Cardiacs: Sing To God

CARDIACS: SING TO GOD (1996)

1) Eden On The Air; 2) Eat It Up Worms Hero; 3) Dog-Like Sparky; 4) Fiery Gun Hand; 5) Insect Hoofs On Lassie; 6) Fairy Mary Mag; 7) Bellyeye; 8) A Horse's Tail; 9) Manhoo; 10) Wireless; 11) Dirty Boy; 12) Billion; 13) Odd Even; 14) Bell Stinks; 15) Bell Clinks; 16) Flap Off You Beak; 17) Quiet As A Mouse; 18) Angleworm Angel; 19) Red Fire Coming Out From His Gills; 20) No Gold; 21) Nurses Whispering Verses; 22) Foundling.

If you want a really gushing, salivating, over-the-top-laudatory review of this record, go read this glowing account by Sam Shepherd, who either genuinely believes that Sing To God is one of the greatest records ever made, or must have been so heavily bribed by Alphabet Business Concern that all past and present members of the band should have been left penniless. Granted, the man is not alone in his judgement: the sheer sprawl, scope, loudness, epicness of the record was enough to convert many fans, and there is no denying that a huge mass of creative ideas and painstaking work was involved in its preparation.

I am, however, not impressed — at least, not from a general chronological perspective. First and foremost, if I wanted to make a case for Sing To God as the band's magnum opus in anything other than length terms, I'd need to see what sort of advanced level it represents. Has Tim Smith, on this particular occasion, managed to expand the borders in a clearly perceivable manner? Is he providing any new insights? Are the songs ostensibly improved since last time, or the time before last? I do not get that feeling; as far as I can tell, there may be more of them, yes, but they are still typical Cardiacs songs that share all of the Cardiacs' virtues and vices.

And honestly, with four well-produced, well-pronounced, idea-filled records under their belts, a double album that gives you the same old shit — no matter how complex and technically unpre­dictable that same old shit is (and, actually, at this juncture the Cardiacs' unpredictability is itself becoming almost boringly predictable), it is rather hard to go on being amazed by it. How many times can you shuffle a kaleidoscope (getting different results every time) before the process be­comes monotonous and irritating? The worst thing about Sing To God is: I have listened to it four times, all of its ninety minutes, and I was never once amazed or astounded — yet, clearly, like everything the Cardiacs did, this is an album that is supposed to astound you, and if it does not, and the magic does not work, then it is a failure.

Or maybe not; maybe the worst thing about it is how it presents itself as far more ambitious than anything they did before. From the pretentious title, to the pretentious opening (chimes! soft waves of electronic tinkle! choral harmonies! trying to find the perfect piano chord!), to the 22-track length, they do seem to be telling us, "this is the Cardiacs like you've never heard us before; this is the meaning of life in ninety minutes; this is our Lifehouse and SMiLE all in one, only we succeed where the ancestors have failed". And to me, it just sounds like one big senseless put-on: an album that's 100% style, 0% substance. The songs come and go, deconstructing and inter­mingling genres like bits of chopped liver, but never bothering to make a proper point.

It's not like there aren't any cool ideas — it's that the album suffers even more than its prede­cessors from excess, not knowing when to stop and explore the full potential of a good idea be­fore surrounding it with half a dozen mediocre ones. It's almost maddening: a tune like ʻDog-Like Sparkyʼ, for instance, which has a couple really cool, Sparks-style lines in the chorus, but they are always over before you can properly enjoy them, and on the whole, the song is just a quick suc­cession of different disconcerting tempos and time signatures that represent complexity for com­plexity's sake, and I will not pretend for a single moment that I enjoy any of it. At least a band like 10cc had some sense of measure.

When the band goes into fast-'n'-furious rocking mode (ʻEat It Up Worms Heroʼ, ʻFiery Gun Handʼ, etc.), they are not doing anything new, either, and they are not generating any true rock'n'roll energy, because it's all tongue-in-cheek, and because it can all stop and become a waltz or a ska piece or an oratorio at any given moment. These songs have literally no purpose other than masturbatory — oh how clever! this is punk, but this is not really punk! we'll let you figure out what it is, or, rather, let you wonder all about it until the end of your days, in stupefied amaze­ment never ending. But what if it is... nothing?

I mean, something like ʻDirty Boyʼ off the top of the second disc sounds like it's poised to be sung on top of Mount Everest, addressed to any of our alien friends if they happen to float by. With big, thunderous bass riffs, screechy lead guitar, wall-of-sound production, and a fin-du-siecle feel that could put Radiohead to shame, it could be the decade's biggest anthem... but there is one thing that it lacks: a killer chord sequence or vocal line that could be endowed/imbued with its own infallible meaning. But its lyrics are undecipherable, its vocals are neither triumphant nor lamenting, its atmosphere neither celebratory nor apocalyptic, neither friendly nor hostile. When it all comes together in the final "over and out!", with vocals artificially enhanced and stretched over at least a minute-long coda, I am almost inclined to fall under the song's mammoth spell, but some little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that I've been had, and I have a nasty habit of trusting that little voice.

Technically, we could discuss all the complexities and twists of the individual songs until dawn, with occasional detours into the area of mutual influence (ʻManhooʼ sounds like classic Blur circa ʻFor Tomorrowʼ, etc.) or self-admiration (ʻNurses Whispering Versesʼ is an old, old song from the era of shit quality cassette tapes — maybe that is why I find it the most memorable of all the tunes here?), but I do not believe it will do much good, because if there is a «strength» to this record, it is exclusively in its piecemeal nature. Dissect these songs and put them under a micro­scope and there will be no evidence of any significant musical discoveries, since all of these elements can be found scattered across a million pop, prog, and punk records. Tim Smith's sca­venging nature can be admired, yes, but even the seams are too crude, and ultimately, «dementia» and «narcissism» are the only generalizing terms that come to mind.

As of now, I tend to view this whole thing as the turning point where the Cardiacs lost their collective mind — not so much their SMiLE, really, as their Tales From Topographic Oceans, a record that has its sturdy army of fans, too, of course, so if excess and sprawl is your cup of tea, feel free to indulge. Maybe one day when I encounter somebody's positive description of the album that goes beyond trivialities like "oh, there's so much going on here, it must be great!" and actually tries to explain what about it is so great (particularly in comparison to earlier, more restrained Cardiacs albums), I will want to reconsider. Currently, I'm just bored to death, and the album gets a certified thumbs down.

Camel: I Can See Your House From Here

CAMEL: I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE (1979)

1) Wait; 2) Your Love Is Stranger Than Mine; 3) Eye Of The Storm; 4) Who We Are; 5) Survival; 6) Hymn To Her; 7) Neon Magic; 8) Remote Romance; 9) Ice.

Just by glancing at the album cover and title, you'd think that Camel's last album of the decade would be some sort of sci-fi extravaganza — maybe a Gargantuan tribute to the lonesome genius of ʻSpace Oddityʼ, or a Tangerine Dream-influenced escapade into cosmic ambience. Turns out that nothing could be further from the truth: the whole setup probably owes more to marketing strategies and Star Wars-era futurism-in-the-past than actual musical content. Instead, what you really get here is Camel's most mainstream and poppy piece of product so far, an album even more «commercial» in nature than Breathless, but hopefully we are all sufficiently grown-up here to not let this detract us from an objective and adequate assessment.

