The Fall - The Unutterable

It is a bit of a curse to be prolific and have a career of longevity. Most long-standing prolific artists churning out albums left and right have records that vary in quality. Worse still, many of them might simply run out of ideas and lapse into mediocrity after the amount of classic albums that could be counted on one or two hands. It's a rare thing when 20+ years after your debut, a band is still capable of being an outstanding musical unit and also relevant. The Fall is one of those bands. On The Unutterable, released in 2000, band leader Mark E. Smith proves that with his trademark sarcastic and biting song texts as well as his unmistakably distinct powerful sing-speak snarl, he's still the underground rock personality par excellence he has always been. And the music is very good as well. There are synthesizers and other electronic embellishments on this record, that contribute to the dark, dense sonic picture of the band. Standout tracks include "Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun" that starts out with an odd slice of techno, but then transforms into a sludgy slow-burning rocker. Then there's "Dr Buck's Letter" with Smith's surreal and witty musings set to a haunting amalgam of droning guitars and menacing electronic rhythms. Aside the more experimental quirks, several tracks like "Two Librans", "Sons of Temperance" and "Hands up Billy" rock out really hard, while "Hot Runes" is one of the Fall's rockabilly-inspired numbers. With its crunchy guitar work, driving rhythms and brain-searing electronics, The Unutterable is a late-period The Fall classic that never fails to deliver a healthy dose of abrasive sonic density and it also manages to sound like a memorable musical experience.

At The Drive-In - Vaya EP (1999)

Before At The Drive-In recorded Relationship of Command (2000), they did the seven-song Vaya EP a year before. On this record, the band delves quite deeply into of experimentation, adding psychedelic, jazz and dub influences to their post-hardcore noisy indie rock core sound. Right off the bat, the EP kicks off with "Rascuache" that features time changes, dub percussion and a bit of jazz tinge along its trademark guitar attack and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala's passionate screams. "Ursa Minor" shows ATDI at their most angular with their dissonant heavy-duty guitar attacks with subtle electronics lurking underneath. There's still a bit of traditional punk/indie sound on this record and it seems that this EP would be the best indicator of the creative tensions between Bixler-Zavala, guitarist Omar Rodriguez and the rest of the members, the former favoring experimentation and eclectic arrangements and the latter favoring more straight-ahead rock/punk/indie sound. While musically the arrangements showcase an intelligent and inventive kind of a post-hardcore group and some of the songs like "198d" rank among the best melodic ATDI numbers, in retrospect one gets the feeling that a band as talented as ATDI never really managed to stabilize into a harmonious, self-sufficient unit. It seems no wonder that after Relationship of Command, ATDI would disband and split into Sparta and Mars Volta. Nonetheless, Vaya shows ATDI at their most daring and as such, the EP is a very impressive effort.

Elton Dean - Just Us

The late Elton Dean was the most free-jazz oriented principal Soft Machine figure ever. While he was pushing his parent band into the according direction in the early seventies, he recorded his first solo album in 1971 that is something of a lost classic. It has some affinity to the avant garde jazz orientation of the fifth Soft Machine album and thus, it's easier to judge it on its own merit for those who refuse to take post-Wyatt Soft Machine music seriously. With the dread of the bastardization of Soft Machine's moniker out of the picture, we can appreciate this Elton Dean jazz group album for what it is: an early seventies British avant-garde jazz album, and very good at that. It does, though, feature many Softs alumni or formally connected people: besides Dean himself on alto, saxello and electric piano, there are Marc Charig (cornet), Nick Evans (trombone, on bonus tracks), Roy Babbington (acoustic bass), Phil Howard (drums), Neville Whitehead (el. bass, he played on Robert Wyatt's almost similar solo album End of an Ear) and Mike Ratledge guesting on electric piano and organ.

