Glasgow Sunday is a major Jandek release for a host of reasons. Specifically, it's a recording of the first ever Jandek live performance that took place unannounced on the second night of the Instal festival in Glasgow, Scotland on October 17th, 2004, when the man also known as Houston resident Sterling R. Smith made the first public appearance of his 26 year recording career, simultaneously quashing three decades worth of speculation while inspiring a whole bunch more. But the main thing that makes Glasgow Sunday such an important document has less to do with how it relates to Smith's personal mythos and more to do with how it inaugurates a group that already looks to be one of the most formally inventive units of the modern age. Between them, the trio of Smith on guitar and vocals, bassist Richard Youngs and drummer Alex Neilson have birthed a free music with an internal dynamic and shared musical language as singular and historically unparalleled as late-20th Century behemoths like Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity trio, Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, Harry Pussy and Musica Transonic. Crucially, Glasgow Sunday is a group record. Although the actual circumstances of how the group came together are necessarily vague, it looks like Youngs and Neilson were recommended to Smith rather than requested by him. The first time they ever played together was actually earlier on the same day of the concert. But you'd never know it from the recordings. What this official recording reinforces - even more so than on the widely circulated bootleg and on the actual night itself - is that the terms of their musical relationship were sealed the instant they began to play. Smith's current guitar form is most immediately related to the series of recordings he made between 1982 and 1987, a run of wild, electric sides initiated by Chair Beside A Window and terminated by Blue Corpse that occasionally featured still-unidentified collaborators like vocalist “Nancy” and drummer “John” and were characterised by bouts of ferocious atonal guitar. But here he digs deeper and harder into the magic confluence of overtones encouraged by the more esoteric open tunings. His chords sound like they're augmented with barbed wire and his soloing - of which there's plenty - is somewhere between Keiji Haino's dense, clean guitar work on Fushitsusha's John Zorn-produced album Allegorical Misunderstanding, and Harry Pussy guitarist Bill Orcutt circa “Nazi USA”. Youngs plays electric bass with a tremolo pulse that sounds a bit like Holger Czukay and the way he pilots odd, beautiful notes straight to the heart of the individual tracks is particularly fearless. Drummer Alex Neilson is the real wildcard. In recent years he has become the most in-demand improvising drummer in Scotland and his playing here is particularly key in terms of defining the basic heft of the sound. Beyond even the bizarre physical resemblance - several people on the night asked if it was Jandek's son that was playing the drums - there's obviously a deep level of rapport between the two and during the instrumental breaks Smith seems to be soloing more in relation to Neilson's tonal and rhythmic suggestions than Youngs' harmonic ones. A less confident musician would have simply hung back and supported Smith as innocuously as possible but Neilson takes it upon himself to push the music somewhere else, alternating explosive poly-rhythms with moments of pure textural abandon and accelerated breaks. At one point he even stands up and starts to sing. As with every Jandek project, Glasgow Sunday feels like an extended investigation into a single colour or state, both emotionally, lyrically and sonically. Each track draws its deepest architecture from archetypal blues forms, with vocal lulls alternating with extended chord solos and emphatic rhythms. Like the late Albert Ayler, Jandek has a way of hi-jacking the basest/purest of folk-forms and extrapolating them into the heavens - or in this case, personal hells. Lyrically there are several references to water, seas and drowning, lots of reds and blues, and some of the tracks are unrelentingly bleak, reading like long, airless litanies of hurt. But there's also plenty of black humour and at points you can't help but feel that Jandek is poking fun at his own image and playing to the crowd. The moment when he erupts with the line “I made the decision to get real wild” sees the whole audience explode into cheers. Anyone expecting an obscure shot of a Glasgow landmark for the traditionally-enigmatic cover photograph will be disappointed in that it seems to feature an unremarkable street somewhere in the USA judging by the style of the streetlights, the type of cars and the side of the road on which they're parked. Even more disappointing is the fact that although the name of the venue that hosted the concert is included in the text, no credit is given to either Youngs or Neilson. Since this recording the trio have reconvened for three further performances, one of which, in Newcastle, took the mode of Glasgow Sunday further into realms of compositional and improvisatory flux. The second Glasgow show, performed the night after the Newcastle one, saw Youngs switch to acoustic bass and Smith to piano and vocals and while it wasn't as sonically interesting as the dates that preceded it, it arguably raised the emotional ante even further. Who would've thought it? Jandek, it turns out, is a group.

Totally ass-blasting wild Jandek side from 1987 crossing insane avant-blues rip-ups with Jandek getting into some howling, gutbucket vocal moves and some great post-Shaggs caveman drums. Killer series of almost-hysterical Nancy/Jandek trade-offs and some lonesome power-crying too. The greatest manifestation of Jandek’s high-rolling late 80s style. From laugh-out-loud great – “Painted My Teeth”, “I Want To Know Why” – through beautifully confused reverie. Highly recommended.

2003 recording of electric bass/vocal dunt.

2004 bass/vocal album from Jandek, with three long tracks including the 30 minute title track: “Jandek plays bass again, claims to 'no longer exist,' sings about drinking ‘mechanically produced beverages,’ and announces plans to 'think about breathing.' Recently he took a walk. The music seems improvised but is satisfyingly varied and tracks the varying moods of the vocals closely. During the long piece, moments of abjection or desperation occur, but they pass; mostly the voice we hear is lucid. He's levelling with us. When he sings 'I won't drive my car for the rest of the day,' it's a fact. The most harrowing moment comes during the last track, a love song that turns threatening: 'please take my bait... I want to eat you up... you'll never get away, you won't want to... you don't have a life, you live in me.' The music plunges down to the bottom of the bass' range, but by the last line, the point of view has pulled back again to encompass 'the grand scheme of things.'” - Seth Tisue.

