MILES DAVIS
Sketches Of Spain - (1960)

Along with Kind of Blue, In a Silent Way, and Round About Midnight, Sketches of Spain is one of Miles Davis' most enduring and innovative achievements. Recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 — after Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley had left the band — Davis teamed with Canadian arranger Gil Evans for the third time. Davis brought Evans the album's signature piece, "Concierto de Aranjuez," after hearing a classical version of it at bassist Joe Mondragon's house. Evans was as taken with it as Davis was, and set about to create an entire album of material around it. The result is a masterpiece of modern art. On the "Concierto," Evans' arrangement provided an orchestra and jazz band — Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Elvin Jones — the opportunity to record a classical work as it was. The piece, with its stunning colors and intricate yet transcendent adagio, played by Davis on a flügelhorn with a Harmon mute, is one of the most memorable works to come from popular culture in the 20th century. Davis' control over his instrument is singular, and Evans' conducting is flawless. Also notable are "Saeta," with one of the most amazing technical solos of Davis' career, and the album's closer, "Solea," which is conceptually a narrative piece, based on an Andalusian folk song, about a woman who encounters the procession taking Christ to Calvary. She sings the narrative of his passion and the procession — or parade — with full brass accompaniment moving along. Cobb and Jones, with flamenco-flavored percussion, are particularly wonderful here, as they allow the orchestra to indulge in the lushly passionate arrangement Evans provided to accompany Davis, who was clearly at his most challenged here, though he delivers with grace and verve. Sketches of Spain is the most luxuriant and stridently romantic recording Davis ever made. To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience, as one encounters a multitude of timbres, tonalities, and harmonic structures seldom found in the music called jazz. (allmusic.com)

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*** 7" SINGLE ***
UNREST
Yes She Is My Skinhead Girl / Hydroplane / Feeling Good Fixation - (1992)


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FRED FRITH
Cheap At Half The Price - (1983)

Frith's last album for Ralph Records stepped back from the progressions of Speechless to a concoction of pop-like ditties and instrumentals recorded at home on a four track. And for the first time, Frith sings, in a strange high-pitched tone. A little more production and sound manipulation and this could almost be a Residents album, circa 1978. As a pop-song writer, Frith is okay; he shrouds socialist discussion in lyrics about dogs and insects while keeping the song structure simple and repetitive. "Too Much Too Little" and "Some Clouds Don't" are whimsical songs, simple beauty overshadowed by fear of Reagan-administration nuclear holocaust. Frith saw the danger in the upbeat early '80s as threatening to the lessons of history and a derailment to the cause; one wonders if the sunny moments of the album aren't actually one big joke. The instrumentals reside less in the pop vein, but like "The Great Healer" or "Heart Bares" they don't go further than moody experiments in Frith's home studio. Only "Absent Friends," a traditional Swedish melody rearranged by Frith, breaks that mold. (allmusic.com)

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THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS
Constructive Destruction - (1994)

Recorded in 1993 in Chicago, this lineup is spiritually — if not musically — linked to John Zorn's Naked City. Ken Vandermark and Jeb Bishop, along with drummer Weasel Walter, guitarist Dylan Posa, and saxophonist Chad Organ, are a compositional and improvisational terror. Opening with the lovely "The Critic Stomp," the Luttenbachers create swirling combinations of rock energy's most organized moments and stack them against the individual desire to cut out of the universe by screaming your way through your instrument. This continues though the dynamic changes from time to time, as on "Fist Through Glass," where a particularly knotty melodic line is played by the saxophones and Bishop on trombone, and then illustrated with the most distorted guitar accompaniment ever recorded. Walter has to keep everything past triple-eight time, so furious are the tempos, and he is assisted by Vandermark's sense of impeccable timing to carry a line to the end and stop it on a dime. Other notable tracks are "Coffeehouse in Flames," pulled out on occasion by the Vandermark 5, and "Eaten By Sharks," with its wraparound bassline and tenor solos that literally make you wish you had been anywhere but here when the horns started bleating. This is awesome, this is fun, this is wake the dead music that actually might.

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STEREOLAB
Mars Audiac Quintet - (1994)

By the time of 1994's Mars Audiac Quintet, Stereolab had already highlighted the rock and experimental sides of its music; now the band concentrated on perfecting its space-age pop. Sweetly bouncy songs like "Ping Pong" and "L' Enfer des Formes" streamline the band's sound without sacrificing its essence; track for track, this may be the group's most accessible, tightly written album. The groove-driven "Outer Accelerator," "Wow and Flutter," and "Transona Five" (which sounds strangely like Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country") reaffirm Stereolab's Krautrock roots, but the band's sweet synth melodies and vocal arrangements give it a pop patina. Even extended pieces like "Anamorphose" and "Nihilist Assault Group" — which could have appeared on Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements if they had a rawer production — are more sensual and voluptuous than edgy and challenging. It's equally apparent on layered, complex songs such as "New Orthophony" and "The Stars Our Destination," as well as spare, minimal tracks like "Des Etoiles Electroniques," that the members of Stereolab focused their experimental energies on production tricks, vocal interplay, and increasingly electronic-based arrangements. The charming final track "Fiery Yellow" takes the band's fondness for lounge pop and experimentation to the limit; a delicate, marimba-driven piece featuring the High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan, it sounds like the kind of music Esquivel or Martin Denny would be proud to make in the '90s. While it's not as overtly innovative as some of Stereolab's earlier albums, Mars Audiac Quintet is an enjoyable, accessible forerunner to the intricate, cerebral direction the group's music would take in the mid- and late '90s. (allmusic.com)

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SCREAMING FEMALES
Power Move - (2009)

Screaming Females bring the sweaty intensity of basement punk to a new level with their third and most scorching full-length, Power Move. Their urgent vocals, gritty guitar solos, and iron-strong rhythms have garnered the attention of Spin Magazine, Maximum Rock n Roll, and everyone in-between. Power Move has a startlingly original sound that incorporates elements of Hendrix-like jazz-fusion, screamed post-punk vocals, electrically charged basslines, and hypnotic melodies. In a nutshell, it's indie rock with shredding.

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EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN
Jewels - (2007)

The 15 tracks that eventually comprised the release of The Jewels were first made available one at a time only as website downloads at various points between 2006 and 2007 before being compiled onto a standard CD release. Using a game (called "DAVE," for the record) that had both deliberate and enigmatic instructions on each card, the band generated ideas — without telling each other what their cards were inscribed with — that were then used to construct and complete tracks within a day or two. Adding another unconventional element to the process, the lyrics were based on dreams. Yet while the methodology might have been unusual, all told the results really aren't uncharacteristic of Einstürzende Neubauten, if perhaps not as noisy as what listeners familiar with their most celebrated work might anticipate. There's not much in the way of conventional pop or rock song melody, of course, but there's a fairly even and creative spread of textures both ambient and clamorous, with both English and (more often) German lyrics that are more spoken than sung in nature. The combination of elements is starker and sparer than in most electronic or ambient music, however, and while the unpredictable and incongruous elements are suggestive of dreams, those dreams are sometimes fairly serene as well as fairly disturbing. Perhaps the most memorable soundbite of the lot is the eerie quasi-prayer chant "am I only Jesus, I am only Jesus" that underscores "Am I Only Jesus?" (allmusic.com)

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