Vinyl edition of what was previously a Heroine CD-R and a cassette on Fuck It Tapes (under the title “The Ground Ain’t Dirty”), an album that works as a great overview of MV & EE at their most fully hallucinatory, with long tracks that build wave upon wave of tamboura drone and heavy metal string glide giving way to ominous odes to endless feedback, a totally deranged Erika Elder-fronted take on Neil Young’s “For The Turnstiles” from On The Beach and some cranky group rags. One of their most otherworldly releases this far. Edition of 840 copies on 180g vinyl with beautiful tough tip-on jackets and all new art. All VT copies come with the limited edition bonus CD – Total Loss Songs: 50 minutes of previously unreleased material - only officially available direct from the label via pre-orders. Highly recommended.

Edition of 400 copies live album from Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder, joined by Ron Schneidermann (Sunburned et al), Doc Dunn and Chris Corsano. Live Road focuses on the more extended Environments style of MV & EE and makes for one of their most psychedelic and otherworldly sides, pitched somewhere between ’72 Dead, Alan Silva’s Skillfulness LP, the early lunar COM style and some of the wilder of the recent Heroine sets. The version of “Mine All Troubled Blues” that opens the set features some of Valentine’s most wayward guitar picking, a beautiful demonstration of how far-reaching his re-think of the possibilities of country-blues guitar has become. Takayanagi couldn’t have phrased it better. Then there are two versions of “Environments” spliced together to generate a hallucinatory headspace that combines plumes of outside strings with peacock drones and visions of melting steel. The B side sees Corsano piloting the group into a tear-it-up power stomp through “Tea Devil” before they dissolve back into another “Environments”. One of the MV and EE’s furthest orbits of form, beautifully realized by Blackest Rainbow with wraparound jackets featuring cover art by Jeremy Earl of Woods. Highly recommended.

Beautifully assembled eight cassette box set in the mode of the earlier Road Trips box with live recordings from the April 2010 No Floor Tour featuring Matthew Valentine, Erika Elder, Mick Flower, John Moloney and Zuma with guest spots from J.Mascis and Doc Dunn. In moulded plastic case with a full-colour booklet featuring liners and pics. Jams from Grey Matter Book, Hadley MA 4/9/09, Silent Barn, Ridgewood NY 4/10/10, Fairfield Chapel, Oberlin OH 4/11/10, PJ’s Lager House, Detroit MI 4/12/10, The Boat, Toronto ON 4/13/10, La Sala Rossa, Montreal QC 4/14/10, Spring Street Gallery, Saratoga Springs NY 4/15/2010, Nom D’Artiste Loft, Boston MA 4/16/10. Here’s Andrew’s review of the Montreal set to get you salivating: “Another stunning set, this time from the quintet of Matthew Valentine and Erika Elders with Golden Road cohorts in tow of Mick Flower, Doc Dunn and John Moloney recorded in Montreal, Canada as part of the 'No floor tour' in April 2010. This is simply blues rock jams at their finest and less psychedelic in places than some previous Golden Road shows. The playing is completely capable of rivaling the marathon blues infused rock workouts of the Allman Brothers Band or Led Zeppelin at their peak with a big dose of Sonny Boy Williamson's 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' thrown in. Throughout the set John Moloney lays down a simple 4/4 rock beat but with the same type of swing, feel and control afforded by Buddy Miles to Hendrix's Band of Gyspys. The result being a set which charges along but with a real sense of groove layered over the top with blues wailing guitar and mouth harp. The set starts with a slow psychedelic workout around "Satisfied" but keeping the blues theme before charging into a set which runs "Get Right Church", "Canned Happiness” and a closing jam of "Environments" into "Feelin' Fine".  There are many highlights to choose but clocking in at over 14 minutes this is the finest version of "Get Right Church" I have heard, a relentless blues jam which obliterates the recent studio version on Barn Nova. As a grown adult I find myself listening to this with the same giant grin I first encountered at the age of 13 when I was handed a copy of AC/DC's High Voltage or Canned Heat's Fried Hockey Boogie and thinking - can rock music be this much fun? So if your musical tastes allow you enjoy the rock of AC/DC at the same time as the musicianship of Jandek then you have got to hear this! Highest possible recommendation.” – Andrew Ross. Edition of only 150 copies.

“Fantastic set by Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder from the recent UK tour in February 2010 recorded at the Brudenell Social Club, Leeds.  On this one the duo are joined by local resident Mick Flower on bass for the whole set and the Doozer provides blues harp on a couple of tracks.  Whilst this is the same line-up and a similar set as those played in Manchester and Coventry a few days later (captured on recent Heroine releases "(Bad) Blood on the Doozer's Guitar" and "Electric Wharf (Conventrian)") this is well worth checking out as it has quite a different sound: more agressive, bit faster and really good mix on the sonics.  Firstly, this 'bootleg' comes from two composite mixes to get it right and it shows with a much clearer recording than some of the other Heroine releases.  The set opens with "Cold Rain" which sounds sublime this time around; Mick's bass is less distorted, you can hear those melodic bass runs properly this time, and this is clearest I have heard Erika's firebird mandolin and lap steel outside of a spectrasound recording.  About four minutes in MV drops a beautiful solo with single melting notes ringing out, great version.  Next up is "Get Right Church" which is the only performance from the set which does not have such a hard edge.  Instead it is a much more authentic blues rendition which reminds me of the electric blues recordings from Chess Studios circa 1950s.  The Doozer's blues harp is simple 3-note riffs but with effective note bending in the style of Junior Wells or Little Watler, and MV's clean, single note solos sound like Hubert Sumlin.  Midway through MV produces some delicate clean wah-wah reminiscent of Hendrix's "Up from the Skies" before bursting into a fuller onslaught for the song's close.  If the versions of this song from the No Floor Tour were blues rock at their finest, then this version is simply electric blues at its finest.  Dedicated to Jo Ann Kelly who I'm sure would have approved.  "Summer Magic" returns to the more frazzled playing on this set with the opening chords being laden in wah-wah and hammered out relentlessly throughout.  Really like the version of "Environments" on this set of shows with the sitar-sounding meanderings going into waves of raga induced chord-like crescendos which whip up a frenzy.  Sounds a bit like a live take on "Jook Enthusiast", the opening track from the latest COM release "Bollywoe". Finally, a few seconds of fuzz signals the descent from "Environments" into one of the heavier versions of "Canned Happiness" I have heard, even without drums.  Not much canned boogie, only a full-on feedback onslaught just to prove they can melt guitars better than Courtis / Moore, yeah right! Only question remains, did Mick Flower's house feature in the top ten middens? Great sonics.  Highly recommended.” – Andrew Ross

