HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS “GESCHENK DES AUGENBLICKS — THE GIFT OF THE MOMENT”

There is room for ambivalence when it comes to Roedelius’ solo work, and yet, this album delivers in a consistent and well crafted way from beginning to end. It’s probably my favorite of his solo releases, with its confident and poetic stride. In addition to giving the acoustic piano, cello, and violin lead billing to the synth (it’s here, just not front and center), this record includes one of the most profoundly beautiful Roedelius tracks ever written, “Wurzeln des Glücks (Roots of Joy).” The naturalism and Germanic sun-dappled forest-dweller vibe on this track is a dreamy addition to the smattering of Roedelius tunes found on his other records, that, although limited in number, are some of the most lovely songs I’ve ever heard. Someday I will make that perfect Roedelius mix, I’m just afraid it will be a lot shorter than I want it to be. But for all the hit and miss his oeuvre delivers, it’s hard to deny the simplicity and elegiac profundity in the songs that work. It is for that reason I return again and again to his music, as well as because he consistently finds resolve in the tension between the electronic and the acoustic, persistently falling back on repetition and basic melody to under gird the work. Drawn to its simplicity, I am as much attracted to his contemplative forebodings and moody song structures as anything, and in the end his music stands resolutely on its own.

Editions EG, EGED 34, 1984

Side One:

1. Geschenk des Augenblicks (The Gift of the Moment) (4′19)
2. Adieu Quichotte (5′46)
3. Troubadour (5′16)
4. Kleine Blume irgendwo (Little Flower Somewhere) (2′13)
5. Ohn’ Unterlaß (Continuously) (3′50)
6. Gefundene Zeit (Time Regained) (2′00)

Side Two:

1. Sehnsucht ich will dich lassen (To be free of Yerning) (5′48)
2. Das Sanfte (Mellowness) (3′43)
3. Tag für Tag (Day by Day) (4′30)
4. Zu Füßen der Berge am Ufer des Sees (At the foot of the mountain by the lakeside) (6′35)
5. Wurzeln des Glücks (Roots of Joy) (3′25)

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CLUSTER “CURIOSUM”

The good news is Cluster are still making music, and while enjoying a well deserved resurgence, the down side for fans is that some of the limited re-issues have sold out, are difficult to find, or cost way more than they should. Not that the music isn’t worth it, it’s just we all want a little. With that in mind Curiosum is here as an interim fix until it gets properly reissued again. Lucky for me I found most of their stuff on vinyl some years back, and haven’t had to hustle to get my hands on MIA re-issues.

Of all the Cluster album cover art, Curiosum’s (credited to möbi), is well suited for what it contains, or better yet, looks like it sounds. I suppose it’s easy to compare colored geometric shapes with synth music, but it’s one of those covers you can stare at while listening, and actually feel like your seeing the sound. That’s probably a manufactured association on my part, but this record (the third of the often overlooked last three records from the 79′ - 81′ post-Eno period) is well worth exploration, which is nothing new for the hard-core Cluster fan. Curiosum, the final collaboration between Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius before their eight year hiatus, ends what is generally considered one of the most influential contributions to electronic/ambient and experimental music from the 1970’s, beginning with their eponymous release that Wire magazine dubbed one of the “One Hundred Records That Set The World On Fire”. Not sure Curiosum could have had that effect, but it is filled with the adventurous spirit of their earlier records, and rewards the listener with an effervescent meandering of sharp corners, oblong shapes, angular distant moods, and foreshadowing drones that are purely of their time. Sounding like a parody of itself in some ways, those familiar with the Sprokets skits on SNL can rest assured this is not the music/style being made fun of, but rather, the stuff that inspired the music/style being made fun of (well not entirely perhaps). But in defense of the great Cluster, if you haven’t found yourself moved by their (initial) later period music, I recommend you keep at it. In as much as 80’s synth sound can put some folks off, there is always well crafted musicianship, devotion to song, and a sonic exploration that’s as fruitful as anything in the Krautrock canon.

Sky Records, SKY063, 1981

Side One:

1. Oh Odessa (3:15)
2. Proantipro (7:30)
3. Seltsame Gegend (8:00)

Side Two:

1. Helle Melange (3:45)
2. Tristan In Der Bar (3:00)
3. Charlic (4:40)
4. Ufer (8:40)

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SUN CITY GIRLS “330,003 CROSSDRESSERS FROM BEYOND THE RIG VEDA”

