#25: They Whom Life Can No Longer Surprise
The Sea and Cake and Five Cheap & Fantastic Sounding LPs You Need
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This past week I’ve pretty much only listened to The Sea and Cake albums. Maybe one day finer audio companies will start to use 1995’s The Biz to demonstrate artisanal power cords and interconnects or Acoustic Sounds will do the definitive vinyl pressing of 2003’s One Bedroom. Imagine how many people under 50 might take Mobile Fidelity more seriously if they did up 2000’s The Fawn? Seriously, these are some of the greatest sounding records made in the last 50 years. I’m half-joking about new LP pressings because honestly the original CDs (and what’s available on lossless streaming) are pretty much perfect.
But you need an album for your Insta, I get it.
During this deep dive I went looking for other albums John McEntire recorded and mixed and I was kind of shocked at how (relatively) little he’s done outside of the Chicago scene. Perhaps it’s by choice (and maybe Discogs is limited in its database) but if it isn’t, bands and artists are seriously sleeping on one of the best to have ever done it.
If you’re a n00b, start with 2000’s Oui and then bounce to the others I’ve mentioned. I lost touch with them after 2003 so I have some catching up to do with the later albums but how can they not be amazing? These dudes are lifers in the service of sound.
On this week’s episode of The Trailhead, I was happy to open with something from Tokyo’s Muzan Editions. One of my absolute favorite outlets for modern electronic music, Muzan have an astoundingly high success rate. We heard from artist David Edren’s gorgeous Daarbuiten to start before returning to fresh releases from Shelter & Orion, Erik Wøllo, and David Cordero. We also heard the first issued piece from SUSS’s forthcoming Northern Spy LP Birds & Beasts and another majestic jam from Elkhorn’s new one for VHF Records, The Red Valley.
In the second hour, we went to the UK in the 70s for a selection of jammy, rootsy and rural rockers from great undersung groups Steamhammer, Mighty Baby, Bronco and Help Yourself.
It’s a chill ride that you can listen to here.
**If you listen to the show regularly and aren’t a paid sub here, please consider buying me a coffee. Preparing and hosting a 2-hour show every week is wonderful work but it is work. Thanks!**
Playlist:
1. David Edren - Verdwenen - Daarbuiten (Muzan Editions, 2024) 00:00
2. David Cordero - At Home Again - Important Small Details (Home Normal, 2024) 07:33
3. Modrá - Evening Indigo - Bohemian Blue (Infinite Expanse, 2024) 14:21
4. Shelter & Orion - La Lunga Strada Di Sabbia (Di Giornio) - Here's Where You Understand It's Only Dreaming (Les Disques Omnison, 2024) 21:43
5. Erik Wøllo - Blackstar - Crossing the Equator (Projekt, 2024) 32:32
6. SUSS - Overstory - Birds & Beasts (Northern Spy, 2024) 37:54
7. Elkhorn - Gray Salt Trail - The Red Valley (VHF, 2024) 42:31
8. Bronco - New Day Avenue - Ace of Sunlight (Island, 1971) 1:05:23
9. Steamhammer - Another Travelling Tune - MK II (CBS, 1969) 1:12:02
10. Mighty Baby - Now You See It - Live in the Attic (Sunbeam, 2009) 1:28:05
11. Help Yourself - It Has to Be - The Return of Ken Whaley (United Artists, 1973) 1:43:01
Here’s a long overdue selection of five amazing sounding cheap LPs you can likely find at your good local store (or online, obviously). Some of these artists and albums are not really obscure but they may be unjustly forgotten, unjustly maligned as 80s crap, or dark horses in a large catalog. It’s true, used record prices have gone INSANE the last 5 years. It’s so bad I’m seeing Travelling WIlburys records going for over fifty bucks. Dogshit music for champagne prices if you ask me (sorry Bob, Tom, George and you other dudes).
Anyway, check out these album, my copies are all first US pressings I got for nothing unless otherwise noted.
Richard Thompson - Amnesia (Capitol, 1988)
RT has a new album out that I haven’t gotten around to listening to. If I’m being completely honest, I can’t say I’ve been in the mood for adult contempo folk rock. But when I am, I go to 1988’s Amnesia most of the time. Thompson solo LPs were tough for me to get into after the majesty that is the work with his ex-wife Linda. Small Town Romance (Hannibal, 1984) was my go-to for a long time mostly because he did old tunes in a desperate loner folk mode. This one is far from that but it’s also not the super radio ready early 90s stuff that was coming. Really the best sounding album of his I’ve heard, AMnesia unfairly sits unloved in a “T” section near you.
NRBQ - NRBQ At Yankee Stadium (Mercury, 1978)
Honestly, I don’t know who else listens to NRBQ. Yo La Tengo did their fair share of hyping them up the last 25 years. And then there was the boomer in a Q hat in the Hannaford parking lot I tried complimenting who just thought I was some gnarly weirdo. But that’s about it. They are a true cult band but nobody is really out there recruiting new members. This is probably why their records are everywhere and always cheap;. While others may have songs that hit me harder and deeper, the group’s Mercury debut is just about a perfect album. It’s got the jangly jangle, the rhythm & blues and the power pop out the wazoo. And it’s really a nicely recorded, mixed and pressed album. I see the prices have crept up a little for this one on Discogs, so maybe Terry Adams is big on Tik-Tok, who knows….
Black Uhuru - Chill Out (Island, 1982)
Growing up, reggae was a regular fixture in my house thanks to my dad. He was a big fan of a reggae radio show from WUSB Stony Brook called “The Night Nurse” and this is likely where he discovered Black Uhuru. When I was in high School, he started picking up CDs of albums he had on vinyl back in those early days, and 1982’s Chill Out was one of them (and I stole it, sorry). Not as popular as their preceding albums, Chill Out is nonetheless a classic. But it’s not the easiest to get into if you’re strictly a roots fan. Full of space and electronics, Chill Out is definitely a crossover type of affair. For some, Wally Badarou’s squiggling, streaking and striding synth is a deal breaker but, for me, it elevates the music to an even more beautiful plateau. It’s Badarou’s work with Talking Heads on their 1983 album Speaking In Tongues (a current obsession in heavy rotation) that reminded me of this gem.
Paul Speer - Collection 983: Spectral Voyages (Catero, 1984)
The picture. The font. The year. And the fact the record only contained four pieces are the reasons I nabbed this one years ago at the venerable Record Grouch in Greenpoint. Likely known to deep 80s new age diggers, multi-instrumentalist Paul Speer had success in the Reagan years via albums he did with David Lanz on the once omnipresent Narada label. Those are good but this, his first, is better. Impeccably recorded, mixed and pressed, Collection 983: Spectral Voyages is an album of shocking beauty and depth. NOt so much ambient as it is instrumental space rock, the album travels through pink sunset skies and over verdant hills but I must warn you: It is VERY 80s. So if the studio and recording trends of the cocaine age are beyond your grasp, I suggest you get over that shit and into this record that sounds like Popol Vuh if they recorded with Trevor Horn. (**I have to do an A/B but it seems the version on streaming/CD is a remix, while its not bad, you need the LP or tape of this one**)
Happy the Man - Happy the Man (Arista, 1977)
It’s funny, when we talk about the great prog rock bands, we talk of no American groups. While the West Coast psychedelia of the 60s helped lay the foundation for later progressive rock overseas, it didn’t really transform and become much of a thing here in the USA. