful image. After an ethereal instrumental break, "Time Reveals Its Plan at Poisoned Falls" plays up the operatic nature of Mercer's voice, as he rattles off funhouse mirror images of a royal court and hissed accusations of jealousy. Rather than simply sounding crazy, he conveys the doomed frenzy of a prophet. About halfway through the song, he sings as if possessed by the spirit of the monarch whose death he has forseen: "I'm the head of the queen/ I float around the night unseen/ And I know when to scream 'oh baby wake up!'" At a mere 1:29, "Time Reveals Its Plan at Poisoned Falls" is both a vivid fantasy and a desperate plea to return to consciousness and reality, a potent juxtaposition that Mercer hints at throughout the record. A procession of similarly strong songs follows, each one sonically rich and brimming with melody and imagination. Only "Orbis Magnus" temporarily shifts the tone of the record to one of unadulterated, introspective sadness. In a subdued mumble, Mercer intones: "You can have boyfriends, but not men/ You want your words to be penned/ There's women on the barge, on the waters that bend." Here, Mercer seems to embody the timeless trope of the lonely monster, his previous outbursts reduced to a barely-contained air of self-loathing. The Golden River closes with two of its strongest tracks. "World's Greatest Concertos" is a fit of gleeful self-destruction, as if Mercer has finally been driven mad by the images he has seen, shouting "Encapsulate the body and emasculate the body/ And hold the burning waters, the tubs of burning waters/ Holiday!/ The trees are bones and dipped in wazing burning cones and call a celebration/ The master's burnt in his burning station." Mercer's shrieking falsetto it segues into the sublime "Picture Framing the Gigantic Men Who Fought on Steam Boats", the most beautiful song on The Golden River and also quite possibly the most unsettling. The vocals are slightly more subdued here, cushioned by breathy backup singing provided by Carolyn Mark. Right before it ends, "Picture Framing" takes on a somber and ominous tone, as Mercer repeats, "I'll keep on sailing on/ Until the rosy-pink dawn," cleverly citing a Homeric epithet to suggest that his voyage will, in fact, never really end. It's a stunning moment of resignation, as the narrator accepts his place in this terrifyingly vivid fantasy world. This album seems to exist in a world apart from our own. From Melanie Campbell's insistent, simple, and often strangely cartoonish drumming to Carey Mercer's fantastical lyrics and overwrought delivery, The Golden River taps directly into your imagination, short-circuiting any traditional notions of what should constitute "sincere" and "emotional" music. These songs are the lost soundtracks to those frantic, epic dreams that you can never remember in their entirety, but stay with you for the rest of your life.

(source: PitchforkMedia)

“It is all about a world that is both idiosyncratically imagined and unsettlingly relevant...”

Erase Errata "Nightlife" (Kill Rock Stars, 2006)

Artist: Erase Errata
Album: "Nightlife"
Release Date: July 25, 2006
Label: Kill Rock Stars
Genre: Experimental-Rock, Post-Punk, Indie-Rock, Riot-Grrrl
Mood: Aggresive, Cathartic, Whimsical, Visceral, Menacing
Reminds Of: Deerhoof, Chicks On Speed, Le Tigre
What People Think: DrownedInSound
Definitely Worth Buying: BuyOlympia, CdUniverse

Tracklist
1. Cruising
2. Hotel Suicide
3. Another Genius Idea From Our Government
4. Take You
5. Dust
6. Tax Dollar
7. Rider
8. Beacon
9. He Wants What's Mine
10. Giant Hans
11. Wasteland (In...A)
12. Night Life

Political pundits, when discussing the United States in relation to the rest of the world, like to frame things in a particular context. We are in a post-9/11 world, where American citizens hoard duct tape and look for suspicious crop dusters, where we are at war, the powers-that-be deliberately confused and conflated the reasons for this war, and the most prominent members of the fourth estate long avoided asking important questions. A few musicians have taken to asking some of these questions in their own work, with mixed results. Erase Errata-- frontwoman Jenny Hoyston in particular-- has never shied from topical issues, though a direct route from expression to meaning was rarely taken. But, as President Bush has said so many times, things change. Back in the day (2001, to be exact), Erase Errata were a four-piece quartet mixing and mashing together all sorts of skronk and skree to create a glorious racket reminiscent of a no-wave group going for the new-wave brass ring. Hoyston spit out imagistic lyrical fragments in a fashion that mirrored the fret work of both guitarist Sara Jaffe and bassist Ellie Erickson, while Bianca Sparta rumbled across her drumkit. They recorded two albums, they toured, they kicked ass. But they hit a speed bum when Jaffe decided to leave the group to attend graduate school. Hoyston took over on guitar, and while the group temporarily experimented with a new (male) singer, the remaining trio decided to go it alone, and spent two years trying to rediscover and, ultimately, redefine themselves. The result of that search is Nightlife, a focused and more powerful version of the group's scattershot aesthetic. While it's not a drastic departure from previous works, this album finds the group marshaling their powers to cut to the quick both musically and lyrically. Previously, Hoyston's voice was just another off-kilter instrument, joyously bounding about the racket her bandmates created. Her fragmented musics, while still audible, were often subsumed either by the ruckus, low production values, or megaphone static. Now, Hoyston's words are exacting and precise, and her voice is front and center. Eli Crews and especially Chris Woodhouse (a producer for the A-Frames) deserve credit for getting the new Erase Errata down on tape so successfully, working perfectly in tandem with Hoyston's lyrical approach. When she says “Yes, I really got away/ With murder, manslaughter/ All funded by my tax dollar,” or “They've got a law in the desert ...where everybody has a gun/ Everybody has a knife,” you hear what she's saying-- literally and metaphorically-- without question. Any advantages lost by Hoyston eschewing her trademark oblique phrasings are regained by the blunt impact of the words. In her most brilliantly simple moment, Hoyston gets monosyllabic on the lesbionic love song “Take You”. “I'm gonna take both of you/ To my secret cave,” she coos, subverting the clichéd caveman-dragging-girl image (and, by proxy, traditional gender roles) in multiple ways while the music behind her bangs and booms like rocks on logs. Even on more impressionistic songs like “Giant Hans” or “Cruising", Hoyston cuts to the quick. Hoyston's trumpet is also employed sparingly, but precisely-- it sets a mournful tone for the beginning of “Hotel Suicide”, and provides some recognizable bleats on “Another Genius Idea”. This less-is-more approach also applies to her work as a guitarist. While Jaffe played guitar in a showy fashion, Hoyston uses the instrument more often to accent the song with scrapes or brief squalls. Still, there are moments where she puts her foot on the monitor to shred, such as the Sabbath-like break in “Dust”. Nightlife, much more than the other Erase Errata records, is all about the rhythm section. If there's a guitar hero to be had on Nightlife, it's Erickson. Her off-kilter plucking and mangling, in tandem with Sparta's locked-down drumming, defines this album right from the beginning. It's to their credit that this mostly mournful or menacing-sounding album rises above its own morass. Sunshine and lollipops aren't in great supply when denouncing U.S. foreign policy or wiretapping programs, but the band's work on “Tax Dollar” and “Another Genius Idea” keeps the message from ossifying. Make no mistake, however-- there's a message to be had on this record, and it's hard to ignore. Erase Errata might not be as playful as they once were, but they're much better.

(source: PitchforkMedia)

"They've got a law in the desert / they've got a law to protect their children..."

The Birthday Party "Junkyard" (Buddha, 1982)

Artist: The Birthday Party
Album: "Junkyard"
Release Date: 1982
Label: Buddha
Genre: Post-Punk, No-Wave, Goth-Rock, Noise-Rock
Mood: Uncompromising, Hedonistic, Fiery, Unsettling
Reminds Of: Lydia Lunch, The Psychedelic Furs, The Stooges, Magazine
What People Think: AllMusicGuide
Definitely Worth Buying: Amazon, CdUniverse

Tracklist
1. Blast Off!
2. She's Hit
3. Dead Joe
4. The Dim Locator
5. Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)
6. Several Sins
7. Big Jesus Trash Can
8. Kiss Me Black
9. 6'' Gold Blade
10. Kewpie Doll
11. Junkyard
12. Dead Joe (2nd Version)
13. Release The Bats

The Birthday Party reached their peak with Junkyard. It soars on a pulsing energy that never fades. It is goth rock. Punk. Frightening rockabilly. Angular funk. Gospel and blues. Demonized cabaret lounge jazz. These and other styles collide in a gruesome, purposeless, and—above all—glorious spectacle. But the darkness in which this music dwells is entirely stable. It is confident at least. The album is mixed to emphasize the low end and the high end, with little mid-range. There are no compromises. The Thatcher-Reagan era has, in many ways, turned out to be the beginning of the end (or at least another milestone in the world's continued march towards an easily avoidable doom). Junkyard plays like The Birthday Party intuitively knew this. The slow groove of “She's Hit” reveals from the beginning that this group was more aware than most. They absorbed the maddening energy of the times, without becoming bound to them. Unlike the living dead of the world, who are modeled on an image of the past, The Birthday Party were in a state of regenerative flux, continually rebuilding decaying happiness. “Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)” is a sleazy literary come-on, and Nick Cave sings, “Where for art thou baby-face.” Still, the words come out more like a warning to a future victim issued too late. And yet, The Birthday Party can be trusted. Despite rubbing down and rubbing out simple hopes and pleasant dreams, the band's resolve is never spent. If something on this album doesn't arouse some in you, then might already be spiritually bankrupt. But at least you will wonder what you are made of. Barry Adamson guests on “Kiss Me Black” (filling in for the jailed Tracy Pew). His bass blasts to the forefront immediately with mangled tones that bend enough to engross listeners as much as whole songs or albums often do. Matched with Cave belting out, “Hey hey hey hey,” the song reveals no intention of relenting. The song is a small representation of all the band was. Easily the most important band to ever emerge from Australia, The Birthday Party later disbanded after recording a few EPs but no other full-length albums. While there is a saying about wicks that burn brightest burning the shortest, that quip doesn't quite capture what The Birthday Party were about. They were a black hole that sucked life and the universe into a seeming nothingness. What that leaves us with is anyone's guess. In a black hole, no known laws of nature apply.

(source: rateyourmusic.com, user: azuege)

Incredible heat, amphetamine madness....