CODEINE - THE WHITE BIRCH

...It's the most wonderful time of the year! (sung with equal parts gusto and Christmassy cheer)

Traditionally, and when I say traditionally I actually just mean the past four or five years, rather than say since I was four, this record and a handful of others will now stay on heavy rotation until the weather lifts and the bears come out of their caves. This basically means I will hear it at least twice weekly until the end of March.

I remember one snowy day in Amsterdam listening to this on repeat on my CD walkman, roaming the empty canal side streets for as long as it took to play this album all the way through four times. A lot of that day was spent stopping, staring, looking at the whiteness that had covered the city, the silent parts of the record replaced by my breathing. In a similar way to certain narcotic based experiences a strange wave over took me for the duration - Nothing really mattered and everything was alright... Not great, just alright. I felt utterly helpless and insignificant and as the snow fell around me and i couldn't help thinking how utterly fucked yet beautiful everything was.  

Anyway, enough of sounding high. The White Birch is so pretty and totally brutal at the same time, quiet and then very suddenly very loud in a perfect pattern, in just the right doses. This sleeve more than any I can recall paints a perfect picture of the music, instrumentally sparse but intense. Anyway, before I dissapear up my own ass and this turns into something from the pages of Pitckfork.com I will go back in time and remember where and when I first heard this wonderful album.

So, Delorian parked up, ticket under the wiper I arrive at my cousins shared flat in Brixton sometime in the summer of 1995. This would be shortly after we discovered SLINT together on the same day whilst record shopping in Birmingham - Which means that I have now had my first experience of crying at a record (I think Steve Albini said a similar thing about Spiderland but I always thought that that was because he was just upset that the production was better than the job he had done on their debut Tweeze) and to this day 'Good morning Captain' succeeds in affecting me in some way every time I listen to it. Anyway, he had his records stacked spine vertical against the wall in eight or so very neat and equally wide piles and I began to flick through, as I did, he put on the track 'Loss Leader' from The White Birch.

'What's this we're listening to?' I asked.

'It's The White Birch'.

And that was that. I sold my vinyl copy on an ill advised purge on leaving Holland, at the same time I jettisoned all of my early to mid 90's US Alt records - You know the ones that go for high double figures on Ebay, then midway through last year tired of the guilt associated with owning it on CD I shelled out thirty quid for a copy and that's what's playing now. 

Whilst this album didn't have the immediate effect of Slint's 'Spiderland' I realized immediately that the adventure that began with Kentucky's finest could finally be expanded upon.

TIM MAIA - TIM MAIA RACIONAL

So what do we know about Tim Maia? We know he is dead, that he died in 1998, that he was a Brazilian singer song writer who did not age as well as he might (his head in particular changed shape in a very non flattering way as his twilight years approached). We also know that in 1975 he recorded the album Racional. At this time Tim was a member of the Universe in Descenchant cult.

Quite what the Universe in Descenchant were into I do not know but from the above sleeve I will assume it was awesome. Sadly with the exception of one song, everything on this record is sung in Brazilian... I mean Portuguese, and that one English sung number doesn't give us much insight into the inner workings of said cult, it's more like a Motown love song, a mid 1970's Motown love song. I should and one day will ask somebody with an understanding of Portuguese to fill me in on this, it might be some amazing key to celestial enlightenment, a precursor to the orange clad and Nike wearing Heaven's Gate crew. Quite whether Tim was ever going to man up and put the purple cloth over his dead face with 37 others awaiting a new life courtesy of the Halle Bopp comet I do not know but the cover certainly hints at that kind of business.

The whole thing reminds me of a debate that raged in the Times last week, on news that Scientology was losing it's charity status in Australia at the same time as getting a lambasting from a group of high profile former followers. On the comments page somebody wrote something about the only difference (monetary gains aside) between Catholicism and Scientology was that one was an load of old rubbish and the other was a load of new rubbish. Given that neither religion has any factual of scientific basis, they should I suppose be given equal standing and that being the case maybe the San Diego Heaven's Gate click also deserve a re-appraisal.

Musically this is very tight, communication issues aside the instrumentation is clean, with the occasional break and drum heavy track to liven things up. Unfortunately it is if anything too accomplished, too linear. I had expected just a hint of insanity to ooze from the sleeve and onto the record player, an occasional dog like barking or similar. An out of tune guitar or instrument they might have invented for the occasion would have helped fulfill the sleeves promise, backwards tape loops, ghostly voices, that's kind of what I was expecting - Still, not to say this isn't a very enjoyable album and also not to say there is anything wrong with bridging the musical generation gap at all, it's just that I could quite easily imagine my mum saying something along the lines of 'This is nice, who is it?'

VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO - THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

I decided to wait until I finally had an early press of this before commiting it to the annals. Reviewing anything other than an original peelable banana sleeve just seemed criminal, as if something was missing from the experience.

I finally found an 'affordable' copy on returning from my holidays. In fairness I had seen it before waving at me from the racks, slightly too expensive and with an unfortunate case of spine wear creeping at least three inches from the base to just below the title writing. I could just about see past the fact that the top of the banana has seperated about 20mm down and that the print at the edges is dulling but the spine, something I am particularly anal about always put me off until now.

After much 'umming and ah-ing' I got enough discount to convince me to give it a home and now here it is, sat in the place of the non gate-fold early 80's repress that had tarnisned it's surroundings for so long.

I need to try and put this record into perspective. Without even touching on the music, mentioning the players or the cultural significance of the sound inside this is in my mind one of the most iconic (and I hate that fucking word) record sleeves in the history of popular music. I wont bore you with a list of the others (not today at least) as I am sure you are more than familiar with the rarely changing usual suspects.

The sleeve to Velvet Underground and Nico record legitimate art, regardless of the fact it comes from one of the 20th centuries more over-rated artists it signifies a time and a place so utterly important to the shape of popular music that even now I am excited about the prospect of listening to and owning it. The sleeve image is synonymous with Western popular culture, a virtual swastika for a generation of the musically obsessed. From the previously mentioned peelable banana gimmick front sleeve signed by the artist to the informative gatefold, showing the moodiest bunch of motherfuckers this side of the Catholic church to the back sleeve - A blurred shot of the band, a perfect visual for the track 'Herion'.

And what about the music? Despite it being obvious to cite and as played out as Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album to the power of ten, whored out as the sound tracks to car adverts and other such worthless flotsam it remains captivating in a way that very few other records manage...

Sunday Morning, the opener is a fucking perfect song, perfect, there isn't a note or nuance I would change on it. The same can be said for the whole of side 1, 'Waiting for My Man', 'Femme Fetale', 'Venus in Furs', 'All Tomorrows Parties'... but not 'Run, Run, Run' which I always think sounds like second rate boogie-woogie filler that should have been left on the studio floor. Read that list back to yourself, I know it's obvious but lets just for a second try to something other than controversial. With the exception of one track I just read out five of the greatest songs ever written.

I wont waste my time or yours describing the actual music, you all know it, equal parts self consciously cool and too fucked up to give a fuck it succeeds where both the Stones and Beatles (the VUs only credible competition in 'Best record of all time' lists') fail in being effortlessly cool, a smug silent self-satisfied smile in the general direction of the pouting lips of Jagger and screaming girls storming the stage at Shea.

On to side 2. 'Heroin' is immense, they all are, each song through to 'European Son', there is little point in listing them as the chances are that anyone who might read this has at least one copy of this record. There is a reason that it took me so long to buy anything else the VU did beyond this album, I was living under the false impression that because this was so good they couldn't have possibly come near it with later offerings. It is hard to believe that this record was total utter and complete flop on its release, a failure of near biblical proportions when here I am 42, nearly 43 years later actually contemplating masturbating over it.

BACK

So I am back. After a pregnant pause of nigh on a month my fingers are tapping away as they recover from a night of making up for lost record shop time. Already my tan is fading, patches of peeling skin forming on my shoulders as my shit turns back to normal. Sierra Leone saw everything ranging from 'runny like soup' to trying to pass an sizeable unsanded wooden stump... But this is 32RPM and not Brownycolwny.Blogspot.com so I shall cease and desist with that particular line of copy.

Despite my third world surroundings the break was welcome, the beaches were fantastic and the beer was Heineken. Any record shops that were in Sierra Leone were either put out of business due to government corruption or burnt down during the almost decade long Civil war. Closest I got were a couple of huts selling pirate Lil'Wayne CDs. Given the countries geography and fondess for Nigerian media it's a real shame - Were it not for the countries now dead locust of an ex-premiere one Saiaka Stevens I could probably have loaded up on Lagos Funk and other crazy African delights, but no not so much as a scratched up Baccarra 7inch of 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' (Criminally under-rated BTW).

A little non-record shop based advice to any budding travellers contemplating a visit to said country: Go directly to the beaches, do not pass go and do not collect $200. Empty world class beaches aside the country is fucked, existing solely on Western subsidies, and charity hand-outs it is without infrastructure and despite being safe and friendly in 2009 outside of the 'major cities' (read fucked up shanti-towns) there is little in the way of roads, electricity and in some cases running water. The interior is a spattering of unfinished building products and sprawling green wildlife free terrain. Wild life free? Yes, they ate the wild life during the war.

I remember a family holiday in years passed, the west coast of France and eagerly hunting out a 7inch of the theme music from Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, not because I had even the remotest interest in Tina Turner, but because of the picture sleeve, one that prior to watching said film promised all that the Road Warrior delivered with an even better hair cut. Despite both film and theme being shit the tale still strikes a chord as regardless of my surroundings, of my distractions, over twenty years later one thing still rings true - I would rather be record shopping.

Not even the clearest of seas and pure white sands could distract me from the wants list in my head. Over a period of 14 nights I dreamt of record shops a total of three times and bikes twice. It's important to do what you love, to be what you love but to be definied by so utterly by random 20th Century consumerables is a little disheartening, empty. Anyway, like Popeye would say 'I yam wad I yam...ug ug ug'.

BILL PLUMBER AND THE COSMIC BROTHERHOOD - BILL PLUMBER AND THE COSMIC BROTHERHOOD

This was supposed to be a review of Blue Cheer's 'Oh! Pleasant Hope', that being the record I am most excited about at the moment but I can't find it so this will have to do. 

So what happens when an insurance salesman from Wisconsin drags his pals away from the bi-weekly 'Lodge of the Hectic Moose' meeting and convinces them to pick up and play a host of Indian instruments? 

This is what happens.

I know nothing about Bill Plumber, his imaginary background is being pulled 'Usual Suspects' style from the sleeve, and what a beautiful sleeve it is. If it weren't for the minute tea stain on the inside of the gatefold this gorgeous piece of glossy card could have been printed yesterday. 

The opener, is I imagine the kind of thing that gets 'beatnuts' spunking in their dry clean only jeans. A guy proto-rapping over a drum loop and a host of sitar, tamburas and vibes. Yes it sounds like an insurance salesman reading from a script but there's the charm.

Right let's find out about Bill. According to Wikipedia he was a catcher for the Cubs, Reds and Mariners...nope, not him. Let's try again... A-ha, paydirt: 

Cosmic Brotherhood is an album by jazz musician Bill Plummer, released in 1968 on Impulse! Records.[1]

 ...And that's all she wrote. Yeah, cheers for that world famous on-line encyclopedia, truly informative. RYM comes up dry as well although somebody quite rightly points out that Bill looks like an undertaker.

Their cover of 'The Look of Love' is great. A bit Indian restaurant but really great.

Oh bingo! a beautiful looking site called 'Techwebsound.com' tells me he is actually from Boulder Colorado, so slightly further West than I had him pegged. Oh, and it looks like Ravi Shankar taught him how to play the sitar... But not how to dress for the occasion it would seem. Doesn't mention insurance sales and it looks like this was his only album. 

Well I like it. Side two goes off the boil slightly with the jolly 'Lady Friend' being sandwiched with two exercises in Ravi Shankar style keeping it real... Quite why he couldn't have been the 'whore' his brother was I don't know. Anyway, touch too 'lounge' in places but well worth investigating if only for the opener 'Journey to the East' and 'The Look of Love'. 

Wait, I spoke too soon. The final track 'Antares' is very interesting. Sounds a lot like what Bill Might have got up to when the beer ran out and they returned to the lodge. 'Antares' is nice, a Stockhausen type sound sketch,  hastily scribbled as the the studio lights flashed their five minute warning it may have been, but it's well worth a listen non the less.

DINO VALENTE - DINO VALENTE

I feel sick. I've eaten too much. Well it was either that or the ill advised horizontal lying down that I decided to get with as soon as I was done with the eating. For some reason my re-heated chili and rice dinner fueled me with the urge to take to the sofa, legs slightly elevated courtesy of the chair arm. Now I am paying the price. My digestive system is truly confused and my body hates me. 