Limited vinyl pressing of what was originally a 99 copies CD-R on Child Of Microtones, courtesy of Pete Nolan’s Arbitrary Signs imprint. A collection of massively dosed studio recordings, Liberty Rose opens with beams of elegiac solo guitar before dropping into a classic slow-burning jag with puffs of echo/delay damaged vocals melting into hallucinatory afterimages while Erika slides quicksilver runs all the way down your spine. “Crow Jane Environs” has a deep desert feel that could almost be Mu if it wasn’t for Erika’s oracular vocals and MV’s post-Takayanagi soloing. The stark, stripped down version of “Death Is My Friend” features a stunning/chilling vocal performance from Erika and Doc Dunn joins the duo for the last two tracks, with “Out In Space” as dazed and lonely as anything on Skip Spence’s Oar and “Streams” featuring clouds of lucid unison vocals that you could disappear inside. I guess at this stage Child Of Microtones has the same relationship to the Ecstatic Peace releases that Richard Youngs’ No Fans imprint has to his releases on Jagjaguwar, functioning as a repository for some of the most psychedelic, experimental and personal music to escape from the personal stash. And this is a major instalment. Dedicated to Dr Ragtime. Highly recommended.

Big sounding set from the quintet of Matthew Valentine, Erika Elder, Doc Dunn, Muskox and J.Mascis.  Bit of an archival release with a set recorded at Club Soda, Montreal, QC from back in January 2010 with a 800 capacity venue support slot for Dinosaur Jr. Quite a short set at 35 minutes which given the nature of the set does not have quite the same level of experimentation as a full-on MV&EE show but some great extended psychedelic jams on this one. The set opens with a great version of "Cold Rain" which probably sounds closest to some classic 1969-era "Dark Star" from the Grateful Dead. Some great weaving and intertwined guitar between the various players including some delightful melodic bass. Towards the end the songs picks up building into an almost kosmische vibe or even Neu! type groove. Next is the set's highlight which is a fantastic jam on "Get Right Church" with the rhythm section really coming into its own providing that classic 70s tight but loose feel. Some great lazy drums fills mixed with some crashing symbols and the bass playing sounding somewhere between Larry "The Mole" Taylor of Canned Heat and Bill Cox from the various Hendrix outfits.  In fact the Band of Gypsys is quite a close comparison here with a real groove to some of the jams which sound so effortless and fluid. Over the top there is some tremendous psychedelic blues jam guitar from MV - my kinda stuff that I would happily listen to for hours. This segues into quite a different version of "Environments" which has a real space rock or kosmische jam feel to it. Long, mellow drawn out feedback with J.Mascis playing lots of cymbal work and snare-brushing over the top. The set closes with a 'big-sounding' version of "Summer Magic". I really like the massively amplified whispered vocals from Erika during the chorus which is quite different from previous live versions and gives it quite a haunting feel. Towards the end this breaks into another extended electric guitar jam - if this is your kind of stuff then you should check this set out. Overall a set which runs: "Cold Rain", "Get Right Church" into "Environments" into "Summer Magic".  A real 70s-vibe classic guitar jam based around a solid rhythm section in the style of Canned Heat, Hendrix and The Allman Brothers Band with some space rock thrown in the mix.  Also love the classic 70s rock double-live album cover shot with the full stage lights behind all the guitarists. It's recommended. – Andrew Ross.

“Single ‘drone-raga’ performance from Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder, joined by a free folk travelling band of Doc Dunn, Mike “Muscox” Smith, Willie Lane and Tim Barnes. A major archival and historic document of a performance at the Seventh Annual Terrastock Festival held in Louisville, Kentucky. Back in June 2008, MV&EE with the Golden Road embarked on the 16-date “Rust Belt, Plumber Ass tour” which included a two-day stop at the Terrastock Festival. The touring Golden Road comprised Doc Dunn and Mike Smith with Willie Lane sitting in for a few shows; the Terrastock festival saw the addition of Tim Barnes to drop some beats and heavy percussive sounds.  The group’s official set was on the 21^st with an impromptu set on the 22^nd on the acoustic ‘Third Stage’.  It’s this second set presented here, which consists of a single 24-minute performance of “Environments”. On the technical side, this particular set has been carefully restored by a matrix mix from two source tapes. This is a deeply engaging listen with a strong drone element to the performance which slowly builds into a full-blown multi-stringed, percussion-driven raga. A massively complex but improvised construction which combines electric, acoustic and percussive sounds via a variety of instruments as each of the players applies their craft.  At times there is a subtlety and deftness of touch combined with intimate creative detail that reminds me of Kosugi et al’s Improvisation Sept. 1974 but the variety of instrumentation takes it beyond simple drone in the same way as Tetragrammaton’s excellent Point of Convergence CD on Utech.
Over the opening eight minutes or so the resonating acoustic drone is continuously interrupted by the dominating sound of thick bending deep strings which sound like a tambura or gimbri. This sound is created by changing notes on the electrified banjo by using the tuning pegs. The raga banjo slowly appears, followed by some delicate percussion and then some bowed strings. At around 13 minutes or so the drone volume intensifies with an increased flurry of notes from the banjo imitating a sitar.  Through some intricate use of pedals we hear what can be best described as crashing or whiplashed wah-wah chords. As the performance continues to build the introduction of further drums like a pounding drone or tribal tattoo – played with the same ferocity and thundering rhythm as Pink Floyd’s live version of “Saucerful of Secrets” – brings the song to a climax. A complex performance which requires the listener to be completely submerged to fully appreciate its intricacies. Really like the cover with a blurred snap of the free folk travellers mid-performance. As a festival which also included Damon & Naomi, Pelt, Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers, Bardo Pond and Makoto Kawabata it is fascinating to hear this performance as part of development of the free-folk/acid-folk underground. It’s recommended.” – Andrew Ross. 

“Deep, dark-edged sounding duo set from Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder recorded back in November 2010. With so many sets released recently with various augmented line-ups I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoy these duo exchanges. Around this time there were a few acoustic duo shows with Woods but here we are treated to a sublime electric duo version. Opener “Cold Rain” has an extended four minute intro with slightly alternative opening chords and some lucid guitar playing before the familiar finger-picked chords emerge. There’s a nice echoey feel to the vocals which give the track a bit of haunted feel. Slightly different sounding version that is well worth checking out.  Next up is a really trashed version of “I Got Caves In There”. Previous versions with light finger-picked acoustic guitar are replaced by heavy strumming of the chords laden thick with overdrive. MV attacks the strumming guitar almost relentlessly, even when mouth harp is added, giving this quite a dark edge and maybe reminding me of Lou Reed or some loner biker psych record like Purling Hiss.  Again Erika’s vocals sound excellent in the mix laden with vocal FX. This is followed by the recorded live debut of “Crow Jane” originally from “Liberty Rose” (COM34). The picked melancholy guitar chords with the addition of Erika’s almost weeping slide guitar, the eerie sounding vocals combined with the traditional lyrics, give this a real haunting feel reminiscent of traditional dark folk ballads. This segues into a really different version of “Environments” which employs the raga banjo but the initial improvised lines have a real celtic or traditional folk melody to them reminding me of Davy Graham or even Robbie Basho. This then erupts into frantically strummed raga chords creating walls of pure sound. This segues into the set closer of “Huna Cosm” which was one of the highlights of the recent “Steal Yr Slice” tour. That version is played here but with the absence of Mick’s bassline the strummed guitars are replaced by gently picked delicate chords. The result being a sublime fragile version with a real late night loner psych feel to it; Erika’s weeping slide guitar drawing heavy on the soul.
Overall, a set which runs “Cold Rain”, “I Got Caves In There” and “Crow Jane” into “Environments” into “Huna Cosm”. A set which has a real dark or melancholic undercurrent to it –always great to hear how MV&EE can interpret and rework their material in radically different ways – a real keeper for sure. It’s blasted wavelength, it’s alternative frequencies. It’s highly recommended.” – Andrew Ross. 