How much Sun City Girls can you handle??? That was supposed to sound like a threat, and I can’t help but think that’s how these guys would have wanted it. I don’t know if you have ever found yourself trying to explain what SCG sound like to someone who’s never heard them before, but sometimes it’s a little like trying to explain a polar bear to a cat. The only way to really get your head around the music is to listen to a lot of it, and even then you may wind up with more questions than you started with. In fact, once you think you get it figured out, you find some obscure release and discover that in addition to soundly riffing on 60’s Thai pop music, or bastardizing the Balinese Gamelon, they could hold their own on 20-minute psych jams, kick out punk tunes to rival the Stooges, and craft singularly beautiful sonic landscapes unlike anyone else. Consistent in inconsistent ethno-music genre-bending, these guys were at best iconoclastic surrealist folk mongers offering devotional nods to DADA, the Situationists, and the gods of music, and at worst privileged Westerners making a mess of indigenous forms. Fortunately, they leave us bucket loads of pastiche pancake ethno-strange and fascinatingly disturbing music, which, as it both festers and flowers in your ears, always leaves you (me) wanting more. I gave up asking questions about the conceptual motives, and just enjoyed the music, but in the end found it worked just as well conceptually as it did musically. I had the pleasure of seeing the Girls play a few times, and I have to say it only added to my admiration and affection for the project.

A lot has been written about SCG, both scathing criticism and lofty praise. You either love them, hate them, or remain just plain confused. But to garner such strong responses from any camp is, in my opinion, a job well done. The down side to trying to listen to as much of this stuff as you can is that most of it’s long out of print, or ridiculously expensive (if you’re lucky enough to even find it). That’s not to say there isn’t a lot in print, it’s just that as you find yourself wanting more (as I hope you do), the cult status-thing keeps much of the recorded material in the stratospheric price range. In fact, you can go to their website and buy rarities directly at some pretty astronomical rates, and given that most of the stuff is a grab-bag of one folk form or another, it seems paradoxical to me that they would charge lots of money for it. Oh well, we all have to make a living, and perhaps the goofy prices and culty limited releases are all part of a conceptual trope known only to the remaining members of the band.

So… this was a limited pressing three lp release from Locust in 2002, which was a re-issue of a double CD that came out on Abduction in 96′. Which one is harder to find? Who knows, but I’m glad I grabbed it, as it’s an amazing scrapbook of style and performance that’s a great way to get a headfull of what these guys were capable of. As you might have guessed, the music on this record is pretty hard to encapsulate — it’s all over the place — but then that’s what we signed up for. Drawn from various performances and studio work, it doesn’t really follow any particular logic, that is to say, except the logic that is SCG, which, the more you listen, the more you understand.

Locust Music, Locust No. 4, 2002

Side One:

1. Apna Desh (4′42)
2. Rookoobay (3′45)
3. Cruel and Thin (3′39)
4. Sardhama Royale (2′26)
5. Sikya Boyah (3′27)
6. Soi Cowboy (2′21)
7. Insect Dilemma (1′14)

Side Two:

1. Kickin’ The Dragon (4′59)
2. Murderer’s Night (2′52)
3. Diamond Macaque (1′56)
4. Sangkala (2′10)
5. Delong Song (3′48)
6. Kumari Sweet (6′07)

Side Three:

1. Cineraria Blue (8′35)
2. Shin Paku (7′03)
3. Lies Up The Niger (6′41)

Side Four:

1. The Swaying Gardens Of The Apocalypsia (3′57)
2. Ghost Ghat Trespass (16′07)

Side Five:

1. Sussmeier (18′15)
2. Sukuh (3′28)

Side Six:

1. CCC (4′15)
2. Of The Twilight (7′05)
3. Civets Tango (2′56)
4. Maybe I’ll Kiss And Die A Fool (5′31)

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FOLK MUSIC OF THE UNITED STATES: RAILROAD SONGS AND BALLADS FROM THE ARCHIVE OF FOLK SONG EDITED BY ARCHIE GREEN

Back on the domestic front for a Library of Congress release c.1967. This is a raw and unfettered collection of mostly a cappella songs either directly about, or in reference to the railroad. All culled from the massive vaults of field recordings housed in the LOC, the record was curated by American Folklife Center founding father Archie Green, with the intent of organizing for the general public folk music untainted by commercial interests. From the outer sleeve notes: “These traditional songs, recorded with portable equipment in the field, are sung and played by people who have learned them in the folk tradition from their parents or neighbors. The singers are untrained musically, and their voices reflect the hills and plains of America rather than the broadcasting studio or the concert stage. This is not in any sense to minimize their worth, but, on the contrary, to point up the unique value of the recordings, for through them is preserved for the American people the pure tradition of folk song.” The notes continue (from the booklet insert): “Not only did Americans create songs about the construction of the railroad and about the uses to which it could be put, but instrumentalists improvised train imitations in which the performer himself became the clicking, pulsating juggernaut. The mouth-harpist, fiddler, guitarist, or pianist was the train; he brought the engine’s snort directly into his cottage or boardinghouse room. One senses in listening to the great body of rail music that Meade Lux Lewis’ clasic piano solo, “Honky Tonk Train,” tells as specific a story as the widely recorded “Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven.” Folklorists place narrative ballads in quite separate categories from lyric instrumentals. Yet there seems to be a tracklike thread which connects the countless rail narrative songs to the most poignant blues and floating lyric folksongs.”