My physical state is at least taking my mind off what lies outside my apartment window, that darkness, the one which will suffocate each end of my working day for the next four to five months. Winter is here and with it that oh so familiar annual pit of despair. I am doing a lot of sleeping, pretending the winter isn't even happening. sleeping and working and when I can tick neither of those boxes some HBO based dirge usually gets a look in. Prison Break is over and I want my money back.

Anyway, tis the season. The season where I rely on my little plastic friends more than usual, I feel myself gearing up for some colossal chisel, new 'wants list' prepared in pictorial format, ebay primed and friendly record staff forewarned - it is well and truly on.

So my absence for the majority of October is down to this, a transition, the shedding of Summer friendly skin, freckles and all. I am now wrapped up warm, leant against the radiator, eagerly exercising my rack flicking fingers in the cool air.

Despite the lack of words I have been busy and the past few weeks have thrown up some truly awesome and sometimes unexpected listening experiences. But first off this, the Dino Valente album. I got it on Ebay in the Summer after it topping my 'Cannot Possibly Live Without This Record a Second Longer' list and promptly forgot all about it. It's impossible to talk about this record without referencing Alexander Spence's 'Oar' LP and for good reason, whilst this is slightly more focussed they are very, very similar.

Dino Valente looks and sounds like he should be the owner of a particularly bad Italian restaurant, one that used way too much salt on the pasta and might be called Belgranos.

It's great, but then I always expected it to be. Dino, better known for his work with Quicksilver Messenger Service treats us to what veers from outsider folk (Listen to Me) to the close to radio friendly San Francisco tinged summer pop of opener 'Time', the drums of which keep threatening to break into Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit'.

Side two gives us to strings and a nice break but his voice on 'Tomorrow' is way off and not necessarily in a good way. The track sounds like it belongs on a different album. I don't like it. For some reason it reminds me of 'Ferry Across the Mersey'. I wish I knew why because it certainly doesn't sound like it. Could be the indigestion throwing my ears... Either way, being reminded of that Liverpudlian shit sandwich is not really what I want right now. 

Yeah, to be honest Side 2 is pretty kack. The closer 'Test' is alright, instrumental doodling that reeks of 'we have time to fill' but he echo on his heavy breathing is nothing short of awesome. Oh now he's making ghost noises!

So to recap - definitive record of two halves this and although it's unlikely to be worth the money you pay for a US first press it's a harmless enough addition to the pile.

November's excuse for a lack of new copy is far more exotic. I travel to Sierra Leone for the first two weeks - It really is for the sight seeing and beaches. The diamonds are gone, guns surrendered and more importantly record shops all burnt down. I do wonder if it was a deliberate stunt my wife choosing the only place on the planet without record shops for our vacation...

Fuck.

DICK HYMAN - THE AGE OF ELECTRONICUS

When I was younger, when I first heard of this guy, his name used to have me in fits of hysterics. Fifteen or so years later I just about have it under control, it hasn't been an easy few years though, I mean 'dick' and 'hymen' in same name? Whilst it was never as tough as when I first found out that American's said 'period' instead of full-stop, it was tough going non the less.

So, Dick Hyman's 'The Age of Electronicus', not an album to play at the end of a hard day's work. Last night I kicked my shoes off, slipped this on and slumped onto the sofa before the tones of Dick's version of 'Obladi Oblada' had even bagun to ring. In retrospect a bit of Bert Bacharach would have been a much more suitable soundtrack. Lounge music for lounging. As it was, unable to move, exhausted from a day of doing whatever it is I do I was stuck with a slice of Dick's 'Angry space music' period. In  'Obladi Oblada', Desmond and Molly Joe have been replaced by killer robots from the analogue age, giant room sized growling noise machines with patch boards for faces and stray wires for arms.

The sleeve goes a long way to describing what lies within. Somekind of crazy analogue city of towering synthesizers, giant building sized valves and Dick Hyman popping his head up from time to time as if to say 'Does this sound annoy you? Does it? What about now?'

This theme stays throughout the album and does not let up, a couple of inapropriate Beatles covers add to that 'Green Onions' and 'Time is Tight' they all sound as if they are being gnawed through by steel robot teeth. Not to say I don't like it, it's just not exactly suitable for relaxing after work, glass of Merlot in hand and lights dimmed.

A much more apropriate setting for 'The Age of Electronicus' or parts of it are of course the dance floor. 'His take on James Brown's 'Give It Up or Turn It Loose' is a tank buster. It's the kind of artillery you save for somekind of showdown, sonic warfare.