The sessions marked what was probably the single most significant line-up change in Camel history: the departure of Pete Bardens, temporarily replaced by not one, but two keyboardists: Jan Schelhaas, formerly of Caravan, and Kit Watkins, formerly of Happy The Man (so third-genera­tion prog they even named themselves after a Genesis song!). In addition to that, Richard Sinclair also left, replaced by Colin Bass on, appropriately, bass; and, although Mel Collins still blows his sax on a few of these tunes, he'd also quit soon after the sessions. And, as if that weren't enough, rumor has it that Phil Collins himself adds his percussion skills somewhere, but I could not locate any individual song credits, and I am too unworthy to take a guess.

Anyway, with all these major changes we might expect major musical twists as well, but, as it happens, the transition between Breathless and its follow-up is fairly smooth — probably be­cause already the former was largely dominated by Latimer, and it was that dominance that ulti­mately caused Bardens to throw in the towel. Here, too, almost all the songs are either written exclusively or co-written by Latimer; the only exception is the instrumental ʻEye Of The Stormʼ that Watkins brought over with him from Happy The Man, a moody, leisurely stroll that slowly takes on a bolero-like form while not producing much of anything, except for the intertwining crawling patterns of two synthesizers — "eye of the storm" indeed.

As you can understand, this is the most «progressive» bit on the album, although it is seriously challenged by the final track, ʻIceʼ, which is even slower, features just as many vocal bits (none), and is really used as a simple trampoline from which Latimer unleashes an epic guitar solo, again showing us how well he can challenge Dave Gilmour at romantic bluesy desperation (actually, I'd say that the typical romantic bluesy desperate Latimer guitar solo from the 1970s sounds like a later, rather than earlier, Gilmour solo — think Division Bell era or something like that). The mechanics of that emotional manipulation are well understood, but Andrew still manages to stay on the other side of cheesiness, with what I'd call «realistic» tunings and tones as opposed to extra-flash-and-pomp you'd encounter on, say, a Gary Moore record. Simply put, I'll never be capable of crying my heart out to the sounds of that solo — but I'd gladly recognize anybody else's right to do that.

Most of the other material is poppy, ranging from the opening Seventies-style hello-sunshine upbeatness of ʻWaitʼ and ʻYour Love Is Stranger Than Mineʼ to the more contemporary, New Wave-influenced ʻRemote Romanceʼ that sounds like 10cc trying to write a Cars song (granted, I probably made it sound more interesting than it actually is). Oh, and how could we forget ʻNeon Magicʼ, the very title of which probably dates the song to a specific period? Featuring probably the very worst vocal delivery on any Camel album ever, it's not a disco song, but still one of those dance numbers that supposedly sound like parodies of dance numbers and end up being... just dance numbers. It's one of those pitfalls that are so very hard to avoid when you're trying to carry out an intelligent, critically appreciated sellout.

There's even a sentimental pop song here disguised as a prog epic due to its length — 7:51 for ʻWho We Areʼ is overkill, possibly inherited from Caravan, who had also by that time completed the transgression to pop, but sometimes allocated unreasonable spans to their ballad material. The good news is that all this soft-rock stuff is quite catchy, and most of the songs breathe with a very natural gentleness, never spoiled by excessive operatic oversinging, abuse of orchestration or synthesizers, or any uncomfortably cloying moves. There might be a bit too many falsetto vocal harmonies, and, most importantly, there might be an overdose of sweetness, but even something as simple as "we were meant for each other, we will love one another" can be forgivable if it is arranged as a captivating earworm.

On the whole, the album is a bit of a letdown after Breathless: the band takes fewer chances and goes for a generally more cohesive and monotonous approach, making even their «proggier» titles more poppy and accessible. But from a purely melodic point of view, it actually shows Latimer becoming a certified master of the form — and for doing that with very few lapses of taste (ʻNeon Magicʼ notwithstanding), the record certainly deserves a thumbs up.

Alan Price: O Lucky Man!

ALAN PRICE: O LUCKY MAN! (1973)

1) O Lucky Man!; 2) Poor People; 3) Sell Sell; 4) Pastoral; 5) Arrival; 6) Look Over Your Shoulder; 7) Justice; 8) My Home Town; 9) Changes; 10) O Lucky Man! (reprise).

I am not a big fan of Malcolm McDowell movies, regardless of whether it's Kubrick, Lindsay Anderson, or, God help us, Tinto Brass at the steering wheel — there's just something about the guy and the kinds of scripts he is involved in, some sort of off-putting mix of hipness, ugliness, pretentious­ness, and shock value that I just cannot bring myself to enjoy. So it is hardly a surprise that as of now, I have not even seen O Lucky Man! (I have seen If..., and have no big wish to spend three more hours of my life on an Anderson/McDowell collaboration) — however, I am happy to say that you do not at all need to see the movie in order to be delighted by the sound­track, which constitutes a perfectly autonomous and self-sufficient Alan Price album on its own (actually, mini-album: the whole thing, unlike the movie, is over in a measly 25 minutes, because Alan, unlike most soundtrack composers, seems to have written precisely as much music as he knew could make it onto the final cut. Ever thought about how it must feel to write a 9-minute instrumental with only thirty seconds of it making it to the actual movie? Well, apparently Price managed to circumvent that problem).

Anyway, the reason why this thing works is because Alan wrote it as a sort of abstract conceptual suite on matters of everyday existence in contemporary England — ideologically, it reads like a Ray Davies album in the tradition of Arthur and Lola, and, for that matter, is far more impres­sive, musically and lyrically, than Davies' own rock opera Preservation from that same year. Most importantly, it is the album that truly announced the arrival of Alan Price, intelligent and talented songwriter with his own tale to tell. It did not sell much and yielded no hit singles (at least, not until 1987, when ʻChangesʼ was used to advertise Volkswagen Golf), but it nicely set the stage for his biggest commercial success with Between Today And Yesterday, and it still sounds fresh and exciting after all these years.

The music, as usual, is a somewhat conservative mix of British music hall and American R&B (more of the former than of the latter), almost completely ignoring the hottest trends of 1973: the only number here that does not sound like it could have been recorded in 1968 is the funk rocker ʻSell Sellʼ, which cleverly takes the aggression and frustration inherent in funk rhythms and wah-wah solos and channels it into a spiked-tongue condemnation of commercialism. At four minutes, it is the longest song on the album, as Price allows himself to stretch out a bit on an extended organ solo, but the groove is sharp and quite involving, even if the vocal hook owes quite a bit to ʻHarlem Shuffleʼ — then again, Price's composing skills should probably be described, in general, as «an ability to create interesting variations on other people's melodies», be it in the rhythm & blues paradigm or in the traditional pop one.

At least on ʻSell Sellʼ cynical words are matched by cynical-sounding music; on the whole, though, the album makes its living by contrasting bitter lyrics with pretty melodies — ʻLook Over Your Shoulderʼ, for instance, is a catchy vaudeville tune, replete with falsetto la-la's and stuff, whose ultimate message is "without that dream you are nothing... you have to find out for yourself that dream is dead". (La la la la and all that). ʻJusticeʼ, floating on a raft of quasi-Mexi­can acoustic guitar, states that "we all want justice but you got to have money to buy it" in the slyest possible tone and with the friendliest of atmospheres. ʻPoor Peopleʼ sounds a little like Billy Joel, but the good sort of Billy Joel when he is not being too full of himself and banality, but actually manages to combine humility with catchiness. And ʻChangesʼ, which is, in fact, based on ʻWhat A Friend We Have In Jesusʼ, states that "love must always change to sorrow, and everyone must play the game", declared with as much enthusiasm as a proclamation of faith in salvation and life everlasting.