The latter notes are taken from an extensive booklet included inside the outer sleeve that contains lyrics, a bibliography (for each song!), and extensive information about the LOC archive and the people responsible for contributing to it. Really nice! The songs themselves are amazing on so many levels, not the least of which are the lyrics, serving as further insight into the story of the American folk vernacular. Transcending entertainment, this music reaffirms the notion that songs like these were as much a functional part of the every day lives of those who sang and performed them as anything else. At the very end of “The Engineer” we can almost hear Lester A. Coffee begin to cry, and “The Dying Hobo” sung by George Lay, as it segues into “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” sung by Harry McClintock, portrays the realities of Depression-era life and the struggles of being an outsider. All the usual hardships and racial inequities are here, superimposed with the epic role that the railroad played in shaping the country.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: R67-3179

Side One:

1. Calling Trains (Sung by an unidentified old train-caller of New Orleans, LA., 1936. Recorded by John A. Lomax at State Penitentiary, Parchman, MS) (’48)
2. The Boss Of The Section Gang (Sung by Mrs. Minta Morgan at Bells, TX, 1937. Recorded by John A. Lomax.) (1′25)
3. Jerry Will You Ile That Car (Sung by Warde H. Ford of Crandon, WS., 1939. Recorded by Sidney Robertson Cowell at Central Valley, CA) (’31)
4. Lining Track (Sung by Henry Hankins at Tuscumbia, AL, 1939. Recorded by Herbert Halpert) (1′30)
5. Roll On Buddy (Sung by Aunt Molly Jackson of Clay Co. KY, 1939. Recorded by Alan Lomax at New York, NY) (2′30)
6. Way Out In Idaho (Sung with guitar by Blaine Stubblefield of Weiser, ID, 1938. Recorded by Alan Lomax at Washington, D.C.) (3′39)
7. Oh I’m A Jolly Irishman Winding On The Train (Sung by Noble B. Brown at Woodman, WI, 1946. Recorded by Aubrey Snyder and Helene Stratman-Thomas) (1′04)
8. The Engineer ( Sung by Lester A. Coffee at Harvard, IL, 1946. Recorded by Aubrey Snyder and Phyllis Pinkerton) (4′00)
9. George Allen (Sung with banjo by Austin Harmon at Maryvile, TN, 1939. Recorded by Herbert Halpert) (3′07)
10. The Wreck Of The Royal Palm (Sung with guitar by Clarence H. Wyatt at Berea, KY, 1954. Recorded by Wyatt Insko) (2′05)
11. Train Blues (Played by Russel Wise on the fiddle and Mr. White on the guitar at Cherry Lake Farms, Madison, FL, 1936) (1′38)

Side Two:

1. The New River Train (Sung and played by the Ridge Rangers at Cinncinati, OH, 1938. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax) (1′49)
2. The Train Is Off The Track (Sung by Mrs. Esco Kilgore of Norton, VA, 1939. Recorded by Herbert Halpert at Hamiltontown, Near Wise, VA)  (1′15)
3. Gonna Lay My Head Down On Some Railroad Line (Sung by Will Wright at Clinton, AR, 1936. Recorded by Sidney Robertson Cowell) (1′06)
4. I Rode Southern, I Rode L. & N. (Sung with guitar by Merle Lovell at Shafter, CA, 1940. Recorded by Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin)  (2′47)
5. The Lighting Express (Sung by Jim Holbert at Visalia, CA, 1940. Recorded by Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin)  (3′00)
6. Railroad Rag (Sung with guitar and mandolin by Joe Harris and Kid West at Shreveport, LA, 1940. Recorded by John A. and Ruby Lomax) (1′48)
7. The Railroader (Sung with guitar by May Kennedy McCord at Springield, MO, 1941. Recorded by Vance Randolph) (’52)
8. The T. & P. Line (Sung by Mrs. Mary Sullivan at Shafter, CA, 1941. Recorded by Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin)  (3′36)
9. The Dying Hobo (Sung with guitar by George Lay at Heber Springs, AR, 1959. Recorded by Mary C. Parler)  (1′32)
10. The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Sung with guitar by Harry McClintock at San Pedro, CA, 1951. Recorded by Sam Eskin)  (2′10)
11. I’m Goin’ Home On The Mornin’ Train  ( Sng by E.M. Martin and Pearline Johns of Alligator, MS, 1942. Recorded by Alan Lomax at Clarksdale, MS) (2′07)

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