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.

Audio document of the first solo acoustic/vocals London show from Jandek, as close as you’re gonna get to a live version of a ‘classic’ stripped down Jandek performance. Recorded at St. Giles In The Fields, London, October 18th 2005. I have a personal theory that Smith and Bob Dylan have some kind of secret historical umbilical and some of the phrasing here, especially on tracks like “Part Seven”, are pure Zimmerman. And to my mind he’s easily as important. The guitar playing here has an obsessive logic that is quite hypnotic and the whole thing really sucks you in. Wish I’d been there. Recommended.

Stunning looking DVD of the first solo acoustic/vocals London show from Jandek, as close as you’re gonna get to a live version of a ‘classic’ stripped down Jandek performance. Recorded at St. Giles In The Fields, London, October 18th 2005. There’s an undeniable thrill in being able to see Sterling Smith perform alone, it’s like having alla those early records laid a little more bare. Excellent.

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.

Alongside Glasgow Sunday 2005, Portland Thursday is easily the best of the Jandek live recordings thus far. The line-up is particularly unlikely, with Sam Coombes (from indie group Quasi) on bass, Emil Amos (of Om, Grails etc) on drums and guest vocals from Liz Harris (Grouper) and Jessica Denison. I heard tell that Coombes wasn’t really into the whole Jandek deal, or was at least pretty cynical about it, and that’s a shame cause this is easily the best record that guy has ever played on. And despite being underwhelmed by the experience, his bass playing is phenomenal and perfectly suited to Sterling’s guitar, powering the whole group into some of the heaviest rock-inflected moves of Jandek’s career. Amos is also great on drums, one minute thundering through the guitars and bass, the next filling the gaps like a painter. And Sterling’s guitar playing is particularly on form. You can tell he’s really enjoying the experience and is so secure in the rhythm section that he really lets go, tearing some blazing solos from his six string while getting into some of his most expressive vocals. The opening “I Like You Too” is a classic, with odd, bashful lyrics delivered in his most quizzical voice and a ferocious, driving sound. “Whose Mister Is This?” features the girls on backing vocal, functioning as a heavenly chorus to Sterling’s puzzled lyrics. And there’s so much more. Recorded live at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon in April of 2006, the sound is perfect. If you only buy one Jandek live album this year, this is it. A classic. Highly recommended.

New studio album from Jandek with a group setting featuring guitar, bass, drums, harmonica and piano. The feel is odd, off-jazz, with a drummer who almost swings and almost plays free, a weird collision of styles that somehow works. Tracks veer from stumbling piano/harmonica/drum instrumentals that sound like Kaoru Abe jams The Shaggs through almost Go Hirano-style instants, guitar/feedback zones, Advent scale repeat-piano minimalism and even some guest vocals from someone who is assuredly not Sterling Smith. This is a great set that both looks back to the earlier classic Jandek ‘studio’ recordings complete with mysterious no-name combos while connecting with the expanded instrumental palette of the post-emergence jams. Sterling’s vocals sound really great too, emerging from swampy rhythms and guitar/drum/piano tumults like a ghost. It all ends with an epic 14 minute jam. Highly recommended.

Great new live set from Jandek, recorded at The Wire festival at The Empty Bottle in Chicago on September 20^th 2006. Here Sterling is joined by John McEntire of Tortoise on drums and Josh Abrams, who recently cut a killer solo album for Eremite, on electric bass. The set veers closer to ‘classic’ Jandek performance than the more expansive big band set-ups of some of the live shows, with a stripped down sound that allows Sterling to really dominate the proceedings. McEntire has a great feel for Sterling’s odd rhythmic sense and he falls in to the stumbling, cutting guitar work with some great stumpy drums and wayward time signatures. Abrams does a great job of following the arc of their trails and the sound quality is excellent, with Sterling’s vocals pushed way up front so you can make out all the lyrics and really get inside his pained vocals.  Some great lyrics too: “He was a common man/except when he talked about God.” “I met my teacher in the dirty stinking cell/It didn’t matter I was in hell.” Recommended.

Fantastic new double CD from Jandek that sees him revisit the group set-up he had on the equally dazzling Portland Thursday set, with Sterling Smith on guitar and vocals, Sam Coombes on bass, Emil Amos on drums and the twin vocals of Liz Harris aka Grouper and Jessica Dennison. Sterling apparently requested two female vocalists who “look similar” and their voices are also perfectly complimentary. They’re featured on four tracks, “Long Time Coming”, “Across From Me”, “No One Around” and “Like You Love Me”. “Long Time Coming” is especially bruised, a forlorn, passionate embrace of hollowed-out Venusian blues worthy of Suzanne Langille. Elsewhere the rhythm section of Coombes and Amos – admittedly not, on paper, a dreamteam pairing – lock into some of the most dynamic and heavy groove-based rock of Sterling’s back catalogue, driving the pace so hard that at points – on tracks like “Cathy Sue” and the 20 minute “Yes Dear” – they approach the collapsing universe style of prime Kousokuya. Sterling’s guitar playing seems more fleet and effortless for it and his vocals wrap themselves all the way around your head with some profound downerisms. Will be living inside this one for a long time to come, another major highlight of Jandek’s live phase. Highly recommended!

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. 

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!

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Self-released hand-numbered edition of 100 copies, with an audio collage of a 2008 Birmingham show, a blow-out from Mick Flower’s house, a London gig and a set from Greenfield, MA. Features a buncha heads: Moloney, Thomas, Schneiderman, Sarah O' Shea, Paul Labrecque, Mick Flower, Conrad Capistran, Phil Franklin, Taylor Richardson, and Adam Nodelman (Borbetomagus).

“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

“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.

“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.