And it all works fine, including a bunch of pretty instrumentals (the lyrical piano bit on ʻPastoralʼ; the quasi-progressive piano/organ interplay on ʻArrivalʼ) and two versions of the title track that rock harder than everything else and are a little reminiscent of poppier material by The Who like ʻLong Live Rockʼ. And best of all, you really do not need any movies to enjoy it — although, admittedly, it may be worth seeing the movie if only because Price is featured in it himself, playing the role of a Greek chorus providing commentary on the action. I'm happy enough to just have the commentary without the action, and give it a self-standing thumbs up.

Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (IAS #15)

I KNOW you never get tired of reading my streams of conscious on Bob Dylan, so here is this week's IAS update:

Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited

Cabaret Voltaire: Plasticity

CABARET VOLTAIRE: PLASTICITY (1992)

1) Low Cool; 2) Soul Vine (70 Billion People); 3) Resonator; 4) Inside The Electronic Revolution; 5) From Another Source; 6) Deep Time; 7) Back To Brazilia; 8) Neutron Factory; 9) Delmas 19; 10) Cooled Out; 11) Invisible Generation; 12) Soulenoid.

One thing I got to say in favor of those late-period albums by Mallinder and Kirk: at least they brought the darkness back. By the late Eighties, they had almost turned into a pretty shallow, pure-dance-oriented techno band, with just enough electronic quirks and smirks to be (sometimes way too undeservedly) classified as «acid house», but still taking the I out of IDM at every oppor­tunity. With Plasticity, they managed to at least partially revert the process, and return to making music injected with the proper paranoia virus — joining the club of dark-minded electronic wi­zards with a penchant for using the extremes of technology to warn us humans about the extremes of technology. There is no talk here of being on the cutting edge, but as far as early Nineties' elec­tronic music goes, this record does not seem particularly out-of-touch or ridiculous to me.

Not that I'm all that interested in discussing it. One ambient techno track after another, sometimes harsher, sometimes softer, usually with a few vocal overdubs — however, for the first time ever Mallinder does not sing at all, letting the music and the vocal samples do all the talking, which is at once good (because we're all kind of tired of his paranoid whispery declamations already) and bad (because it was an integral part of their identity), so that's one less detail to discuss. A typical track is ʻSoulenoidʼ, which completes the record: steady rhythm, pulsating acid bass, one atmos­pheric synth part forming a grey sonic cloud in the background, a six-note alarm-triggering synth riff responsible for all «movement», and some dialog sampled from some sci-fi movie or other to raise the level of tension. Seems cool, right? But the formula is reused way too often, and almost each of the tracks is like six or seven minutes long.

That said, I'm fairly sure you could play about half of these tracks back-to-back with Aphex Twin, and most people wouldn't know the difference — that's the big problem with electronic music in general, because these textures make it pretty hard to package a part of your spirit with them. As I said, the «return to the dark side» is most welcome, but the fact is, a huge lot of electronic artists create «dark» music (many more, in fact, than those that create «light» music), and there's no wonder in the fact that Plasticity simply sank to the bottom in an instant, without making any­body raise an eyebrow. The very fact of me not getting too irritated by the record (except for its horrendous length) should probably be a compliment, though — it is neither original nor memo­rable, but neither is it stupid. They are definitely still looking for something, and working their twin asses off, and so let us show at least a bit of critical respect by not saying "they should have retired and left us in peace by now".

Can: Future Days

CAN: FUTURE DAYS (1973)

1) Future Days; 2) Spray; 3) Moonshake; 4) Bel Air.

There is a very important, but subtle dividing line between Ege Bamyasi and Future Days, the band's last album with Suzuki and, frankly speaking, also the band's first album where the very pre­sence of Suzuki feels a little... out of place. Prior to 1973, there were lots of things you could call Can albums — psychedelic, mind-blowing, spooky, disturbing, nightmarish, psychopathic — but «beauty» and «atmosphere» would hardly be at the top of the list, unless you have your value system all mixed-up and highly individualistic. Now, for the first time, Can set themselves the challenge of creating a sonic world that seduces with its prettiness, not with its ability to align itself with the darkest strains of your soul. A record that is, in a way, a very direct predecessor of (and almost unquestionably an influence on) Brian Eno's Another Green World — without clearly being a successor of anything, because very few, if any, albums up to that time were made with the overall purpose of creating an ambience. Even in the progressive genre, most albums had a «plot» of sorts; Future Days is purely impressionistic, from top to bottom.

Although the tracks are still long, with ʻBel Airʼ occupying a whole side's worth of vinyl, it is pretty hard to call them «jams» now — there is very little sense of improvisation, and the empha­sis is on droning group interplay rather than solos of any kind. The stripped-down musical struc­tures of the tunes have lots of fairly common elements — for instance, the title track is pinned to a fairly generic Latin groove; at the beginning of ʻSprayʼ you can notice a surprisingly retro boogie bass line; and the album's only short piece, ʻMoonshakeʼ, structurally seems like a cross between ʻOye Como Vaʼ and ʻShakin' All Overʼ. However, the rhythm section of Czukay and Liebezeit still manages to remain one of the most inventive combos on Earth, and any «generic» elements here only exist in unpredictable combinations.

Most importantly, it makes no sense to discuss any single instrument outside of the overall con­text — it is only when the rhythm section is properly integrated with the guitars and keyboards that the record begins to make any sense at all. ʻFuture Daysʼ (the song) is made to sound like a wobbly journey on a magical carpet, its hems flapping around you as synthesized clouds chuck electric guitar raindrops on your head. With ʻSprayʼ, you find yourself on the ground, somewhat frantically running through an unfamiliar landscape as guitars and keyboards alike transform themselves into alien mosquitoes, carnivorous frogs, and other ghastly creatures. And ʻBel Airʼ's distorted guitar sound is clearly volcanic, so apparently by that time you find yourself out of the swamps and jungles, but gradually descending into the vortex of hellfire (despite the track's de­ceptively quiet and calm beginnings).

Describing these musical paintings in detail is rather futile, since not a lot of different things actually happen — while this is not really «ambient» music, due to its lack of minimalism and highly dynamic rhythm section, it is, now that I think of it, about as «post-rock» as they come, largely achieving the goals of bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor decades before they'd even formed (and, might I add, without raising suspicions that this music is being made as com­pensation for the fact that the people involved do not really know how to play their instruments: even at their most «static», each of Liebezeit's drum patterns or Czukay's bass lines here is pre­cious). However, each of the band's members is equally important for the overall effect, with the already mentioned possible exception of Damo — his vocal parts are even more quiet than they were, and although he sings at least one very pretty melody (the "spinning down alone..." bit on ʻBel Airʼ), and generally shows himself capable of subtlety and even a sort of crooning, his pre­sence is never integral to these songs. No wonder he left in between Future Days and Babaluma: his mission was almost officially ended.

I would not call Future Days as glaringly great as the 1970-71 recordings, though. There are quite a few stretches here that can easily try your patience, and on the whole, I would think that a bit of diversity wouldn't hurt: even if somebody argues that a tight, gritty three-minute funk-pop tune like ʻMoonshakeʼ disrupts the album's harmonic flow and feels out of place, it at least helps you put the disjointed pieces of your brain back together before the big one comes. The sound­scapes are impressive and mildly evocative, but way too kaleidoscopic to stick in memory — where a master manipulator like Eno would always have a bunch of creepy riffs or emotional keyboard phrases to pick your attention, Future Days places too much trust in the whole and too little in the individual parts. In the end, its historical importance probably matters more than its pure enjoyability; but this is not to say that it is not enjoyable, or that repeated listens do not bring out, clearer and clearer, all sorts of tasty nuances in Karoli's guitar playing or Schmidt's ambient keyboards. It is, and they do; it is simply that «Can genius» is a bit more directly associated with the likes of ʻHalleluhwahʼ than ʻBel Airʼ.