“Big sounding highly energetic set from the trio of Matthew Valentine, Erika Elder and Mick Flower from the infamous “Steal Yr Slice” tour joined by Andy Ramsay (drums) and The Doozer (mouth harp). Towards the end of this tour the group started to play two sets a night with not much of an acoustic/electric split but probably more of an experimental trio/stretched out Golden Road jams split.  Presented here is the second set from the show at Café Oto which is fast becoming one of London’s premier underground music venues. I actually attended this show and there was a tremendous atmosphere with everyone sat round tables looking like a scene out some Parisienne café. The microbrews kicked in by the time the second set came round. This set is also notable as it marks the live debut/audition of Andy Ramsay (of Stereolab fame on drums). First off the sound quality on this recording is fantastic with the drums sounding really full giving the overall set a big sound of monumental proportions. Secondly, it is fair to note that given this is the debut performance of a new line-up the particular choice of numbers, rockers like “East Mountain Joint”, “Get Right Church” and “Canned Happiness” lend themselves towards more strung out blues jams in the style of the Allman Brothers Band or Canned Heat. Probably most similar sounding to the recent Freak Flag set a couple of nights later from Exeter. The set opens with one of the tour’s highlights, a reworked version of “East Mountain Joint”. The drums are played with a motoric precision and with minimal fills giving the song an almost euphoric drive. Mick’s melodic basslines sound particularly fantastic with a really good sounding mix between all the guitars. At about five minutes the song breaks into a two-note bassline which signals the start of that west coast style jam. Compared to other versions though, the song seems to naturally speed-up, giving this a really energetic edge. The song breaks again into a slower paced section before finishing on a kind of start/stop break beat rhythm. This is one of the highlights of the set for me. The addition of slow pounding drums turns “Home Comfort” into a real Neil Young/Crazy Horse sounding jam. MV is particularly wild on guitar on this one, sounding almost possessed while laying down walls of feedback between wild flurries of notes. A rarely available cover of Dylan’s “Positively 4^th Street” makes a welcome return having only previously appeared on the Red Head Transistor and Not Only Wine But Oblivion I Pour sets. However, given both those were duo performances this is the only true authentic “Dylan ‘65” sounding electric folk version. The set finishes with some monumental blues jams around “Get Right Church” and “Canned Happiness”. The Doozer’s simple but effective three-note bending harmonica riffs really enhance those numbers and Anram’s double kick-drum fills give them a real driving energy, inspiring MV to some wild electric blues – sweet, my kind of stuff.  Overall, a set which runs: “East Mountain Joint”, “Home Comfort”, “’Scuse Me Rap”, “Positively 4^th Street”, “Reconnoitering The Lovejoy Rap”, “Get Right Church”, “Help Yrself Carny Rap” and finally “Canned Happiness” into “Environments” back into “Canned Happiness”. Fairly long single set at 59 minutes, recommended for those who like their extended sweet Golden Road style jams. On the basis of the quality of this recording I can’t wait to hear the first set whose release is imminent. It’s recommended.” – Andrew Ross.

“Alternative version of what was originally the Home Comfort LP on Woodsist. Initially this version was only available direct at the shows on the “April Flower” tour. The idea was that this would be the same tracks and running order as the original live compilation Home Comfort LP but with the selected versions chosen from completely different sources. Although all the alternative versions have previously been available as part of their respective shows this compilation has been carefully pieced together with great packaging replicating the original. All versions feature the core line-up of Matthew Valentine, Erika Elder and Mick Flower. Listening to these tracks again out of their original shows or next to tracks from other shows put these into a completely new context and thus a completely different experience for the listener. It’s fascinating to hear another set of three versions of environments sitting alongside each other and comparing the radically different interpretations on different performances. The version from “Hot Breezer” (which was previously un-credited) is a transcendental raga pinned by a high-sounding tabla with eastern blues infused lucid meanderings.  This sounds radically different from the wild version played at the Shambala festival (Hit The Midway (Laser Prosody)) which featured the full deployment of environ drums and space FX.  Another highlight of this compilation is the version of “Get Right Church” from Econoline Natives.  This was initially only available as a super-limited Heroine release and also on last year’s “No Floor Tour” cassette box set on Blackest Rainbow. If you did not manage to secure a copy of either of these then this is reason alone you should check this out as it remains my hands-down favourite version of the track. The compilation has been carefully put together with all tracks being phased together despite coming from different live sources. On the original Home Comfort the versions of “Environments” were edited before being phased together but the full alternative versions are made available here. The cover has also been carefully restored. The original Home Comfort LP was also available in a very limited edition on Woodsist offshoot label Hello Sunshine (HS-001). Compared to the original cover sleeve this was a black and white paste on photocopy. It is this rarer version that has been replicated for the Alt Hardcore cover right down to the detail of the record label address on the back. The compilation also comes with a fold-out printed sheet of all the performances, alternative source and players replicating the sheet of the original. Printed and packaged in a plastic slipcase in the usual Heroine style.  Overall, a worthwhile compilation that works in its own right. It’s alternative home comfort, it’s alternative hardcore.” – Andrew Ross.

“Matthew Valentine opens it up to deliver a masterpiece solo album in what might just be one of the recorded highlights of his career so far: It was always going to be important that MV delivered an album that didn’t sound principally like an MV&EE album or any of the releases with the various augmented ‘Golden Road’ line-ups.  In that regard, he has succeeded in delivering a record that sounds like nothing he has done before while clearly building on prior musical and personal themes – a concept that recurs throughout this deeply affecting musical statement.

