Sonic Reducer: The Fertile Crescent of the 90s.

Sonic Reducer returns to the fertile crescent of the late 80s - early 00s, probing for sonic caviar. Again, the disclaimer: I had a small thing to do w/the Whirlees record and did some work about 100 years ago with with The Oblivion Seekers. What can I say? Good is good.

Morning 40 Federation, Trick Nasty (2002, self-released): if there's a better drunk-funk band anywhere in the world, I want to know about it. These New Orleans gutter snipes drag R&B, funk, blues and Crescent City music hall booze-alongs into the garage, dose them with near-fatal amounts of liquor, and let them stumble back into the streets. A 365 day a year drunk-punk rent party, the 40s really do put most other garage bands out to pasture with the utter purity of their trash. Their almost militant indifference to the norms of society (work, food, clothes, other people) pretty much puts them on their own little island in the Mississippi River: the island of revels, where everyone is smashed before noon, of willful irresponsibility; a humid Saturnalia, forever showered with cheap whiskey and beer.

Sugar Plant, After After Hours (1997, World Domination): a perfectly titled release. Dreamy nocturnal ambient pop from a Japanese duo to while away the hours before dawn to. They occasionally break through the placid surface with waves of humming electric guitars and effects, and finish strong with a rumbling, feedback heavy "Brazil." This World Domination was Dave Allen's (from Gang of Four, Shriekback, etc.) label in the late 90s and early 00s-I don't believe they are affiliated with the current World Domination Records. 

The Whirlees, self-titled (1993, Schizophonic): I'm paraphrasing here, but a reviewer once described the only full release by the Salem, OR combo thusly: "If The Whirlees were a car, they would be a '73 'Cuda with a Hemi dropped under the hood and humongous side-pipes." This is true-in a paraphrased sense, of course. Thick, rumbling gobs of mid-tempo hard rock cruise through the CD like Dazed & Confused teenage traffic driving in circles on a Friday night. That's hard rock; not metal, not glam, not punk. Remove the blues from the first three ZZ Top records and fill the gap with stacks of Marshall Amps, wah-wah pedals and fuzz boxes; place under the hood of an El Camino, drop a Quaalude and add Rainier Ale; presto! The Whirlees. They buzz and lumber, they growl and howl, they occasionally pick up speed to approach take-off, they toss in a bit of "Train Kept a Rolling." They make Salem proud.

The Oblivion Seekers, self-titled (1992, T/K-Tim/Kerr): The Oblivion Seekers are Mark Sten and whoever he says is an Oblivion Seeker. This debut CD is the first in a long line of thoroughly fine records, a criminally underrated body of work that is (as far as I know) still on-going. Most Oblivion Seekers CDs morph back and forth between twin poles of  snarly, electrified rockabilly and super-charged rock & roll and more pensive, even tender material - ballads, mid-tempo numbers and the like. The first record offers that but also something different: a collection of attitude-heavy, gospel influenced material, split into collections of "Saved" and "Damned." Covers of the Carter Family, Mack Self and others sit next to Sten originals. The sound is trebly and jacked-up, with odd separations in the mix, and a hot/cold feel; it sounds both dry and drenched at the same time. Duality at work: "Roadhouse" is vintage rockabilly, while "Fine, Fine, Fine" sounds like it was mixed by David Lynch. 1993's Spirit of America is every bit as good or better, a 20 song-cycle opus that goes gold from A to Z.

Steve Fisk, 448 Deathless Days (1987, SST): for the sake of being conveniently reductive, Steve Fisk has at least three musical personas; band member (Pell Mell, Pigeonhed, etc.), the crafty producer of bands like Mudhoney, Nirvana, Beat Happening, Geraldine Fibbers and many more, and the sonically schizo auteur of solo records like 448 Deathless Days. Loaded with samples and tape manipulations, shifting syncopations and backwards beats and a dark, somewhat foreboding vibe, 448 Deathless Days is the sound of someone cutting up in the studio, indulging his darkly surreal whims. Unfettered indulgence can, of course, be a colossal wank; thankfully, Fisk has a well balanced sense of the weird, knows his way around the musty back-rooms of his gear and can make a racket and be tuneful simultaneously. Members of Screaming Trees and other pals from Seattle and Ellensburg keep it coming.