On the other hand, Ege Bamyasi had already shown that if the band were to go on making Tago Mago-lite clones for the rest of its life, they would very quickly become a parody of themselves; and if they do not deserve our admiration for such a radical change of direction while still near the top of their game, what do they deserve? Well, at least a pretty strong thumbs up, for one thing. 

Charley Patton: Complete Recordings Vol. 2

CHARLEY PATTON: COMPLETE RECORDINGS: VOL. 2 (1929/2002)

1) Hammer Blues (take 1); 2) I Shall Not Be Moved; 3) High Water Everywhere, Pt. 1; 4) High Water Everywhere, Pt. 2; 5) I Shall Not Be Moved; 6) Rattle Snake Blues; 7) Going To Move To Alabama; 8) Hammer Blues (take 2); 9) Joe Kirby; 10) Frankie And Albert; 11) Magnolia Blues; 12) Devil Sent The Rain Blues; 13) Runnin' Wild Blues; 14) Some Happy Day; 15) Some Happy Day; 16) Mean Black Moan; 17) Green River Blues; 18) That's My Man; 19) Honey Dripper Blues No. 2; 20) Eight Hour Woman; 21) Nickel's Worth Of Liver Blues No. 2.

Patton's second recording session dates back to October 1929 and was so huge that it had to be spread over two CDs — granted, unlike the June session, this one is not officially tied to particu­lar dates and could have been stretched over several days of recording. It was also recorded in a different place — Grafton, Wisconsin, which might explain the notoriously evil difference in sound quality: most of the tracks are so choked with crackle and hiss that it is downright impos­sible to listen to them for anything other than pure curiosity.

Still, this is where you will find one of the man's most classic numbers, the two-part ʻHigh Water Everywhereʼ, commemorating the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, but also, in some mystical way, sounding like a grim harbinger of the troubles to come (as the first wave of the Depression would hit the country at the very end of the same month in which the sessions were held). The two parts are just a technicality that allows the 6-minute epic to be spread across two sides, and much of that 6-minute period is spent beating the crap out of the man's guitar (literally), as Mr. Patton gives us his most primal-tribal sound and atittude so far — the percussive aspect is not about dancing, it is all about communication with the spirits, in the general direction of whom the man is registering his formal complaint. I wouldn't call this sort of thing haunting or mesmerizing for the modern listener's ear, of course, but it does not take much of an effort to try and carry yourself back to the time when it was — just play the whole thing back to back with some Bing Crosby from the same year, and it'll be all right.

On six of these tracks, Patton is accompanied by Henry Sims on fiddle, predictably lending the sessions a bit of a country air — particularly effective on ʻGoing To Move To Alabamaʼ, a swag­gery country-dance tune that would be perfect for Jimmy Rogers or even Hank Williams, except here it's being sung by Mr. Black Devil In The Flesh himself. Actually, listening to this track and then listening to some of the bluesier tunes by Mr. Rogers from the same years makes it glaringly obvious how flimsy and arbitrary the borders between «blues» and «country» were at the time, and how ridiculously more pronounced they would become over time. It's a doggone shame that most of the tracks are in such awful quality — Sims plays some fairly sensitive and technically tricky passages on ʻMean Black Moanʼ, but you will have to get yourself a couple of dog ears to truly appreciate them.

A special highlight is Charley's rendition of the gospel hymn ʻI Shall Not Be Movedʼ, available here in two different takes, only the second of which is properly listenable  — what's fun about it, though, is that the first take is consistently slow and stately, whereas the second one starts exactly the same way and then, one minute into the song, suddenly speeds up almost to the same merry tempo with which it would later be performed by Johnny Cash. Both approaches, the more intro­spective and prayer-like slow one and the more energetic and passionate fast one, have their merits, but it is the «experimental» transition that is the main point of interest.

Just as it was on the first disc, the last several tracks have little, if anything, to do with Patton: four piano-led urban blues tunes with a lady called Edith North Johnson on vocals. She's okay, but she ain't no Bessie Smith or Alberta Hunter (in fact, it seems that she really gained access to the studio only through her marriage to the St. Louis record producer Jesse Johnson), and the only reason for the inclusion of these tracks is an almost-disproved rumor that Patton may have played guitar on the first of these, and to be perfectly honest, I don't even hear any guitar on it. Maybe he was just strumming something outside the studio while the recording was on... anyway, no harm in choosing this manner of preservation of a per­fectly harmless batch of generic second-rate urban blues tunes riding the coattails of a major legend, right? That's one generous way of helping the name of Edith North Johnson, at least for a brief while and for a small audience, to escape the clutches of total oblivion. Besides, something like ʻNickel's Worth Of Liver Bluesʼ is well worth salvaging for the awesome title alone.

Cardiacs: Heaven Born And Ever Bright

CARDIACS: HEAVEN BORN AND EVER BRIGHT (1992)

1) The Alphabet Business Concern (Home Of Fadeless Splendour); 2) She Is Hiding Beneath The Shed; 3) March; 4) Goodbye Grace; 5) Anything I Can't Eat; 6) Helen And Heaven; 7) Bodysbad; 8) For Good And All; 9) Core; 10) Day Is Gone; 11) Snakes-A-Sleeping.

The Cardiacs suffered a few setbacks in between 1989 and 1992, mostly in the form of gradual loss of band members: saxophonist Sara Smith, percussionist Tim Quy, and keyboardist William Drake had all left in the interim, leaving the band so shaken that Tim Smith did not even bother looking for replacements. Instead, he hired an additional guitarist, Jon Poole, and opted to record the next album in a traditional four-piece format: two guitars, bass, and drums... well, not really. Most of the songs are still chockfull of keyboards and brass, with Sara contributing guest sax and somebody else providing the keyboards (not listed in the credits).

So I would not say that in terms of the overall sound, Heaven Born sounds any sparser or, in fact, all that different from the «classic» releases. Certainly this is not the impression that you get at the outset, when ʻThe Alphabet Business Concernʼ invades your room like a massive choral an­them, with the same level of ironic pomp and playful pretense as always. However, as the songs progress, you do get a gradual feeling of tiredness — could it be that the band is beginning to run out of ideas? Or, rather, not out of specific ideas (there's still more going on inside a single Cardiacs song than on a complete LP by zillions of less inventive bands), but out of The Idea it­self: somehow, if you reach this album in chronological order, this is, for the first time, where they seem to be hitting a brick wall. Objectively, the energy is still there, but they are not really saying anything they didn't say before.

As always, there's a bunch of fast, crazy, mad-organ-and-guitar-led prog-punk anthems with furiously fast, incomprehensible vocals (ʻAnything I Can't Eatʼ, speeding along like a friendly, more psychedelic sibling of Deep Purple's ʻHighway Starʼ); some overdriven power-pop with a hysterical edge (ʻDay Is Goneʼ); some echoes of classic British psychedelic pop with music hall and martial overtones (ʻMarchʼ); and some songs that combine all that in various manners. The main problem with that is that more than ever before, the basic mood behind each song is pretty much the same — a state of somewhat random exuberance, when the protagonist wishes to share his strong emotions with a world that is too busy trying to understand the reason for these emo­tions to partake of them. Tempos and tonalities may shift, but the drive remains the same, as well as the lack of hooks — because the melodies are way too twisted and unstable to ever sink in.