The similarities between this album and Soft Machine's Fifth are apparent, most notable example being the 15min album opener "Ooglenovastrome" that, after 5 minutes of free playing, picks up a groove reminiscent of "Drop" from Fifth. Hearing more Phil Howard drumming than is available on few recordings from his stint with the Machine (1st side of Fifth plus a Peel Session from November '71) is a real treat as well. However, Just Us is more about free-spirited improvisation as opposed to the cold, almost Weather Report-ian clinical minimalist ambiance on Fifth. This album also provides a studio version of "Neo-Caliban Grides", a setlist mainstay for Soft Machine during the Fourth era. The Cuneiform reissue also offers 2 live bonus tracks from 1972, "Banking on Bishopsgate" and "Fun Cup".

Just Us is a recommended item to the music collection for anyone interested in either improvised free-jazz music, solo works by Soft Machine alumni, particularly that of Elton Dean, hearing more drumming by under-rated Phil Howard or for all of the above reasons.

Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People

Compared to Rock Action that added varied instrumentation and vocals to the mix, Mogwai scales back to the more classicist post-Godspeed You Black Emperor styled post-rock style for Happy Songs for Happy People. If there are vocals, they are either vocoderized or buried low in the mix. "Hunted by a Freak" with its vocoderized song manages to be quite evocative, some of the slower and shorter songs sound inspired by Spiritualized, such as "Moses? I Amn't" and "Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep" (the only track with non-vocoder vocals). For a good dose of classic quiet-loud dynamic based instrumental rock, look no further than "Killing All the Flies" and "Ratts of the Capital". Usually this is a very introverted and quiet album, sometimes quite lovely (like "Kids Will Be Skeletons") but occasionally a bit dull. Newcomers might want to check out Rock Action, but those who like the second wave of post-rock (that is, the variation of the genre based on brooding instrumental guitar rock with quiet-loud formula) might dig this one as well.

Blonde Redhead - Melodie Citronique EP

Melodie Citronique by Blonde Redhead is essentially a companion EP to the full-length 2000 release of Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons. As such, it's an interesting effort, featuring different versions of several album cuts, and most of the pieces are sung in either Italian or French. "En Particuleur" is virtually the same as "In Particular", but with a different mix and edit, and in French. "Odiata Per Le Sue Virtu" is "Hated Because of Great Qualities" in Italian with Kazu Makino's surprisingly sexy delivery in that tongue. The highlight however is an original called "Chi è e non è", a rare excursion to folk-rock territory and one of the best songs featuring Amedeo Pace on lead vocals. The rendition of Serge Gainsbourg's "Slogan" is a surprising, but then again expectedly logical, send-up of Stereolab style circa Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Expected, because Serge Gainsbourg was a heavy influence on The Lab, but it was recorded at the In Expression of the Inexpressible sessions, when BR was still firmly in their noise-rock phase. The track ends with dub-inspired percussion and effects. Closing track "Four Damaged Lemons" is a Third Eye Foundation remix of "For the Damaged", which does sound similar to the album version, but with electronic embellishments that predict Blonde Redhead's subsequent reliance on sundry electronic flourishes with synths, drum machines and other devices. This overlooked EP showcases a whole lot different, a more esoteric, more cosmopolitan still, side of the Blonde Redhead.

John Coltrane - Olé Coltrane

The final John Coltrane album for Atlantic Records, Olé Coltrane consists of three tracks, one of them side-long. "Olé" is very close in spirit to Coltrane's own rendition of "My Favorite Things", as both take on popular forms of music and twist them through the lens of meditative, almost drone like avant-garde jazz. Like Coltrane would for "My Favorite Things", he plays soprano saxophone here. And when Eric Dolphy (here credited as George Lane for contractual reasons) was in Trane's band, he'd play flute for both tunes. Here he is the first soloist as he delivers a short but sweet solo, followed by a sourer trumpet outing by Freddie Hubbard. There are two bassists on the album, one of them playing lead bass while accompanied by the rest of the band.

"Dahomey Dance" is a lot more straightforward jazz number, featuring a very delicate horn heavy head followed by vague blues vamp where hornmen - Trane on tenor; Hubbard on trumpet and Dolphy on alto sax - get to solo, followed by McCoy Tyner on piano. The pianist contributes "Aisha", a lot more composed tune, a slow soft ballad, with understated brush work from Elvin Jones and some worthwhile leads from Hubbard and Dolphy. A very strong effort.