What I Became is particularly introspective and inward looking - at times fairly dark – and it shares aesthetic ground with career anomalies like Gene Clark’s White Light, Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue and Neil Young’s On The Beach. In fact, an even closer comparison may be Terry Reid’s River album with its notable side A/ B split loosely termed ‘City’ and ‘Country’. What I Became also seems to have a split focus, with the first side focusing on ‘physical surroundings’ and evoking the importance of that Home Comfort vibe through more up-tempo numbers, while the second side is more introspective and seems focussed more on personal aspects. The presentation of the album seems to support this ‘concept’ of the journey and what he became.  The inner sleeve acts almost like a scrapbook of MV’s life, with pictures from throughout the years pulling in various locations, homes, and personal acquaintances. At an informed guess this includes MV’s homes from Lower East Manhattan through to Maximum Arousal Farm in Vermont. It also features a various who’s-who of the psychedelic underground, including a shot of him hanging with the late Jutok Kaneko of Kousokuya, and it even goes so far as to include his influence on the free folk underground with a poster for the original Brattleboro Free Folk Festival. It’s then that you realise you are looking at a virtual time capsule and you feel the weight of personal importance that this release carries.

Opener “Continuing The Good Life” seems to act as the prelude or overture to the LP – a two and half minute instrumental with a single hooting vocal cry. It features some beautifully finger-picked country folk chords with subtle psychedelic and spectrasound arrangements, as if paying reference to his other work and sounds. Also some sublime single piano notes that remind me as much of English as American folk, with the influence of some simple Joe Boyd-type produced arrangements. At the end the song segues between acoustic guitar and an ‘environ’ looped soundscape, reminding me of some of the recent live transitions between “Environments” and “The Hungry Stones” from the “Steal Yr Slice” tour.
Next is “Hit The Trails” which is the wildest full-on song on the album. Again this seems to focus on the importance of physical surroundings as well as paying homage to MV’s love of playing live – “Hit the trails, up on the road”.  I read a few older interviews with MV prior to listening to this record and a recurring theme which came up was the influence of ‘where I live’ on the sound of his records.  This can be traced through his work from living around the area of 4^th Street and Avenue B in the Lower East side (“Av. B” later on this album) where there were small practice spaces and the remains of the Manhattan loft scene all the way to the influence of the open space of his surroundings in Vermont on his work in more recent years. “Hit The Trails” could even be a reference to walking the East Mountain Road itself, which is featured appropriately on the back cover shot. The track itself has more of a ‘live’ feel and sounds not unlike Thurston Moore’s “Trees Outside The Academy” with its blend of frazzled electric guitar and soaring arcs of notes over repetitively strummed chords on the acoustic. The way “Hit The Trails” is sung/spoken reminds me of Lee Ranaldo’s vocals on classic tracks like “Hey Joni” and “Mote”.
Next is a clear reference to the influence on MV of lunar sounds with the excellent space raga jam of “PK Dick”. This was originally released as a 7-inch on Time-Lag (TL043) back in 2007 as a Dylan-esque folk blues  w/rambling prose recorded on a 4-track. Here it’s radically re-worked with the original lyrics spoken over the top with the kind of gonzo rap-style delivery used on “The Beater” from Bollywoe (COM35). We hear the repeated mantra of “Ryan stepped up, everybody gave him a hand” from the extended title of the original accompanied by a space raga jam which includes hand percussion that is almost dub-like alongside enchanting harp and lucid spectrasound meanderings that come across like underwater guitars. It’s worth spinning back-to-back with the original.
Side one closes with the deeply personal “Stay” in anticipation of the more introspective side two. With gently strummed acoustic chords and a delicate arrangement of oscillating wah-wah tones, MV delivers one of his finest vocals to date. Overall, this album seems to have more of a focus on the vocals and the lyrics, and no more so than this track. The lines “I will always love you that way, why won’t you stay” could sound almost cliché in the hands of a lesser performer, but delivered here in a strained, raspy, emotional vocal style reminiscent of Dennis Wilson circa Pacific Ocean Blue you know it’s heartfelt and sincere – long drawn on the anguish of the soul.
Overall side two seems to work as a complete side as opposed to individual tracks. With a running order of “Ease My Eyes”, “Ave. B” and “Sweet Little Indian Girl”, all tracks are stripped bare and based around strummed acoustic guitar chords and vocals. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful. “Ease My Eyes” has some gentle finger-picked chords and an acoustic bass sound courtesy of Mike “Muscox” Smith that is so clear and organic you could almost be there in the room. MV has always displayed a strong influence from English folk and the interplay between the guitar and bass could easily be that of Nick Drake and Danny Thompson. Erika Elder makes her only appearance on this track, contributing some atmospheric slide as well as some haunting double-tracked vocals. The song closes with a restrained solo of single weeping notes. “Ave. B” retains the mood of the side with a reflective piece that possibly relates to the earlier days and sounds around 4^th Street, Avenue B and Tompkins Square on the Lower East Side. The side closes with the epic “Sweet Little Indian Girl” which is a dark blues masterpiece. It’s possibly a coincidence in light of the comparisons between Country Stash and David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name, but this song may have taken its title from Rita Coolidge’s character in Crosby’s “Cowboy Movie” from the same album. At almost nine minutes in it gives way to two simple chords accompanied by sporadic hand percussion that sounds like falling raindrops courtesy of Woods’ Jeremy Earl holding this fragile song loosely in place. With atmospheric vocals and lyrics that include “So please tell how far down I came, I don’t know what I’ve become” this is the darkest I’ve heard from MV this far.  Only the desolation of Neil Young’s “Ambulance Blues” comes close.
A deeply personal, psychedelic and at moments very dark release from MV – not psychedelic in the sense of far out ‘spectra’ but more in terms of its intense intimacy and sparse nature, particularly on the second half of the album. Even in the context of some of the recent Heroines and the stunning Country Stash this is a landmark release and it lines up alongside deeply personal albums like On The Beach and Blood on the Tracks or even Jandek’s Chair Beside A Window. It feels like a fully conceived artistic statement, with the cover and inserts working to enhance the experience. Indeed, the classic cover shot featuring MV at Maximum Arousal Farm with Mick Flower in the background (probably on the No Floor Tour April 2010) sanding his homemade Indian banjo stand seems to typify What I Became perfectly – an insight into the world of MV. I went wild over Country Stash and this is equally compelling though for completely different reasons. It feels like the solo album that MV was destined to make – if you are only going to buy one record this year it comes with my absolute highest possible recommendation.” – Andrew Ross. 