For some reason, Tim Smith has later stated that Heaven Born remains one of his own special favo­rites, because, to him, it had some special mystery to it. This opinion was not shared by the band's fans in general, who tend to see the record as a letdown, and unless we are all missing something, this does ring true: I fail to notice any special distinctive marks here (except for may­be a more pronounced guitar sound, which is hardly an asset in itself — who could ever be se­duced by a «prominent guitar sound» in 1992?), and compared to the previous two albums, the songs basically sound like self-repetition where the band, instead of keeping it natural, has to whip itself into a frenzy to artificially demonstrate that they have not really lost it. Well, tech­nically, they haven't, but you know the drill: «progressive» has the obligation to progress, and if it does not progress, it just rings hollow.

Camel: A Live Record

CAMEL: A LIVE RECORD (1978)

1) Never Let Go; 2) Song Within A Song; 3) Lunar Sea; 4) Skylines; 5) Ligging At Louis'; 6) Lady Fantasy; 7) The Great Marsh; 8) Rhayader; 9) Rhayader Goes To Town; 10) Sanctuary; 11) Fritha; 12) The Snow Goose; 13) Friendship; 14) Migration; 15) Rhayader Alone; 16) Flight Of The Snow Goose; 17) Preparation; 18) Dunkirk; 19) Epitaph; 20) Fritha Alone; 21) La Princesse Perdue; 22) The Great Marsh.

This is quite a long album, but the review will be very short. Instead of concentrating on a single show, the band took a selection of recordings from various points in their career, spanning the 1974-77, interval, and capped it off with a complete live recording of The Snow Goose at the Royal Albert Hall in October 1975, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra (which must have been on a real tight budget that year). Only one of the tracks, Bardens' instrumental ʻLigging At Louis'ʼ, was previously unreleased; everything else is quite familiar... and played almost note-for-note the same way as it was in the studio.

Not that this is somehow atypical of prog bands, but it does place Camel in the category of those of them who were usually happy just reproducing the complexity and the atmospheres of studio material (like Yes or Genesis) rather than those that used the stage as a pretext to fire up some improvisational creativity (like King Crimson, or even ELP on a good day). And it pretty much renders any «review» of such a live album pointless once the reviewer has stated the obvious — yes, they do a very good job reproducing it all on stage. Even the lonely melancholy of Snow Goose is carried over so flawlessly that it almost feels weird to hear the occasional round of ap­plause — like, you're not saying there are actually people out there to witness the proceedings?

Serious Camel fans will, of course, notice minor differences and maybe even take delight in savoring some of them (like, there's a short extra bass solo on ʻNever Let Goʼ, and Latimer's guitar solo is more distorted and fusion-esque), but then they might also get mad at some of the others (like, the synthesized string tone on ʻSong Within A Songʼ is so much cheesier than the melodeon-like tone of the original), ultimately spending a lot of time and emotions on mutually outcanceling flaws and advantages. Even the addition of the orchestra for Snow Goose — on one hand, it's a nice distinctive touch, on the other, they pretty much shush it much of the time so that it doesn't overshadow the band. So why bother in the first place?

If you do wish to bother, know that the 2002 reissue of the album has made it even huger, adding about 6-7 additional tunes (mostly from Moonmadness) to completely pad out the storage capa­city of 2 CDs; I have not heard that one, but I have no high hopes for pleasant surprises. Not that it hurts or anything to hear Snow Goose one more time, but ultimately, this is just more proof that classic progressive rock rarely makes for treasurable live records.

Alan Price: A Price On His Head

ALAN PRICE: A PRICE ON HIS HEAD (1967)

1) The House That Jack Built; 2) She's Got Another Pair Of Shoes; 3) Come And Dance With Me; 4) On This Side Of Goodbye; 5) So Long Dad; 6) No One Ever Hurt So Bad; 7) Don't Do That Again; 8) Tickle Me; 9) Grim Fairy Tale; 10) Living Without You; 11) Happy Land; 12) To Ramona; 13*) Biggest Night Of Her Life; 14*) Don't Stop The Carnival; 15*) The Time Has Come; 16*) When I Was A Cowboy; 17*) Tappy Tortoise; 18*) Love Story; 19*) My Old Kentucky Home; 20*) Trimdon Grange Explosion; 21*) Falling In Love Again; 22*) Sunshine And Rain; 23*) Is There Anybody Out There; 24*) Not Born To Follow.

Apparently, ʻSimon Smithʼ worked so well that, for a brief while at least, Alan Price decided to become for Randy Newman what The Byrds used to be for Bob Dylan — there's a whoppin' seven Newman covers on this album itself, and a few more among the 11 bonus tracks that were kindly added by the Repertoire label when the album was released on CD, all culled from con­temporary singles and whatnot. Throw in an extra Dylan cover and a Goffin/King one, and you will almost be missing out on the fact that there are also four Alan Price originals, which is about four more than on the previous record — a major step in the direction of artistic independence and the establishment of the man's personal identity.

Of the four songs, ʻShe's Got Another Pair Of Shoesʼ is a meatily arranged R&B number, not particularly original or exciting — sort of like a calmed-down James Brown tune, only distin­guished with a fluent, but weirdly out-of-tune piano solo. The other three, however, are firmly in the then-current Brit-pop vein, with vaudeville and music hall influences all over, but no traces of that «English haughtiness» that sometimes turns people away from (and, more rarely, on to) this kind of material — in other words, there's no danger of Alan Price ever developing the airs of a David Bowie or a Robert Fripp (come to think of it, his Newcastle-Durham background would probably be incompatible with such attitudes).

ʻThe House That Jack Builtʼ, in particular, is a catchy piece of lyrical absurdity, stuck somewhere between Dylan and Monty Python and oozing abstract sarcasm over its rise-up-and-shine arran­gement, all pianos and woodwinds and morning breeze. ʻDon't Do That Againʼ is more slight in nature, but is actually even more catchy, a half-comical number on personal relationship issues that shows an actual talent for vocal hooks — not an ability you'd suspect Mr. Price of owning based on his earlier career; and ʻGrim Fairy Taleʼ, a song that calls out loud for a tuxedo and top hat, is quite a serious compositional stake, with several distinct parts seamlessly merged together in a mini-suite that niftily shifts between ironically-happy and melancholic moods.

Of course, these are only his first efforts, and as far as meaningful-emotional compositions go, most of the covered Randy Newman tunes here are superior — in fact, Newman is an obvious influence on Price himself as songwriter; but at least Alan's interpretations of Randy's material do the material perfect justice — and, if you have a hard time warming up to Randy's creaky voice and raw, rambling arrangements (you shouldn't, but it would be understandable), then Price's smooth, pleasant deliveries and the tight control that he has over his brass section will be just right for a first impression. (Same as the Byrds/Dylan relationship, yes). At the same time, I can­not say that he really goes all the way to make the songs more interesting: in the case of ʻLiving Without Youʼ, for instance, I'd rather either go for the creaky-croaky original, or for the complete blazing power-pop reinvention of Manfred Mann — Price's version is middle of the road, retai­ning the minimal, demo-style piano arrangement, but not adding anything particularly outstan­ding in the vocal department. Just nice. (Admittedly, ʻNo One Ever Hurt This Badʼ is given an excellent coating of brass, guitar, and keyboards).