Steven Jesse Bernstein, Prison (1992, Sub Pop): Steve Fisk also had the unprecedented task of finishing the music and production on Prison by Seattle's poet-provocateur Steven Jesse Bernstein after he took his own life in 1991. With only one track completed, Fisk was left to intuit his way thru Bernstein's thorny mob of words, a white-knuckle life story poured out with breath-taking venom, cryptic word collage, sweet humor and bared-soul vulnerability. Summing up all the multiple shards of  Bernstein's complex persona and fucked-up life and death is pointless and impossible. He was street-wise and wise-wise and crazy and damaged/sweet and had an astounding ability to tell stories and create complex knots of images and ideas that never felt anything less than 110% genuine - there wasn't an ounce of guile in the man. The fantastic flights of fancy in "This Clouded Heart" and "Party Balloon" never wear thin, while the brutal honesty of "Face" can be hard to take; apparently it got to be to much for him, as well. 

Life Garden, Pry Open My Mouth With The Red Knife Of Heaven (1992, We Never Sleep): One of several infinitely deep, mind-altering Life Garden CDs (including Seed, Caught Between The Tapestry Of Silence & Beauty and The Hungry Void),Pry Open My Mouth... is ritual, start to finish. David Oliphant, Su Ling-Oliphant, Peter Ragan and Bil Yanok were Life Garden. Their metier was acoustic instruments, largely percussion, stringed or blown into/through, manipulated electronically, but with no synths or (on this release) samples. Bells, bowls, flutes, gongs, PVC pipe and multi-tracked voices all get the digital effects treatment to create ghostly, hypnotic soundscapes that range from unsettling to profoundly peaceful. Life Garden's mission was transformative, not entertaining; the exact opposite of emotionally neutered new age muzak, they shared a little piece of common ground with Art Ensemble of Chicago, Current 93, the tribal-industrial underground and a few top-shelf dark ambient acts. They had more in common with pre-historic cave painting and pagan, pantheistic ritual than popular music; their music seems to emanate from the very earth itself. This is the real stuff: sound as emotion, the fusing of past and present, the melting point of mind and matter in the infinite flux of the cosmos. I am, absolutely, serious.

Sonic Reducer: The Undertow of the 90s.
For the second edition of Sonic Reducer we continue to mine the undertow of the 90s (with one exception from 2004) for quality releases worth seeking out. Again, they were all originally released on CD, this time around between 1993 and 2004. Most of these acts have other recordings out, several with records every bit as good as the ones fawned over below. Disclaimer: I worked for two of these labels (Tim/Kerr and Schizophonic) with two of these bands (Pigpen and 44 Long) back in the mid 90s. 

Coyle & Sharpe, On The Loose (1995, 2 13 61 Records): Coyle & Sharpe, the original prankster duo, ran amazingly surreal routines on innocent passers-by in the streets of San Francisco in the late 1950s, recording them with a tape machine hidden in a briefcase. They talked people (or tried to) into robbing banks, turning themselves into human leeches, herding "foot apples" and invented their own language ("Bulgravian"). These outrageously funny recordings are also snapshots of the times, a more innocent (gullible?) time (despite cold war fears) where strangers could approach strangers on the street with wacky ideas and not get automatically brushed off. For better or worse, it's hard to imagine them getting the same responses today. 

Duke McVinnie, Bugs (1992, Action Box): Bugs gets the nod over McVinnie's several other records because it's the only one I've heard. Channeling an art damaged version of seedy Los Angeles with  great humor, chaos, heartbreak and the ace poetic eye of a intelligent wastrel outsider, McVinnie hangs on the dirty boulevards with Chandler, Ellroy, Bukowski and Waits. Smokey Hormel plays guitar, Exene Cervenka co-wrote the self-explanatory "Drinking About You" and they mix in oboe, ocarina (?), low-fi tweaks and cut-ups with their stream of  bush-whacked jazz, gutter blues and downer folk. The whole beautiful thing was recorded straight to two track and sounds better than decades of digital disasters.

Mylab self-titled (2004, Terminus): super producer/engineer and drummer/percussionist Tucker Martine and super jazzbo keyboard whiz Wayne Horvitz and a whole bunch of their mega-talented pals gang up for a light-hearted, boundary expanding experimental project. Those pals include Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb, Bobby Previte, Eyvind Kang and Keith Lowe. Google them. They throw just about anything with strings, keys, skins, knobs, reeds or mouthpieces into the mix and sit back and let it cook. This is "jazz" only because there's not really anything else to call it; you can just call it fun and get right to it.  Horvitz is also up to his neck in...