“Delightful archival release from the duo of Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder from the Village Tavern, Mount Pleasant from back in January 2009.  Part of the 20 plus date tour from January 2009 to support the then new Drone Trailer album tentatively titled the Drone Trails tour. Not surprisingly the sets from this tour draw heavily from that album’s material with at least four or five songs included in the setlist. This tour has been fairly well represented so far by previous releases Space, Bill Lee Versus Powerman Or King Tubby’s Homestead, Expo 1 and a personal favourite, the live on air radio show of Mutron Lovers. These sets are all particularly memorable for me as they demonstrate the sonic dynamics of both sounds of the duo format; and this set is no exception. From the stripped, raw, almost primitive sounding numbers of two guitars and vocals next to the numbers where they really push the ‘possibilities’ of the duo format to its extreme with some really exploratory sounds, like two sonic alchemists, trying to recreate the psychedelic sounds of tracks like “Huna Cosm” and “Weatherhead Hollow”. In fact these sets are notable, with the exception of some trio performances with Willie Lane later in the year, as the only recorded live performances of the psychedelic opus that is “Weatherhead Hollow” – a major cause for celebration round these parts. If that wasn’t enough this is a strange recording with, at times, a bit of background noise that seems to add to the occasion including a game of pool. You can even hear the clinking of the balls giving this its Gene Pool title. That said, this is an incredibly clear sounding recording with the vocals really high in the mix and Erika’s pedal steel never sounding better.
The set opens with “The Hungry Stones” played as a delicately finger-picked country folk blues.  The dual vocals sound particularly beautiful on this one mixed with some heart rendering pedal steel guitar and some fat bends on the blues harp; a real treat. Next up is one of the set’s highlights with a sublime version of “Huna Cosm” which can best be described as fragmented deconstructed psychedelic space blues. This is played super slow, like the original studio version, almost collapsing at times and loosely held together by single gently plucked chords laced in space FX. Erika’s pedal steel at times sounds like some kind of electronic oscillator. At 1m phased space vocals appear with echo FX to add to the occasion. Also a great guitar solo on this around 3m with looped backward guitar sounds and delay FX. Compared to recent live versions that sound like some kind of Mississippi swamp blues this is more PK Dick than Howlin’ Wolf. This segues into a real primitive sounding version of Drone Trailer opener “Anyway”, stripped here of its full Golden Road treatment compared to the studio version.  An acoustic driven country rocker with Erika delivering a vocal reminiscent of that one from “Death Is My Friend” (from Liberty Rose - COM34) or even “Freight Train” (from Lunar Blues – COM16).  There are a couple of great frazzled garage fuzz sounding guitar solos from MV at 2m12s and again at 3m50s. Next up is “Cold Rain” with the ‘gene pool’ in full effect adding some strange percussion over the delicately finger-picked chords at the start. There is a really lucid psychedelic solo at 2m53s on this one with backward guitar which is a real treat. The set closes with the other major highlight which is the psychedelic opus known as “Weatherhead Hollow”. Following the dark sounding opening verses at 3m22s, stabs of whiplashing wah-wah guitar appear interspersed with lucid meanderings. This develops into a really loose jam. Towards the end about 8m or so the song breaks into a passage almost solely built around feedback with some really explorative sounds. This is not unlike some of the moments from the guitar triptych from Herbcraft’s recent Ashram To The Stars LP.  At about 11m or so this descends further into strange space guitar, pulsating feedback and the sound of roaring rocket engines. Forget phasers, set sonics to stun. Overall, a set which runs: “The Hungry Stones”, “Huna Cosm”, “Anyway”, “Crowd Control Rap”, “Cold Rain”, “Uranian Ray Request” and “Weatherhead Hollow”. Great mix of dynamics on this one from a great run of shows.  Personal highlights include the real explorative sounds and jams pushing the duo format on numbers like “Huna Cosm” and “Weatherhead Hollow”. It’s deeeep and it’s highly recommended.” – Andrew Ross. 

“Totally killer set from the duo of Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder joined by Canadian Mike ‘Muscox’ Smith. Really recent set recorded at Casa del Popolo, Montreal, QC from April 2011 from a run of three random shows following the April Flower Tour. Been really admiring the bass playing of Muscox lately ever since hearing those bass runs from the archival Double Double Raw set which were pure Jack Casady. Combined with his recent contributions to the Country Stash LP and his acoustic bass playing on “Ease My Eyes” from MV’s solo LP which was so pure and organic I was almost salivating for this one to arrive. And the resounding conclusion is that it is does not disappoint on any level.
Opener “Cold Rain” is simply sublime with the most beautiful interplay between MV’s guitar and Muscox’s bass that is pure Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh. If “Dark Star”-era Dead is your kinda thing then you have got to check this out. The extended four minute intro with the art of weaving between guitar, bass and slide (even incorporating the use of some harmonics) gets me every time. Following the verse this splits into a super psychedelic lucid jam in the middle. So many live versions of “Cold Rain” exist but each time they seem to find a slightly different arrangement that never disappoints – a great version that’s a real keeper for sure. Next up is “Tea Devil” which borrows the Country Stash arrangement but interesting to hear it played slightly differently without Mick Flower. It is mixed up a bit here with more of a start-stop version between stanzas with Erika at times almost whispering the vocals. There is some great guitar with one of those Takashi Mizutani sounding solos at 5m55s as well as those high-end chords mixed with some backward guitar. At about eight minutes or so the song breaks into a fairly lucid jam; there is a great new extended bass lead passageway at the end that is laced with some pretty psychedelic guitar that finally segues into “Crash Palace of Records”. With the exception of “Tea Devil” this is the first live recording of the new material from “Country Stash”.  With Muscox having already applied his trade to the original studio version this is a sweet sounding live version with a great backward guitar solo. If it couldn’t get any better there is a re-worked version of “Environments” which sounds dramatically different to some of the recent live arrangements. It opens with some lucid meanderings on the banjo, but slightly less like the strong eastern raga versions of late, with a slight celtic edge sounding somewhere between Davy Graham and Paul Metzger. This is combined with some space FX sounding slide guitar and subtle walls of intermittent feedback that sound like pulsating orbs. This breaks into some slowly plucked melodic chords which are looped before returning to the banjo. The banjo passages sound much more carefully considered with as much respect for space as flurries of notes, repeating certain passages as if chanced upon. There is also some kosmische flute added courtesy of Muscox which seals the deal, coming over like a cross between Traffic and some meditation jam. At about 7m more frantically strummed raga passages appear accompanied by jazz-like runs on the flute. The addition of percussion at 10 minutes then gives way to the introduction of Muscox’s bass and some beautiful high-end melodies. The frantically strummed walls of raga chords and feedback appear at 11 minutes with MV then swapping banjo for guitar.  The song closes with some light sounding tabla drums, a real organic bass groove and some further wild atonal electric guitar! - this version is really that good. This segues into a real transcendental version of “Drone Trailer” with some delightfully melodic solo expressions from MV mixed with Erika’s pedal steel as part of the song’s extended intro. This is a beautifully restrained version with some heart-breaking harp and Muscox pinning it down throughout. The set closes with the road anthem of “Feelin’ Fine”.
Overall, a set which runs: “Cold Rain”, “Tea Devil” into “Crash Palace Of Records”, “Musk Atom Heart Shout Out”, “Environments” into “Drone Trailer”, and finally “Feelin’ Fine”. This is a great set with personal highlights including the guitar weaving on “Cold Rain”, the lucid jam at the end of “Tea Devil” and a radically different sounding version of “Environments” which works a number of new ideas and themes. For me there’s always something new in each Heroine release but this one feels a bit special. It’s highly recommended.” – Andrew Ross.

