TOM WAITS
Closing Time - (1973)

Tom Waits' debut album is a minor-key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness. Within the apparently narrow range of the cocktail bar pianistics and muttered vocals, Waits and producer Jerry Yester manage a surprisingly broad collection of styles, from the jazzy "Virginia Avenue" to the up-tempo funk of "Ice Cream Man" and from the acoustic guitar folkiness of "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" to the saloon song "Midnight Lullaby," which would have been a perfect addition to the repertoires of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett. Waits' entire musical approach is stylized, of course, and at times derivative — "Lonely" borrows a little too much from Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" — and his lovelorn lyrics can be sentimental without being penetrating. But he also has a gift for gently rolling pop melodies, and he can come up with striking, original scenarios, as on the best songs, "Ol' 55" and "Martha," which Yester discreetly augments with strings. Closing Time announces the arrival of a talented songwriter whose self-conscious melancholy can be surprisingly moving. (allmusic.com)

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YOUNG WIDOWS
Old Wounds - (2008)

Young Widows released a solid album in 2006 titled Settle Down City. Drawing on the influences of Jesus Lizard and Black Flag among others, they released an album that was respectable in all sense of the word. They put out an album that people definitely liked. But now they've put out a record that people will fucking love. This shit is loud. This shit is heavy. This shit is great. Expanding their sound, Young Widows have created a near-masterpiece. Driving basslines set the tone and shrieking guitar and pounding drums deliver the noise. These fuckers know what they're doing. They want to make you eat shit and like it. They want you to get punched in the face and ask for another one. And they've accomplished it. With Kurt Ballou's production mixing in live and studio recordings it sounds immediate. It sounds like David Yow and the Lizards recording their own version of In on the Kill Taker. Numbing is the right word for this record. It numbs your soul. You can come into this with no regrets and come out wondering what the fuck happened. The guys in Young Widows understand that what happens happens and you've got to learn to deal. Dealing can be a pain but when you've got to do it, you've got to do it. Listen to this album and deal. Deal with what happens and what doesn't. Deal with the shit that you haven't even eaten yet. But just listen and enjoy. This album is the lunch you've only eaten once but want another bite of. (punknews.org)

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THE RESIDENTS

High Horses EP - (2001)

A nice little one-off by The Residents' "Combo de Mechanico" (despite what it says on the sleeve!). Who? Wha? we might say, but they sure ain't telling. This seems to carry on a series of automated-music experiments - History of Digital Music, Pollex Christi - and, as usual, there is a bizarre concept behind it. This represents the sound of riding the carousel at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in 1970 while under the influence LSD. This CD is very short for the price, but you do get a lovely 'Factoid-a-round' wheel inside, which gives you information about 1970, the Golden Gate Carousel and Acid. A word of warning for those who get dizzy easily. 3D spatial sound trickery is employed all the way through.
It was a good stop-gap while waiting for the next album. What it obviously wasn't was a thrown-together-overnight project — the process behind this has been gently simmering on the back burner of The Residents' collective consciousness for at least 16 years. As revealed by Hardy Fox in a radio interview, back in 1987. The Residents have long had an interest in street organ and carousel music, which is programmed by means of punched cards. High Horses is an attempt to both emulate punch-card carousel music by means of modern computer systems, and to simulate an actual carousel ride.
The Residents seem to have turned towards the importance of sound again, after a slight aversion for most of the nineties. I think they decided that it would be a good experiment to explore the use of notes, harmony and melody for a while (paying less attention to texture). Here, I think they were beginning to combine the two again.

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PJ HARVEY
Rid Of Me - (1993)

Dry was shockingly frank in its subject and sound, as PJ Harvey delivered post-feminist manifestos with a punkish force. PJ Harvey's second album, Rid of Me, finds the trio, and Harvey in particular, pushing themselves to extremes. This is partially due to producer Steve Albini, who gives the album a bloodless, abrasive edge with his exacting production; each dynamic is pushed to the limit, leaving absolutely no subtleties in the music. Harvey's songs, in decided contrast to Albini's approach, are filled with gray areas and uncertainties, and are considerably more personal than those on Dry. Furthermore, they are lyrically and melodically superior to the songs on the debut, but their merits are obscured by Albini's black-and-white production, which is polarizing. It may be the aural embodiment of the tortured lyrics, and therefore a supremely effective piece of performance art, but it also makes Rid of Me a difficult record to meet halfway. But anyone willing to accept its sonic extremities will find Rid of Me to be a record of unusual power and purpose, one with few peers in its unsettling emotional honesty. (allmusic.com)

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YIP - YIP
Two Kings Of The Same Kingdom
- (2007)

Florida-based duo Yip-Yip have never particularly stuck to any sort of formalities on how their music should be played and performed and what it should be like, preferring instead to loop and distort and improvise their way around their songs as they please. That being said, Two Kings of the Same Kingdom, their fifth full-length, sounds, well, pretty much exactly like their other albums, which is to say, quirky, crunchy, keyboard-and-drum-machine-driven electronica that bounces around between bass and treble, tinny snare drums, and low saxophone notes. It's all circling, repeating instrumentals here, so much so that the tracks get hard to distinguish, but the album's so short — with 12 songs clocking in under 25 minutes — that it never seems tedious or longwinded. Instead, Nintendo-based riffs bleep and blurt and circle around, synchronizing with the percussion, chirping out good-naturedly. In fact, even the songs that take on a more ominous tone (the time-signature-shifting "Gender Changes," the darker "Genius Beast") are never threatening or even any less fun than their sunnier, warmer counterparts ("Sprinkle Council," "Club Mummy"). It's lighthearted, not particularly complicated music, where most often the treble and basslines mimic each other, hiccupping along with the drums when necessary, but it's also off-kilter and engaging and fun, smart and weird yet not overly concerned with itself or its image, unpretentious in a world of pretense. On Two Kings of the Same Kingdom, Yip-Yip have settled nicely into themselves and their music, finding a succinctness that still allows them the room to explore and develop new ideas without letting things spiral out of experimental-video-game-punk control. Which, all things considered, makes for a pretty great listen, whether or not you've heard the band before. (allmusic.com)

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SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS
& THE FUZZTONES
Live - (1984)

Following their fantastic 1984 live debut Leave Your Mind At Home, this EP gave yet another taste of the hard garage beat movement that was sweeping the nation during the 1980s. Among a plethora of singles and compilation appearances that year, this performance recorded at NYC's famous Irving Plaza venue backing up voodoo blues icon Screamin' Jay Hawkins only strengthened the 'Tones rep as the supreme rulers of the new garage beat.

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DAVID LYNCH'S
"Eraserhead" Original
Soundtrack Plus - (2003)

An astonishing, peerless masterpiece, the soundtrack to David Lynch's debut labor of love creates a world of haunting mechanics and sexual distress in such a bizarre layer of sonic fog that any record collection is simply poorer without it. The enormity of the aural experimentation is extraordinary. With renowned sound designer Alan Splet, Lynch developed any technique he could conjure up — from recording with pieces of glass tubing, pneumatic engines, or water-based pieces of machinery — to produce sounds never heard before (or since) in any medium. Pieces of Fats Waller filter in through the unsettling haze. The sounds of the unimaginably horrific baby are nothing less than ghastly. Few directors could have realized such a potent vision only a first time out. Disturbing, haunting, and — decades later — still one of the most compelling sonic creations in the history of film. (allmusic.com)

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