Stereolab - Sound Dust (2001)

On Sound Dust Stereolab retains the polished production of John McEntire and Jim O'Rourke as well as heavy arrangements and mellow textures of preceding albums. However, there's a lot less jazz influence than on either Dots & Loops or Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night albums. Instead, the bandleader and guitarist Tim Gane drew more heavily on the 20th Century classical and orchestral music, such as Gustav Holst, Olivier Messiaen and Philip Glass. Also, the vibe on this record is darker and gloomier, yet also more impressionistic and mysterious than before. Combining the more sinister chord and melody voicings with lush and orchestral arrangements results in music that, while being just as light on rock as Stereolab's previous records, sounds more unique than what Stereolab did before in similar vein.

The tone on this record is just as mellow and introverted as other John McEntire era albums, but neither is it all overtly lounge or jazz infused. Instead, right off the bat, the record opens with a short minimalist instrumental "Black Ants In Sound Dust" combining synthesizers, vibes and horns along with Laetitia's wordless voice in lower register into a sinister piece based on whole tone scale. It segues without warning into a nightmarish waltz as "Spacemoth" chimes in with eerie celeste, vibes, horns and woodwinds, creating an atmosphere that would fit in well into a low-grade horror movie. The song is made up of multiple parts and it soon segues into a hypnotic groove with angular bass lines and complex chord progression, as Laetitia sings in French about an ethnographic film made by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, ending with a groovy and energetic final part. This is one of the most complex songs Stereolab has recorded and one of the finest combinations of melodic writing and creative arrangements from the band.

While there is some lighter fare on this record as well, including High Llamas-ish loungy chamber-pop songs such as "Hallucinex" or obligatory nods to Tropicalia such as "Double Rocker" (which, to be honest, does not rock at all), they are not the highlights on this record. Songs like these sound decent, but also kind of forced and contrived and they seem to hold the album back in some ways. Out of the more poppy songs, the jaunty "Nothing To Do With Me" with lyrics borrowed from Chris Morris, is a highlight. Elsewhere, the song structures are a definite improvement over stodgy pseudo-jazz progressions of Dots and Cobra, featuring a lot of sectional and rhythmic changes, as many compositions switch into an entirely different sections. It was already hinted on previous albums, but it rears its head fully on this album. A highlight is a single called "Captain Easychord", starting out with a mid-tempo piano pounding groove, including a steel guitar dominated instrumental section, and then shifting gears into a robotic electro-pop groove with lush instrumentation. "Gus The Mynah Bird" fades in with an esoteric intro, then shifts gear into a waltz time lounge piece lamenting political corruption and then: midway into a sinister section made up of ambient electronics cum Philip Glass like organ triplets. For those into vinyl format, on the album's vinyl edition you can hear the intro full blown. It's a great piece of music that it's a shame it's left out from the CD. Sounds like Steve Reich remixing "SMILE".

"Suggestion Diabolique" is another long, near 8 minute epic on the record containing changes in tempos, sections and textures (keyboards, acoustic guitars, brass, clavinets), and ends with a creepy orchestral section reminiscent of Holst's "Neptune". It's remarkable how string arrangements are absent from the entire record and how symphonic the closing section manages to sound even without them. "Les Bons Bons Des Raisons" ends the record in a mellow ballad mode, but even there it manages to throw in tempo changes and it ends with a mellow jam with light percussion, dense keyboard layers and interlocking vocals. While not the best album closer, it still sounds different enough from the usual Stereolab fare.

This record can be difficult to get into. It's very different from anything Stereolab has ever done, even other McEntire era records. Compositions on this record sound either very lightweight, even if with busy arrangements, or very convoluted. This is not the Stereolab album for those who want something more immediate or edgier sounding. But compared to the other so called lounge-era (1997-2001) full length albums, this might be the most accomplished one of them all.