Playlist Week of 12-03-11

* Dowland: Complete Lute Works, Vol.1 (O’Dette) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Dowland: Complete Lute Works, Vol.2 (O’Dette) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Veracini: Sonatas (Holloway/Mortensen/ter Linden) (ECM CD)
* Leclair: Sonatas (Holloway/Mortensen/ter Linden) (ECM CD)
* Cage: Sonatas & Interludes For Prepared Piano (Vandré) (Mode CD)
* Feldman: The Viola In My Life (Konstantynowicz/Cikada Ensemble/NRO/Eggen) (ECM CD)
* Feldman: Morton Feldman (Tudor, et al.) (Editions RZ CD)
* Cecil Taylor Quartet: Looking Ahead! (Contemporary/Fantasy CD)
* Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Live At Montreux (Inner City 2CD)
* Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Chateauvallon, France 8-24-76 (AUD 2CDR)
* Ronnie Boykins: The Will Come, Is Now (ESP-Disk’ CD)
* Scanner & The Postmodern Jazz Quartet: Blink Of An Eye (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Myra Melford’s Be Bread: The Image Of Your Body (Cryptogramophone CD)
* Myra Melford’s Be Bread: The Whole Tree Gone (Firehouse 12 CD)
* Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock/Tyshawn Sorey: Paradoxical Frog (Clean Feed CD)
* Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman/Erik Friedlander: Abaton (ECM 2CD)
* Sylvie Courvoisier: Lonelyville (Intakt CD)
* Mephista: Black Narcissus (Tzadik CD)
* Mephista: Entomological Reflections (Tzadik CD)
* DJ Spooky: Optometry (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Grateful Dead: Lyceum Theatre, London, England 5/23/72 (GDP/Rhino 3CD)
* Grateful Dead: Lyceum Theatre, London, England 5/24/72 (GDP/Rhino 3CD)
* Frank Zappa: Civilization Phaze III (d.1) (Barking Pumpkin 2CD)
* Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon (Experience Edition) (d.1) (Pinkfloyd/EMI CD)
* Yes: The Yes Album (Atlantic/Mobile Fidelity CD)
* The Cure: Seventeen Seconds (Fiction/Rhino CD)†/‡
* The Cure: Faith (Fiction/Rhino CD)†/‡
* Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (Matador CD)
* Yo La Tengo: Today Is The Day! (Matador CDEP)
* Guided By Voices: “We Won’t Apologize […]”/”The Unsinkable Fats Domino” (Matador 7”)
* Guided By Voices: “Doughnut For A Snowman” (Fire 7”EP)
* Circus Devils: Mother Skinny (Happy Jack Rock Records LP)
* Circus Devils: Capsized! (Happy Jack Rock Records LP)
* Buckethead: Giant Robot (CyberOctave CD)†/‡
* Bill Laswell: Broken Vessels (soundtrack) (Velvel/Koch CD)†
* Cobra Strike: The 13th Scroll (Ion CD)†/‡
* Mastodon: Leviathan (Relapse CD)†(‡)
* Mastodon: Blood Mountain (Reprise CD)†(‡)
* Mastodon: Crack The Skye (Reprise CD)

†=iPod
‡=car

Commentary:

The ninth(!) Circus Devils LP, Capsized!, came out just in time for Halloween and, as usual, it’s taken a while to grow on me. It starts out like most any Circus Devils record, with a dreamy instrumental (“To England the Tigers”) followed by the title track, a noisy, industrial thumper with processed vocals. Here we go! But then we get two of the creamiest of pop songs ever, right in a row: the bouncy “Cyclopean Runways,” and “Legendary Breakfast Codes,” a blissed-out ballad. Huh? Well, don’t worry. Capsized!, like every other Circus Devils record, explores the weirder, more experimental side of Robert Pollard’s musical psyche and as the album progresses, those themes of agitated noise and soft rock comfort are developed into a loosely coherent song cycle about (among other things) getting falling down drunk (i.e. “Capsized!”). Amidst the proggy metal, pure pop pleasure and trippy atmospherics there are several moments that are deeply disturbing. “Vampire Playing A Red Piano,” a spoken word piece, is downright creepy while the vertiginous “Double Vission” features a shockingly realistic sound of someone (Pollard?) vomiting violently. Good grief! Later, on “Plate of Scales,” when he boozily sings about wanting to throw up, you believe him! If all this sounds slightly sick, well it is—and it might be the best Circus Devils album yet! But at the same time, it is a little bit worrying. Pollard is a notorious drinker and it is hard not to draw certain conclusions from all this. Then again, you cannot say that drinking interferes with his productivity! Heck, this is Pollard’s sixth album of 2011! Moreover, Capsized! might be the Circus Devils’ most creative and profoundly affecting album yet—but it’s not going to appeal to teetotalers or prudes. You can download a FREE MP3 of "Cyclopean Runways" here.

+++

Speaking of Pollard’s productivity, two seven-inch vinyl-only singles from the forthcoming Guided By Voices reunion album have recently been released: Matador has the double-A sided “We Won’t Apologize For The Human Race”/”The Unsinkable Fats Domino” while the British label, Fire gets “Doughnut For A Snowman” with four B-sides. The so-called “classic” lineup of GBV tries to revive the glory days with a return to a primitive, lo-fi recording technique and group collaboration and it seems to work OK but, in any event, it’s nice to see these guys get a victory lap. Let’s Go Eat The Factory comes out on January 1 followed by another seven-inch (“Chocolate Boy”/”As The Girls Sing Downing”) on January 17. Not surprisingly, the first records of 2012 will be by Robert Pollard, a record collector’s dream. Check out a FREE download of "The Unsinkable Fats Domino" here.