The bonus tracks generally add more of the same (for instance, ʻNot Born To Followʼ is yet another Goffin/King cover), but also shows Alan dabbling around in various strands of folk — American (ʻMy Old Kentucky Homeʼ) as well as British (ʻTrimdon Grange Explosionʼ, taking you all the way back to an unfortunate event in 1882). The selection is so comprehensive, though, that it covers all of Price's subsequent output all the way to 1970, meaning that you get his ex­cellent self-penned single ʻSunshine And Rainʼ, a piece of shiny funk-pop with an outstanding kaleidoscopic arrangement of brass, mandolins, psycho-keyboards that never overshadows the classy vocal hook. Overall, in between the original album and the bonus tracks, if you filter out a dozen or so throwaways, you are still left with a good LP's worth of very solid material, so unlike the debut, this one gets a well-deserved thumbs up. Hardly essential listening, but a must-own for all lovers of intelligent late-Sixties Brit-pop (and, come to think of it, there wasn't really that much of it in the late Sixties).

Black Sabbath: Paranoid (IAS #14)

Today's IAS - another re-reviewed album, hopefully, with a new angle:

Black Sabbath: Paranoid

Cabaret Voltaire: Body And Soul

CABARET VOLTAIRE: BODY AND SOUL (1991)

1) No Resistance; 2) Shout; 3) Happy; 4) Decay; 5) Bad Chemistry; 6) Vibration; 7) What Is Real; 8) Western Land; 9) Don't Walk Away; 10) Alien Nation Funk; 11) What Is Real.

A correction of sorts: this next installation of The Continuing Saga of Mallinder And Kirk's Journeys In Confusing Electronic Worlds of the Next Generation brings back the spookiness of classic Cabaret Voltaire, if not the rest of the atmosphere. This does not mean that we have to like the album or even waste more than a tiny modicum of time on it, but at least you will not emerge from the listening experience feeling deceived, stunned, and stupid.

This album, unlike its predecessor, probably could be qualified as true «acid» house, since many of the tracks have true psychedelic vibes, mostly generated through creaky, squelchy synth tones and their interaction with the overloud bass lines. Whether it should be qualified as respectable or awesome acid house is a different matter — to me, it still sounds like they are essentially trying to emulate their new teachers, with consistently mediocre results. Any 808 State release from that period, such as Ex:El from that same year, kicks Mallinder and Kirk's ass all over the place in terms of energy and excitement, because these guys have learned the basic trade, but they can only establish the groove: they lack the imagination required to properly ride it.

Of course, this is how they always did it: even in their best period, any five-or-more-minute composition of theirs would sound the same throughout. But now that they no longer sound like a bunch of living ghosts wandering through bombed sewers, and now that the gray, depressing, but at least somewhat exploratory guitar drones have been completely replaced by repetitive synth loops, the atmospheres become thinner, feebler, and far more prone to boring you to death on the very first minute (although at least they are not embarrassing you the way they did on Laidback, Groovy & Nasty). Occasionally they pin the track to a very sharply defined, catchy keyboard riff and some repetitive vocal mantra (ʻDon't Walk Awayʼ), slapping «commercial potential» on the song, but then I am not quite sure of the emotional content of the hook. It's still far more «body» than «soul», you understand.

I am a little partial towards the first track, ʻNo Resistanceʼ, which seems to betray more work and inspiration than almost anything else here — a nice combo of overdubs, with paranoid bubbly synth bass, Latinized percussion, «magic room keyboards», Mallinder's disturbed whispers, and occasional avantgarde piano breaks almost succeeding in restoring the classic old paranoia by entirely new means. However, everything that follows feels either inferior in execution or follo­wing some entirely different (and boring) purpose other than letting you know how confused and scared of the ways of the world these guys are (which is, after all, their only legitimate reason for musical existence). Nice bass on ʻShoutʼ, ʻHappyʼ, and other tracks, but no instrumental hooks, and the endlessly repeated vocal mantras get annoying real quickly.

Every once in a while, they interrupt the never-ending paranoid-dance party with either a message of atmospheric astral noise (ʻDecayʼ) or a piece of blissful ambience (ʻWestern Landʼ, which sounds as if Eno were hiding around the corner), but those interludes are really only there to give you a break from toe-tappin', foot-stompin' obligations; the last time Cabaret Voltaire were syste­matically engaged in the production of noise was even before the release of their first LP, and the last time they were systematically interested in beautiful-sounding ambience was... never, so the probability of their making a mark on the genres here is about the same as if Paul McCartney, way past his prime, suddenly decided to tread on the turf of death metal (which would at least be far more novel).

As it is, by the time we get to ʻWhat Is Realʼ, terminating the experience with seven minutes of a continuously looped six-note keyboard riff eating your brains out, all you have learned is that switching to «proper» acid house did not automatically transform Mallinder and Kirk into song­writing geniuses. However, for objectivity's sake I do have to add that I am no expert on house music, much less acid house music, and occasionally find even alleged masterpieces dull and pointless, so be independent, try ʻNo Resistanceʼ for starters and feel free to allow yourself to get all wowed and awed by the rest — perhaps I just «don't get it», classic style.

Can: Ege Bamyasi

CAN: EGE BAMYASI (1972)

1) Pinch; 2) Sing Swan Song; 3) One More Night; 4) Vitamin C; 5) Soup; 6) I'm So Green; 7) Spoon.

This follow-up to Tago Mago is frequently hailed as a shorter, less ambitious and more acces­sible masterpiece — yet while it is indeed listenable and impressive, it has always seemed to me as a bit of a letdown, a «lite» version of its monstruous predecessor. Aesthetically, the focus re­mains fixed on the same elements — jam power, tape splice, rhythm section tricks, Suzuki madness — but the tracks get shorter and occasionally even poppier, and the atmospheres, ex­cept for a brief bit in the middle of ʻSoupʼ, rarely go to the extremes of Tago Mago.

Curiously, the album may have beeneven more influential on successive generations of musicians than Tago Mago — with Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Portishead all going on record with their ex­pression of specific admiration, and the band Spoon even adopting its name from the album's first single. And if you go earlier, it is hardly a coincidence that the main groove of Talking Heads' ʻOnce In A Lifetimeʼ is essentially the same as in ʻPinchʼ, the lead-off track from the album. My guess is that this adoration has something to do with Can trying to «can» their wild sound in these easier-to-assimilate musical forms, with extra hooks and all. Another reason may be purely technical: ʻSpoonʼ was the first Can song made available to a mass audience, being released as a single on the United Artists label, and its three minutes are a pretty captivating synthesis of pop catchiness and spooky weirdness, often provided by the same means. It was also one of the first uses of the drum machine on a commercial single, sounding fairly unusual for 1972 (as difficult as it is to transport yourself back in time for that parameter).

Still, the record does work fairly well as a lighter, humbler, and a bit more humorous companion to its big brother — with an oddly symbolic fixation on the greens, beginning with the album title (the Turkish equivalent for Aegean Okra) and cover and ending with song names like ʻVitamin Cʼ, ʻSoupʼ, and ʻI'm So Greenʼ, as if the band somehow intended to make a conceptual record about the pleasures of vegetarianism, but then forgot to reflect this in the music (in some twisted way, Damo's desperate "hey you, you're losing your vitamin C!" may be interpreted as a bit of advertisement, but only according to the rules and laws of the madhouse). Accepting this status as a fact makes it easier to come to terms with the observation that they are re-using quite a few of last year's ideas — for instance, ʻVitamin Cʼ is actually a poppy variation on the groove of ʻHal­leluhwahʼ, and the ten minutes of ʻSoupʼ do not add any new insights into jamming magic when compared to Tago Mago's ecstatic rituals.