Staggering document of the entire April Flower tour that took place in April 2011 and saw Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder joined by Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra/Flower-Corsano Duo) on electric bass. This trio might be the single greatest ‘small group’ to grace MV’s back catalogue. Something about the way Flower is able to navigate with the vaguest and most subtly ‘implied’ directions seems to free the group sound to float all the way out there, resulting in some of their most effortlessly psychedelic and unequivocally beautiful visionings of deep rural psych. The set comes with 8 separate CD-Rs, all with their own Heroine style sleeve/title, housed in a tall oversize handmade art book with beautifully printed artwork, a VIP certificate and a thick booklet with colour covers that features a complete rundown of the shows, snaps and liners from Coot Moon and MV himself. It might just be the most gloriously crafted artefact to come out of the Child Of Microtones stable, a label that has long set the standard for tactile home-burned presentation. The shows come from Feeding Tube in Northampton 4/4/11, Saratoga Arts Centre, Saratoga Springs 4/5/11, The Church, Boston 4/6/11 (where the group are joined on drums by Chris Corsano for an amazing heavy psych set), State University Of New York 4/7/11, Death By Audio, Brooklyn 4/8/11 (where they’re joined by Jeremy Earl of Woods), Brickbat Books, Philadelphia 4/9/11 (a stunning set with guest spots from Willie Lane and Harmonica Dan), Wilkes-Barre, PA 4/10/11 and Mystery Train 4/11/11. The whole set is massively varied, with odd acoustic re-thinks of primo meat up against endlessly extended soft-as-snow renderings of haunted blues and full-blown free improvised navigations of the furthest environments. If I hadda pick a highlight it may well be the astounding Brickbat Books set that just sounds so great and has the group playing with at an all-time high of confidence and euphoria but really the whole set is a stone and one of the most necessary releases of the year. Edition of only 99 copies, so make your move. Can’t recommend this enough! To further prime you for the jams, our resident COMmentator, Blues Scholar Andrew Ross, gives us a close-up on one of the major discs:

Yorkshire Puddin’ – MV & EE with Mick Flower

“Picking one of my highlight shows from the box set, I opted for the opening night where the core trio played the Feeding Tube Records shop.  For whatever reason, the Feeding Tube venue always seems to conjure up something special when MV & EE play (check out previous Heroines like “Muy Alto” and “Toasted Cookie”) with a real creative edge and great quality sonics. The performance here on the April Flower tour is no exception with a real high-end folk art performance that is totally killer. The sonic mix on the recording itself is up there with the best, with the vocals really clear in the mix and the bass sounds so organic, almost acoustic at times. If that wasn’t enough there are a few live rarities/new tracks thrown in for good measure.
The set opens with “Drone Trailer” and keeps with the transcendental arrangement of late but with the dual vocals of MV & EE sounding particularly enchanting. There’s some delightful interplay between MV’s melodic solo expressions mixed with Erika’s pedal steel during the main instrumental break.  Next up is the set’s mind-blowing highlight, which is a 30 minute passage which runs “Hammer”, “Space Blues”, “Crow Jane Environs” and finally into “Death Is Your Friend”. Starts with “Hammer”, which is a spectacular re-think of the song’s arrangement. Previous versions have had a West Coast/Crazy Horse style feel to them but this particular arrangement comes across like a folk/blues mammoth.  Sparse restrained clean guitar, almost acoustic at times, combined with Erika’s vocals (doused in echo with long drawn notes) which are simply heart-breaking.  Some lucid wah-wah infused soloing from MV which is continually pinned down by Mick’s organic bass seals the deal.  Hands down this is my favourite version of “Hammer” yet.  This segues into “Space Blues” (only previously included on Double Double Raw) which is a short instrumental passage with a real psychedelic edge.  Some great high-end bass work and almost jazz-like runs from Mick overlade with space FX on the slide sounding particularly great.  Next is “Crow Jane Environs” from Liberty Rose (COM34).  Only previously available on the duo performance from Blasted Wavelength this is a vastly superior version and this is its only inclusion in the sets in this run of shows.  With its traditional folk lyrics and an arrangement that displays MV’s admiration of British and Celtic folk this is a radical re-interpretation of the folk source but with a real dark/psychedelic undercurrent that none of the current ‘psych/acid folk’ imposters would be capable of creating.  Eerie vocals over finger-picked inverted and transformed chord structures – it’s simply stunning.  But the real star of the track is Mick Flower whose high-end melodic bass phrasing takes it to a new dimension, coming across like a cross between Bert Jansch’s “Jack Orion” and The Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe Eugene” – check out the psychedelic guitar jam that erupts around 4m30s.  It doesn’t get much better.  This segues into “Death Is My Friend” which is another live rarity.  Only previously available on the Deep Space Circuit and Double Double Raw sets although the arrangement here borrows more from the studio version on “Liberty Rose”, albeit with a more electric blues feel.  It features those “Freight Train” style vocals from Erika with a mid-song rap that is as seductive to rival Kim Gordon’s on “Kool Thing”.  This develops into a sublime electric blues jam with some great hypnotic blues licks from MV pinned by a repeating bassline from Mick Flower in the same style as he did to those arrangements of “Get Right Church” and “Canned Happiness” on the Steal Yr Slice tour.  For anyone that read the recent article in the Wire on Bill Orcutt, it really does feel like artists like Orcutt and MV are pioneering modern interpretations of country and folk blues whilst still paying their respect to the source – recognising “the fact that you’re not Robert Johnson”.
“Crash Palace Of Records” is another new track (only previously available on the All Good Habs set, although that was recorded after this tour and so this is the real live debut) with the arrangement staying pretty true to the studio version from this year’s stunning Country Stash – albeit a month prior to that album’s release.  “Environments” is sufficiently different from the versions with Mick Flower from the Steal Yr Slice tour to keep even the completists more than intrigued.  It still has that raga feel particularly with the addition of Mick’s japan banjo interwoven with MV’s traditional banjo and some great space FX from Erika on the lap steel.  However, towards the end it breaks into a newer stretched passage which has a real heavy underground Tokyo psych feel to it coming across somewhere between live Hendrix circa 1970 and Takashi Mizutani.  In fact, anyone that enjoyed some of the heavier moments from Herbcraft’s Ashram To The Stars with those industrial/mechanical sounding feedback-drenched guitars should check this out.  This segues into the set closer, the road anthem of “Feelin’ Fine” which has a particularly sweet frazzled tone on the guitar on this one.
Overall, this set is totally killer (but it’s that middle passage that will keep you coming back) and has to rank up there with some of my personal favourites like Toasted Clam, Muy Alto, Double Double Raw, Wobbly Hall and even I Left My Wallet In The Trossachs.  If that wasn’t enough there are another 7 sets in the box set such as the mind-blower from Brickbat Books featuring Willie Lane.  It’s highly recommended!” – Andrew Ross.