Pigpen, Miss Ann (1993, Tim/Kerr): Wayne Horvitz was the fulcrum around which the rest of Pigpen spun. This Seattle combo also featured progressive jazz hot-heads sax-man Briggan Krauss, drummer Mike Stone and bass player extrordinaire Fred Chalenor. They  specialized in hot, funky jazz that was both challenging and accessible. Their debut CD,Miss Ann, has seven Horvitz originals and covers by Eric Dolphy and John Zorn. They also put out a couple more full CDs, and EP and a live CD. Chalenor was also a huge part of...

Boodlers self titled (1995, Cavity Search): experimental guitar heavy-hitter Elliott Sharp leads a trio of brave souls through an effects-tweaked mine-field of twisted fret terrorism and saxophone abuse.  Cut, pasted, tortured, turned inside out and outside in in the mix, the six tracks range from short, furious pulverizations to longer, mind-bending ones that were once described (as I remember it) as sounding "like nuclei circling the head of a pin." Chalenor and drummer Henry Franzoni more than hold their own with Sharp, everyone playing like a trio of miners working their ways towards the center of the earth, one calamity at time. They released a second terrific album, Counter Fit, in 1997. 

44 Long, Collect Them All (1997, Schizophonic): sometimes something previously done to death is done so well that it simply makes it all sound fresh again. Such is the case with the debut CD by 44 Long, the first of several fine rocking-pop CDs that 44 Long main-man Brian Berg has produced since then. Berg is an almost-hidden treasure and a multi-talent; not only can he seriously play guitar with the best of them and produce a fine record, but he's got that voice: nasally, piercing and emotive. Naturally these are all beautifully crafted, catchy songs that slide from straight up pop to rock to more country and roots flavors, all with Berg's distinctive twang in voice and guitar both. Small flourishes in the production (chimes, autoharp, maracas, whistling) can make all the difference, and Collect Them All has just enough to keep it surprising and new. Fans of well-crafted roots pop and tasteful but still dangerous electric guitar look no further. 

Hashisheen: The End of Law (1998, Sub Rosa import); words by Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), music compiled by Bill Laswell. A living breathing cut-up spoken word ambient world dub other dimensional trip into the fantastical world of Hasan i Sabbah. Sabbah was the 11th century Persian mystic, heretic, revolutionary, hashish mind-control originator and founder of the "Cult of the Assassins," Marco Polo's "old man of the mountain," sending out his devotees to wreck havoc on Islam and Christianity alike from his mountain top fortress, Alamut, in central Persia. That's Iran, ya'll, a country that had an incredibly rich cultural history when European's were living in caves and hitting each other over the heads with sticks. Steeped in myth, legend and psychological sorcery, the story of The Assassins is related by William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Genesis P. Orridge, Ira Cohen, a frankly out-of-place sounding Iggy Pop and many others. Let Hasan i Sabbah have the final word: "Nothing is true -  everything is permitted." 

HUNTING IS HALF THE FUN

”Sonic Reducer” singles out worthy music and spoken-word recordings that sit somewhere outside the mainstream. This is not an obscurity contest, however, and most (but not all) of these recordings did receive a traditional release, distribution, some attempt at publicity, etc., from some recognizable small- or mid-sized labels. The point is simply to draw attention to some really good records from all sorts of genres, eras and formats. Everything in this month's column was originally released on CD in the mid- to late-nineties. They may not be easy to find, but hunting is half the fun.

DANNY FRANKEL, New Thing on Jupiter (1997, WIN Records)

Widely traveled drummer/percussionist Danny Frankel's New Thing on Jupiter is a minimalist hep-cat party-starter, perfect background music for an intergalactic beatnik cocktail lounge. Bongos, optigan, tape loops, autoharp, whistling and a Casio help spread out the spaced-out vibe. Danny is unique stylist who has toured and recorded with Jim White, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Beck, Marianne Faithful and many others.

IRA COHEN, The Majoon Traveler (1994, Sub Rosa import)

World-traveling poet, photographer, publisher and filmmaker Ira Cohen's continent hopping spoken word CD of mystical, mythical musing was produced by the untouchable Algerian mix-master Cheb i Sabbah. Featuring cut-ups of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Angus MacLise, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, Moroccan street recording and other deep thinkers and players. Friend and contemporary of William S. Burroughs, Paul Bowles and Brion Gysin (who The Majoon Traveler is dedicated to), Ira is a true original: a brusk, no-bullshit-allowed mystic with a deep, Jewish-Brooklyn baritone.

