/daily/core - Part 2

戸張大輔 [Daisuke Tobari] - ギター [Guitar]

1999, Bumblebee

by r

The cartography of his mythology almost dwarves the sound: a mysterious figure who is rarely heard from or seen, listening to apparently only Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi, Chara, and U2, astonishing even Yamatsuka Eye when chanced upon in a live house, proffering his pieces to bookend an adult video, absconding into salaryman life only to return from that wilderness 10 years later, just to drift back into obscurity, until cropping up another 10 years later, before submerging back into the depths – keep your ears peeled, 2029 is the year! So goes some of the tales (apocryphal or not, you decide).

Almost though. Equipped with a 4-track recorder and nylon guitar (and perhaps a casio keyboard, recorder, and a Tascam mic to get some delicious found sounds), Tobari strings out his soul through Guitar, reminding us of certain undeniable truths. That a single person can be dancing together, a single person can be a whirling dervish of devil-may-care melancholy and exuberance, a single person can be scum and also not scum – these are truths we know. And, most importantly, that a single person can become many by the echoes of their soul. Which is to say: it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright, it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright – IT’S ALRIGHT!~

Nicholas Collins - Dark and Stormy Night

1992, Trace Elements

by booshnaw

On one listen, you probably get it. At least if you were a little attentive to the music. The trilogy of musical glitch experiences makes their presence known.

1. - Glitched strings, reversed and warped as it spins around the CD tray
2. - Grinding digital corruption
3. - Tone poems recursively rhyming and diving the meta realities of storytelling

Very dense, and I'm not even counting how minutes of waveforms collapse into seconds.

Within the dark and stormy night, is one of the most intriguing musical experiences. Not necessarily an in-joke, but more like a notch on the belt of the musical journeyman. There is nothing really "to get" - the narrative and underlying motif is revealed by the end of each piece. It's almost impossible to enjoy it the same way once you do "get it". It's as if you are transported through an abstract painting, backwards, until you finally see all of the raw components that went into it.

Nicholas Collins' It Was A Dark And Stormy Night is gateway music to more avant-garde forms. Call it the Penn & Teller of Avant-Garde art? While the story might lose its magic on further visits, it sort of demystifies and gives you some new ways to look at music.

Graham Lambkin, Jason Lescalleet - The Breadwinner

2008, Erstwhile

by snufkin

Lambkin's music whilst mysterious, serious, and all those other qualities that people who are invested into this sort of music obsess over, is also humourous in ways that are often hidden from immediate perception, or totally obscured from the listener. Pairing with Lescalleet on this release makes sense, his work has this obvious 'parody' element to it at times (especially in album titles and artwork). This cover of course is a nod to Robert Ashley's Private Parts. Other references include Black Sabbath's E5150, and perhaps 'Two States' nods to Pavement? It's all obscured by ambiguity.

Starting off with a 'cover' of the Yoko Ono track, we get an abjectly beautiful-sounding track grounded in the very mundane sounds of what appears like apartment life, perhaps in step with the album the cover references and the text "Musical settings for common environments and domestic situations"; it feels intimate but not personal. That theme continues throughout the album; tracks like 'There and Back' could easily be simple recordings of the inside of someone's home at points.

Of course, there's a sinister feeling across all of the album. Perhaps at times these 'domestic situations' end up feeling like audio from a snuff film. Maybe this is a joke, maybe it isn’t -- it's unclear, it's foggy.

At times this feels in direct reference to Ashley, nodded to on the cover, parallels to Automatic Writing (more than Private Parts) are obvious; perhaps the music contains snippets of it. (Jon Abbey of Erstwhile reminds us that the distant bassline which intrudes in Automatic Writing is Al Green - Let’s Stay Together.)

It would also be remiss to not mention the other albums in this trilogy, Air Supply, and Photographs. Both with the same duo, Air Supply sounds even more haunted than The Breadwinner. Overall The Breadwinner remains an essential document in both Lescalleet and Lambkin’s catalogue, and certainly on the more accessible end for first-time listeners.

Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen

1985, CBS

by natkingcole

This album might seem like an outlier on this list. A mid-'80s sophisti-pop album lost in a sea of drone and frog sounds. Prefab Sprout are the perfect pop act to crack a chart like this. Debut album Swoon pushes their idiosyncrasies to the forefront. The lyrics are filled with oblique references and celebrity names, and the songs go wherever the hell Paddy McAloon wants them to go. Plus, just for laughs, he crams a billion hooks into each and every song (this will be a recurring theme throughout this review).

Steve McQueen is much poppier, much more immediate, without losing even a bit of their strengths. Opener "Faron Young" hits on all of their lyrical strengths: a lot of words that sound really great, nostalgic references to past pop culture figures, complete crypticism delivered with unabashed romanticism. The whole album, aside from "When Love Breaks Down", is produced by synthesizer legend and noted one-hit wonder Thomas Dolby. His work is, obviously, immaculate. It stands out from the crowd, there's a lot of tight, jazzy drum work here and soft rock flourishes that get the Steely Dan audiophile within me all worked up.

If the whole album is nigh-perfect, the first five songs border on Biblical. The production is so timeless, it's a spunky and rocked-up take on sophisti-pop that works perfectly with the songwriting. If I had to choose, "Appetite" would be the centerpiece here. Those ethereal backing vocals that just float through your headphones; that brilliant rhythm section that gets all syncopated in the verses; and, obviously, that iconic synth intro. It's a perfect microcosm of what makes the album, and this band, so special.

不失者 [Fushitsusha] - 1st

1985, PSF

by notacop

The other Japanese noise rock live album in Daily’s favourite albums, Fushitsusha’s first, numerically titled live album exudes a sleaze and swagger that’s difficult to find elsewhere. The Kanji used in the name Fushitsusha translates (so says Google) into “Invincible” in Japanese, and “Loser” in Chinese - there’s different pronunciations, but there’s gotta be some resonance there, I gotta believe that, it’s too perfect.

Fushitsusha is the main project of Keiji Haino, a major figure in the psychedelic underground in Japan during the 1970s (a contemporary of Les Rallizes Denudes, Taj Mahal Travellers, and the Far East Family Band), and a major figure in Japan’s experimental music “scene” from the 80s onwards. The guy has a massive discography, collaborating with several musicians on this list (including Jim O’Rourke, Kan Mikami, and Peter Brotzmann on various occasions) beyond his material with Fushitsusha and his solo career. He contains multitudes, and this album both is and isn’t representative of his “sound”. I mean, for fucks sake, one of his other releases is him DJing his screams with a sampler and a drum machine. There’s that insane chart that Daily oldhead Dogwander made for Haino which just about covers it. It's a good chart, seek it out, reddit has it now…

Earlier, I said this album was sleazy, some might find that an odd descriptor. I mean it as a complement in the kindest possible terms. The whole album exudes this grotty menace - I think it’s the blues influence - reminding me a lot of Captain Beefheart’s music (every album not named Trout Mask Replica but also maybe a little bit Trout Mask Replica). But it’s Captain Beefheart by way of evil-sounding, reality warping distortion and feedback.