Massive album from Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder accompanied by Doc Dunn (pedal steel, guitar, harmony), Mike Smith (bass, Fender Rhodes, harmony) and James Anderson (drums). This is the perfect consolidation of the various strands that MV & EE have spun over the course of the Gettin’ Gone album and the last few COMs, with the pulverising opening track the most fucked-up amalgam of Crazy Horse style guitar hee-haw, wasted Royal Trux-style vocalese and time-staggering Japanese underground dynamics. Truly one of MV and EE’s most bandstand-rocking performances. But it’s the epic “Weatherhead Hollow” that functions as the apex of the set, an achingly extended all-night flight into truly confusing black hole psych zones with some of the most subtly earth-shattering dual guitar extensions combining with smears of overlapping vocals to generate an atmosphere that’s several miles deep. There are aspects of Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac and live Grateful Dead in the way that the group generate an incredibly deep psychedelic atmosphere with nothing but single guitar notes and brain full of boo. Totally staggering, one of the all-time best MV sides, highly recommended. When they’re flying this high no one can touch them.

Raging free jazz duo blat from saxophonist Paul Dunmall (here doubling on border pipes) and drummer Chris Corsano, marking Corsano’s first –fated! - appearance on ESP Disk. Following in the tradition of ESP’s first classic free jazz run, Identical Sunsets is an ass-blasting high energy side. The title track is a particular monster, with Dunmall’s ululating border pipes conjuring the ghost of Albert Ayler’s bagpipes with psychedelic overtones and raw folk passion. Corsano is, of course, amazing. One of the first releases from the revived ESP Disk that feels worthy of the label. Highly recommended. 

Excellent, professionally filmed DVD documenting the live Jandek set from Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, New York, September 6th, 2005 with Sterling Smith on keyboard and vocals joined by Loren Mazzacane Connors on guitar, Chris Corsano on drums and Matt Heyner on bass. There's a beautiful psych/dirge feel to the sound, with keyboards that have a glissy-devotional Canterbury air and Loren Mazzacane's guitar providing punctuating heavy, psych chords and serpentine licks that sound a little like his fuzz work circa Haunted House. In fact the combination of the two often leaves the album sounding like some kind of bizarre, personally extended re-think of the Arzachel album recorded by Steve Hillage and Egg in 1969, making it one of the most unlikely sounding Jandek albums to date. The rhythm section of Heyner and Corsano work slow, lumbering pockets of time that are beautifully hypnotic and Sterling's vocals are hazy and narcotic, a little softer than recent live recordings but occasionally shifting gears into that slightly contorted, mocking phrase style that defined Newcastle Sunday. The whole set is one single piece in seven movements entitled "Afternoon Of Insensitivity". Highly recommended and yet another fucking twist in a saga that keeps on turning.

DVD edition featuring both sets from this trio show with Sterling Smith on guitar and vocals, Chris Corsano on drums and Matt Heyner on bass, live at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, New York, September 7th, 2005. The sound is closer to the 'classic' Neilson/Youngs live blats but with a more straightahead garage/punk feel, with Sterling playing some of his oddest electric guitar downs while Heyner moves from groaning electric bass monoliths across the first set to quiet, semi-audible acoustic bass on the second. The second set is consequently the weirdest, with the extra space generated by Heyner fully inhabited by very minimal guitar work from Sterling and some oddly dramatised lyrical set-ups. Corsano plays it pretty straight for the bulk, riding behind Sterling's guitar like a steamroller, and at points the vocal delivery combines with the overall bounce of the rhythm section to birth something that seems to owe more to The Minutemen than any sort of avant blues tradition. The songs are great, moving from devastating emotionally wrought confessionals through to funny situational set pieces and Sterling really stretches out on vocals and is obviously enjoying the performance.

Jailbreak is the duo of pedal steel/vocalist Heather Leigh and drummer Chris Corsano. The name foregrounds the kind of outlaw violence with which the two reformulate rock/roll instants by bringing free jazz fire power to amp-humping sex beats. Their musical alliance goes all the way back to the legendary Brattleboro Free Folk Fest, the birthplace of the ‘New Weird America’, where Corsano and his long-term saxophone partner Paul Flaherty joined Leigh and Christina Carter for a quartet show that took the roof off the building and the skin off their fingers. Since then Corsano and Leigh have worked together as part of Taurpis Tula and as members of Thurston Moore’s Dream/Aktion Unit. Jailbreak play improvised music that dispenses with traditional notions of call and response or dialogue in favour of a profound simultaneity that would birth instant forms from the application of high energy strategies. Leigh’s steel mainlines sanctified slide guitar sources and deforms them with overdriven electricity, playing a form of future-blues exploded by super-charged currents. Corsano detonates time, literally blows it to pieces, in favour of a profound polyrhythmic feel that would confuse past and future. Yet the whole thing rocks like it hasn’t a braincell to spare, re-connecting avant garde tactics and ass-whooping rama-lama with alla the revolutionary fanfare of the most radical counter-cultural two-chord punk. Their debut LP is called The Rocker. It’s all you need to know.  “For those of you who've been worried that the Free Power Noize scene has become a little too tame, (and seriously who isn't somewhat concerned about that), a new screamin' creamin' duo -- Jailbreak --explodes to the rescue. The world's wildest free drummer (Chris Corsano: Cold Bleak Heat , duos with Mick Flower, Bill Nace etc.) and the world's wildest free steal pedal guitarist, (Heather Leigh:, Dream Aktion Unit, Jandek, etc.), pits two of the landscapes most intense pyromaniacs against each other in -- "The Rocker" -- a blast-furnace of blisteringly joyous witch-howling assaults on the essence of whips and chains and repressive injustice gone legal.  Both of these magisterial musicians are capable of extreme dynamics and subtleties, but those concepts don't get in the way of this monster-truck of a record. And why should they when drums and guitar can slash and burn in a riotous electric smash fest like this crazed merry madcap of an album.  Over the top ... Way! As the full frontal music rips through my naked and defenceless eardrums, images emerge of an old and demented grandmother, strapped into her rocking chair by disciples in heat. (ooooohhhhh yyyeeeaaahhhh!!!)  The more she violently rocks and chants with insane exhilaration, the more the treacherously imprisoned souls of Hell claw at their walls of liquid fire, desperately trying to free themselves from chains of Human and Sub-human limitations.  It sounds like 100 pall-bearin' viciously possessed drummers lifting 100 gone-bonkers zombie lovin' guitarists into another realm of escape, one that reality hasn't presented as a release, until now. The 1st time Heather & Chris played together, (a first meeting improve 4tet performance -- Babes on the Loose), I watched in disturbed horror as Heather crashed her steel pedal to the stage and sliced her hand while trying to play upside down. Then she passed out.  Corsano rushed to her aid, but had to stop and bandage his own bloodied digits, as rivers of crimson soaked the frightened platform.  (They obviously survived).  This recording picks up where that chaos and bedlam left off, and if possible, lifts the ante higher, into a maelstrom of American psychotic pandemonium gone-a-hunting in Scotland. A catch-and-release band for sure that attacks the jailers and frees the innocents ... just before the death penalty can be brutally administered. I liked it.” – Paul Flaherty. Highly recommended!