LUTHER RUSSELL, Down at Kits (1999, Cravedog)

One-man funk factory Luther Russell drops a mother-lode of smooth, dubby instrumental funk that mixes up Memphis, New Orleans and Kingston, cocktail lounges, roadhouses and a touch of sublime muzak. Luther did the major-label two-step with The Freewheelers in the early 90s, then moved up to Portland, where he left a huge mark before eventually returning to LA. He figures hugely in the next record...

FERNANDO, Pacoima (1998, Cravedog)

Born in Argentina, raised in the San Fernando Valley barrio of Pacoima (home of Ritchie Valens), living in Portland, Fernando Viciconte has a string of superb releases. Pacoima is really something special: sung entirely in Spanish (except for one track), it's a mix of rock en Español, Tex-Mex, Casio-twiddling tangos, gutsy ballads and Farfisa-driven rockers that could be lost tracks by ? and The Mysterians, Sam the Sham or the Sir Douglas Quintet. Producer Luther Russell gives it a kinetic, live-wire feel, and plays most of the instruments, sans some of the guitar, trumpet and pedal steel.

THE GONE ORCHESTRA, Begone (1995, self released)

If Sun Ra's Arkestra added low-fi FX and dipped into boogie-woogie and boozy blues along with their outrageous space jazz? Well, actually they did. But Gone Orchestra do it really well, too. This Portland combo is thick with iconoclastic personalities and sonic tinkerers, including a few affiliated with he Smega collective of cultural contrarians. If Duke Ellington was smoking crack while making records it might come out like this...

CRASH WORSHIP, Triple Mania II (1994, Charnel House)

In a savvy move, Crash Worship pared their monumental, primordial percussion assaults down to shorter, digestible pieces, separated everything in the mix and made a CD of actual song-like material. And they do it with out losing any of their menace or psychic heavy-osity. The provocative cover is vintage Crash Worship: art inspired by Henry Darger's pan-sexual waifs,  rendered in full-color etched copper plating.

IAN SHOALES, I Gotta Go (1997, 2.13.61)

Tart-tongued, sharp-witted and incredibly verbally agile, comedic social commentator Ian Shoales sprints through 24 short, tongue twisting subjects ("Neo-Literacy," "Boomerville," "Elvitude" etc.), all ending with his trademark "I gotta go." These 24 tracks were recorded between 1985 and 1995, and reflect the cultural landscape of the Regan and Clinton eras; we can only imagine what he would make of the current Bush/Cheney/Carlyle Group-led on-going fiasco. Unlike many spoken-word recordings, it holds up under repeat listens.

UTAH CAROL, Wonderwheel (1999, Stomping Ground Publishing)

On Wonderwheel, the Chicago-based duo of Grant Birkenbeuel and JinJa Davis make tight, deadpan, insanely catchy folky rock with brief, funky instrumental interludes. Something eerie and possibly dangerous lies just below the surface, while the top side is smooth and user friendly. They have since released two more CDs, Comfort for the Traveler in 2002 and Rodeo Queen in 2007. On this first release Utah Carol manage to sound completely original without actually breaking any tangibly new territory, which is notable into itself.

RUBE WADDELL, Hobo Train (1996, Vaccination)

Junkyard blues, drunken sea-chanteys, depression-era calls to arms, homemade instruments, debauchery, anarchy and pork-pie hat wearing surrealism. Named after the legendary early 20th century baseball player, ambulance chaser and boozer, Hobo Train is the first of several outlandish CDs this Bay Area  four-hat has released. Rude Waddell are pretty much the ultimate house-party band. As long as your house has big holes in the walls, a dirt floor and is well away from any neighbors?

NEW COAT OF PAINT: SONGS OF TOM WAITS (2000, Manifesto)

Andre Williams, Knoxville Girls, Dexter Romweber, Botanica, Preacher Boy and others remake, retool and rethink 14 of Tom Waits' songs. A trio of ballads by Carla Bozulich, Sally Norvell and Eleni Mandell anchor the center of the record. But check Lydia Lunch and Nels Cline sliming their way through "Heartattack and Vine" and Screamin' Jay Hawkins completing owning "Whistlin' Past The Graveyard" to see why this is a superior collection.

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He hosts the vinyl-only “Scratchy Record Show” every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it—even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks will soon be published in Goldmine.