The «harnessing» of the unrestrained power does result in some unique pop weirdness, of course. ʻSing Swan Songʼ and ʻOne More Nightʼ are like a pair of perverse-erotic siblings — the first one is a psychedelic elegy that could be directed at some Lady of the Lake or other, beginning with the sounds of rippling water and then using Holger's bass as a steady rudder as the boat smoothly glides across the sonic surface, and Karoli's guitar imitates the sound of bagpipes; and ʻOne More Nightʼ busily hustles about, methodically weaving a spider's web around your object of desire, as Suzuki grins and cackles, Dr. Evil-style, in anticipation of something juicy. On the other hand, ʻI'm So Greenʼ sounds so not unlike some Brit-pop creation from the late Sixties (think Small Faces, perhaps?) that I actually find it hard to understand what exactly makes it a «Can» song, other than Czukay's overpowered bass. It's nice, but not necessarily something I'm looking to in a Krautrock tune, you know.

On the whole, it's still very much a thumbs up, and I can easily see how it could be used as a concise manual for all aspiring «avant-pop» songwriters, but I seriously miss the sharpness, shrillness, and pull-all-the-stops attitude of the previous two records; and I do not think that the serious change in direction that would occur with Future Days was coincidental — I'm pretty sure they must have been worried themselves about getting caught in a rut, as impressive and idiosyncratic (but not inimitable) that rut might have seemed to be.

Charley Patton: Complete Recordings Vol. 1

CHARLEY PATTON: COMPLETE RECORDINGS: VOL. 1 (1929/2002)

1) Pony Blues; 2) A Spoonful Blues; 3) Down The Dirt Road Blues; 4) Prayer Of Death, Pt. 1; 5) Prayer Of Death, Pt. 2; 6) Screamin' And Hollerin' The Blues; 7) Banty Rooster Blues; 8) Tom Rushen Blues; 9) It Won't Be Long; 10) Shake It And Break It; 11) Pea Vine Blues; 12) Mississippi Boweavil Blues; 13) Lord I'm Discouraged; 14) I'm Goin' Home; 15) Snatch It And Grab It; 16) A Rag Blues; 17) How Come Mama Blues; 18) Voice Throwin' Blues.

The easiest way to get one's Charley Patton homework done is to pick up some nifty 1-CD com­pilation with around 20-25 tracks on it — the man only recorded for about a five-year period, and not each of his songs was stunningly original, to put it mildly (not at all atypical of pre-war bluesmen — or any bluesmen, for that matter). However, since we here at Only Solitaire despise easy ways, the alternate comprehensive road means getting your hands on this 5-CD boxset of Charley Patton's Complete Recordings that covers every single released A- and B-side of his, a few surviving alternate takes, and plenty of additional stuff by other artists where Patton is sitting in on the sessions as a guest vocalist or a guest guitar player — or even is simply thought to be sitting in, with musicologists around the world wrecking their brains over a definitive proof of the man's presence or absence on said tracks.

Indeed, the man is just as much of a mystery to this world as his slightly later, and far more «flashily» mythologized colleague Robert Johnson. Just as with Johnson, there's only one sur­viving photo of Patton; just as Johnson, there are but a handful of legitimate recording sessions that survive; just as Johnson, the man had a unique musical presence that resonates particularly well with the singer-songwriting crowd — an «authenticity» and «honesty» without an ounce of smooth gloss that was typical of «urban blues» performers. Plus, Patton's recording years (1929-1934) pretty much correlate with the darkest Depression years, so he's even more of an epitome of the black man's (or, in fact, any man's) struggle and strife with the world than Johnson, who always comes off as a more introspective, self-immersed fellow.

The first disc of the boxset (we will take them one by one, as if they were five different records) is arguably the best one, covering a lengthy record session that, apparently, all took place on one day (June 14, 1929), with most of the tracks subsequently released on Paramount singles. Only the last four tracks are not really Patton, but a little-known bluesman called Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins, who was decent enough but whose main talent, supposedly, was in adding a bit of corny ventriloquism to the sessions (ʻVoice Throwin' Bluesʼ); Patton is thought to be providing second vocals on ʻSnatch It And Grab Itʼ, but that's about it — the other tracks just provide some extra context for the day.

Anyway, what truly interests us are the 14 tracks that Patton cut himself, and their coolness still shines through despite the crappy sound quality (very typical of all Paramount recordings at the time — the Depression hadn't even started yet, and they were already using subpar material for most of their pressings). For some reason, musicians and critics alike tend to single out ʻPony Bluesʼ — one of Charley's best covered songs and the one to have made it onto the National Recording Preservation Board — and this is why it holds an honorable first place on the disc; but honestly, I am not quite sure what makes it so much greater than any of the other songs, other than being a little slower and more somber than the rest. Maybe it is a bit more straightforwardly «bluesy» — much of the stuff played by Charley veered towards folk- or country-dance, or to­wards traditional gospel — but that does not necessarily make it more haunting and spirited than the superficially «lighter» material.

In any case, thing number one that strikes you about Patton is the voice — the «gravelley» one, a direct predecessor to Howlin' Wolf (who actually interacted with Patton in his younger days and was much influenced by him), though not quite as hellishly sharp-cutting: Patton's strength lies rather in his versatility, as he was capable of excellent modulation, going from high-pitched, near-falsetto stabs to the proverbial gravelley roar and back at will. After a few listens, you will never want to confuse Charley with anybody else — most of his colleagues had softer, smoother, silkier vocal tones, and when people in 1929 heard the guy sing "saddle up my black ma-a-a-a-are" with that low, scrapy, creaky voice of his, quite a few of them, I'm sure, could feel the Devil's breath on their necks (so you gotta love the Library of Congress' penchant for retro-Satanism). It's made even more amusing if you put the voice together with the photograph, which pictures such a hand­some, clean-polished young man in a bowtie (with a rather sullen expression on his face, though — but black artists, unless it was a vaudeville thing, rarely smiled on photos those days in general, even when being relatively well paid).

Compared to That Voice, the man's guitar-playing style is somewhat underrated: like all famous pre-war Delta bluesmen, he has a free-flowing, inventive manner of handling the 12-bar blues structure, far less predictable than the strictly locked style of Chicago and post-Chicago electric bluesmen, but he never goes for «flashiness» like Blind Blake or Blind Lemon Jefferson: in fact, he never even takes a proper solo. He is, however, a master of quirky guitar licks — check out, for instance, the little high-pitched «smirk» that sums up each line of ʻMississippi Boweavil Bluesʼ, or the perfect synchronization of the up-down, up-down guitar and vocals on ʻA Spoon­ful Bluesʼ, or the percussive-tapping style on ʻDown The Dirt Road Bluesʼ. His bag of tricks is not limitless, and pretty soon they start repeating themselves, but Patton clearly paid attention to putting his personal musical stamp on those tunes, instead of simply using the guitar for basic accompaniment like so many B-level players of the era.

And he was quite versatile, too: there is no single overriding theme or mood that would unite these 14 tunes, all of them recorded on the same day. There's your basic ramblin'-man blues (ʻPony Bluesʼ, ʻDown The Dirt Road Bluesʼ), there's sex-crazed blues (ʻA Spoonful Bluesʼ, melo­dically quite far removed from the Willie Dixon version, but lyrically far more straight­forward; ʻBanty Rooster Bluesʼ, a distant predecessor to ʻLittle Red Roosterʼ), there's gospel spirituals (ʻPrayer Of Deathʼ, ʻI'm Goin' Homeʼ), comical dance numbers (ʻShake It And Break Itʼ), and folk chants with a social underpinning (ʻMississippi Boweavil Bluesʼ). That Voice is the one thing that ties it all together, reigning over all the themes and moods like some bulky, brawny Earth Elemental, potentially dangerous but also capable of being your friend if you make all the right moves. Like giving the record a well-deserved thumbs up, for instance, regardless of the generally awful sound quality (which is reflected most badly on the guitar sound, but no crackles or pops can do away with The Voice).