New limited edition self-released album from the greatest drummer on the planet, Chris Corsano. Chris Corsano Band is Corsano’s solo visioning of a free rock group, playing drums, bass and guitar all himself and overdubbing to create a now sound take on the rock/roll instants of Vampire Belt. His playing here is closest to his work with Rangda and as if to cement the umbilical he throws in a raging cover version of Sun City Girls’ classic “Esoterica Of Abyssynia” from Torch Of The Mystics. Recorded over the space of three years in the USA and Scotland, High And Dry sees Corsano channeling the kind of epic out of focus string work of Jutok Kaneko and Rudolph Grey while levitating the whole deal into space with some of his most fucked-up drum sounds. The guest appearance from The Wizard on bongos, still ‘hot’ from Frank Lowe’s epic Black Beings ESP-Disk date, is just too much gravy. Handmade covers, every one unique. Highly recommended.

Brand new album from the world-beating free music duo of Heather Leigh on pedal steel and vocals and Chris Corsano on drums, following on in style from their Family Vineyard LP. Once more recorded and mixed by Andreas Jonsson the sound is as dazzling as their debut, with three tracks that move from ferocious post-Sharrock power blues through new zones of smoky, spectral tone. The opener comes straight out of The Rocker, with Heather’s bad motor scooter guitar burning asphalt while Corsano plays in four directions at a time, ducking air raid warnings with an amphetamine dexterity. Second track, “White Spider” is a whole new bomb, with the duo navigating a kind of psychedelic giallo atmosphere with Corsano making like an orchestra of Max Roachs while Heather plays spectral strings and floating tones that are straight out of the Nicolai/Morricone songbook. The closing “Freezing Shark” might be the most radical recording they’ve nailed to the floor, with an unaccompanied vocal from Heather driven straight through the wall by Corsano before the guitar explodes like a heavy metal Masayuki Takayanagi playing future blues. This is such a great, invigorating shot from the source and it confirms a whole buncha things that are important in underground music: energy, passion, actual playing, speed-of-thought improvisation. Who else comes close? Hand-numbered edition of 297 copies. Highest possible recommendation!

Massive double disc set that pairs legendary Japanese free jazz saxophonist Akira Sakata with Jim O’Rourke on guitar, harmonica and electronics alongside the duo of drummer Chris Corsano and bassist Darin Gray. Akira Sakata has long been one of the key players on the Japanese free jazz underground, playing as a part of Yamashita Yosuke’s trio and forging alliances with players like Peter Brotzmann and Sonny Sharrock, who he played with as part of Last Exit. And That’s The Story Of Jazz... gathers a bunch of recordings from the group’s 2008 Japanese tour and it’s an absolute revelation. Sakata’s style bridges classic post-Fire Music Japanese freedoms with a wild mystic/psychedelic edge and the combined backgrounds of his three collaborators push the whole deal into some kind of post-improvised underground psych zone. Sure, there are raging multi-limbed blow-outs that worship at the altar of Church Number 9 where you can barely make out who is doing what but there’s a whole deal more, picked guitar and droning strings over weird acid folk meditations that cross Holy Mountain-era Don Cherry with Mark Fry and Yatha Sidhra, the kind of raggedy folk/punk euphoria more associated with Finnish tribes like Paivansade and Rauhan Orkesteri, rich Om-ing Coltrane-isms, spiky No Wave blats that reinvent Rudolph Grey and Von Lmo’s vision of free heavy metal... this record throws a spanner in any conception of what a collaboration with a first generation Japanese free saxophonist and three avant punks might sound like. And this is the sound. Highly recommended.

Unbelievable out-of-nowhere limited edition private press LP, co-released by Mick Flower and Chris Corsano, that documents an expanded Flower-Corsano Duo, now with Count Hejnowski aka Matt Heyner of The No-Neck Blues Band/Test/Malkuth et al on electric bass. Safe to say that with the loss of the late Yasushi Ozawa Heyner has taken the crown of greatest living improvising electric bassist and his addition to what is merely one of the all-time greatest free music duo partnerships pushes the whole deal into the stratosphere. The sound is amazing, recorded live at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY across two nights in October 2009. Flower – best known for his helming of the UK’s Vibracathedral Orchestra – has single-handedly reinvented the Japan Banjo as a sonic reducer par excellence, combining endless riffing euphorics that are somewhere between John Cipollina and Sonny Sharrock with a droning, modal style that is uniquely brain flattening. Corsano is, of course, the wildest drummer on the planet and the combination of their limbs feels like the ultimate free music cocktail, re-wiring Fire Music modes with vertical stratas of technicolour. Heyner comes in with a totally brutal bottom end attack, playing fast bass runs that serve to nudge and pummel the music into new zones of dunt, at points bulldozing the front line with all of the steamroller force of Mik’s work in Kousokuya or even Fushitsusha. Indeed, together the three of them succeed in storming the kind of heavenly metal/free jazz/garage/psych zone that Last Exit were always pitching towards but never quite made it, mostly down to Laswell airbrushed bass attack. No such qualms here for Heyner who plays with a blunt, bloodied tone and with the kind of logic that only works to bolster the full-bore ascension style of the duo. It’s not all wall-destroying force tho, and there are some nice almost Pharaoh Sanders-style cosmo bliss outs in amongst alla the thunder. Four tracks, with Heyner doubling up on drums on a single cut. Last minute candidate for hands-down album of the year? No question. Highest possible recommendation!

Cool archival release that bundles a bunch of peak-period jams from Sunburned Hand Of The Man, al recorded across 2006. Features a bunch of radically expanded line-ups, with the core group joined by Chris Corsano, Mick Flower, Bridget Hayden and Keith Wood. Weird, detourned, almost Magic Band scale jams go up against vocal goofs, string drones, Ubu-styled garage and all-out Xhol worship. Cassettes come in screened cloth cases with insert.