Cardiacs: On Land And In The Sea

CARDIACS: ON LAND AND IN THE SEA (1989)

1) Two Bites Of Cherry; 2) Baby Heart Dirt; 3) The Leader Of The Starry Skies; 4) I Hold My Love In My Arms; 5) The Duck And Roger The Horse; 6) Arnald; 7) Fast Robert; 8) Mare's Nest; 9) The Stench Of Honey; 10) Buds And Spawn; 11) The Safety Bowl; 12) The Ever So Closely Guarded Line.

Listening to this album, which many regard as the band's ultimate masterpiece, is pretty much the aural equivalent of going, at irregular, but immediate, intervals from 40mph to 80mph to 120mph to 80mph to 40mph to 80mph... you get my drift, and I have serious vestibular problems, too. In other words, it's cool, but... could you slow down, please? Oh, that's right, not slowing down is an integral part of being cool. Well then, like John Lennon said, "count me out... in".

No matter how many times I listen to this stuff, I cannot properly tell one song from another, for the simple reason that almost each of these songs is, in itself, three or four songs, cut up, mixed about, and re-spliced at random (or so it seems to the poor, undefended, naked ear). This is not something they invented on this album, of course — but this is where their song-twisting craft truly reaches its peak, and they juggle these melodies around with such energy and ease as if they all really understood the deep meaning of such juggling.

Unfortunately, this achievement of total perfection in the art of «pop trigonometry» has a nasty trade-off — the songs all collapse together in a flurry, blurry kaleidoscope of craziness that leaves little, if any, place for emotionality. Not even surrealist emotionality, where black is white and wrong is right — these songs are just convoluted hysterical blasts, awesome when taken in in small portions but really wearying down the potential listener (or the actual me) when swallowed all together in one go. Something like ʻThe Duck And Roger The Horseʼ, for instance, gallops along with tremendous force and makes great use of the collective power of hard rock chords and organ barrages, but when placed in between half a dozen songs on both sides that also tax your nerves to the extreme, the typical reaction might just be «enough, already!»

Exhausted and nerve-wracked, I find myself instinctively searching for something simple, repe­titive, unpretentious... and I kind of find it with ʻArnaldʼ, a triumphant power-pop tune that is al­most too repetitive, with an eight-note martial refrain and a brute hard rock riff to bounce it off; and then, maybe, with ʻThe Ever So Closely Guarded Lineʼ, the obligatory «grand finale» that closes the curtain with slow tempos, majestic keyboards, and a (feeble) attempt at an epic cres­cendo. Apart from that, the songs just daze and daze and daze me with insane numbers of cos­tume changes from bar to bar, which sometimes make Frank Zappa and Gentle Giant come across as pathetic failures. Then again, it was up to Tim Smith to beat their records, not vice versa, and he seems to have done nicely — coming out with probably the most complex pop record of 1989.

Would it be justified to say that On Land And In The Sea makes absolutely no sense? One pro­bably shouldn't be rushing to give an answer, but I am pretty sure I will never like it more than A Little Man, if only because it has no equivalent of ʻIs This The Life?ʼ — a straightforward, un­derstandable, tumultuous song that stood out very sharply from the rest — and because some­times too much is too much. I cannot even comment on any of the individual songs because it would have to be a lot of comments on each, and then they would all be the same in the end. To say that this record is «crazy» or that it is a «document on insanity» or anything like that would be too cheap and stereotypical, yet I have no idea of how to expand on that. I totally admire the effort, and as far as «achievements» go, the album totally deserves its thumbs up — especially since I can sense the dedication and the energy sweating from every pore. But then again, you can also go out in the mountains and dedicatedly crush rocks with a sledgehammer until your arms fall off, too, and sometimes I get the uncomfortable feeling that this is what Cardiacs were doing, too, on land and in the sea.

Camel: Breathless

CAMEL: BREATHLESS (1978)

1) Breathless; 2) Echoes; 3) Wing And A Prayer; 4) Down On The Farm; 5) Starlight Ride; 6) Summer Lightning; 7) You Make Me Smile; 8) Sleeper; 9) Rainbow's End.

Finally, a certified sellout! With the same lineup as on Rain Dances, Latimer and Bardens take Camel on a relaxed journey that combines traces of their «progressive» past with pure pop, simple balladry, and even a few escapades into the corny world of contemporary dance music (ʻSummer Lightningʼ borders on disco). With so much evidence in hand to make a perfectly winnable case, prog fans usually say that this is the point at which Camel finally sheds its hump and ceases to exist as a means of transporting the listener to magical musical worlds.

Despite this, and despite the even more suspicious fact that Breathless is also a fairly «happy» record for Camel, I have always felt attracted to it — perhaps because the songs harbor some sort of bright collective innocence. Even the two syrupy ballads, ʻYou Make Me Smileʼ and ʻRain­bow's Endʼ, which usually receive the lion's share of hatred, are well-written and lack some of the cheesier trappings typically associated with such material — ʻYou Make Me Smileʼ may be riding a simplistic danceable bassline, but Latimer's tender vocal delivery still wins over with its quiet humility; the intonations and hooks put it closer to contemporary pop material by the Kinks and Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie rather than Styx or Foreigner or Chicago. And even if the falsetto vocal harmonies on ʻRainbow's Endʼ are a cringeworthy misstep, overdone to irritating point, the basic vocal melody itself is quite nicely modulated.

There's some really odd stuff, too, like Richard Sinclair's ʻDown On The Farmʼ, which begins quite deceptively with some huge power chords, like a monster Boston-style arena rocker — then, in one single whiff, turns into a quiet rural Brit-pop ditty that would not feel completely out of place on The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles, Giles & Fripp (a bit of extra humor and absurdity wouldn't hurt, though). ʻStarlight Rideʼ, with its smoothly sustained keyboard parts and gentle harmonies, sounds like London Town-era (i. e. contemporary) Paul McCartney with an extra baroque touch. And ʻSummer Lightningʼ basically just commits the crime of employing a dance signature, otherwise fully preserving Camel's aesthetics of quiet, unassuming, melancholic jazz-pop (it also features Latimer's most energetic-aggressive solo on the entire album).

The conservative spirit rules on two «prog leftovers», the seven-minute semi-epics ʻEchoesʼ (no relation to Floyd) and ʻSleeperʼ, of which the former has a pretty main theme in the guise of a psychedelic waltz, and the latter is an unremarkable exercise in fusion, truly the «sleeper» of the album. Essentially, it is as if you had a choice here — do you want the old Camel with its tired prog vibe, or the new Camel with its fresh ideas? The new Camel may go disco on your ass, but at least it's got the benefit of unpredictability. The old Camel will not betray its sense of taste and dignity, but it's never going to expand on Snow Goose and Moonmadness. Now it is all up to you, music lovers with an interest in the year nineteen hundred and seventy eight.

Personally, I think that Breathless is one of the better executed «compromises» of the time, and at the very least I'd definitely take it over stuff like Yes' Tormato or Genesis' And Then There Were Three: when Latimer and Bardens go pop, they are brave enough to go all the way that it takes to reach a proper hook, selling out for an actual purpose rather than just selling out and making music that is unsatisfactory from all points of view (not catchy enough to constitute good pop, not complex enough to make up for decent prog). As a result, we have this oddly optimistic record, full of good, friendly vibes presented without too much sentimentalism and without any unwarranted pathos whatsoever; a record that I not only find impossible to hate, but endorse with all the strength of a firmly fixed thumbs up rating.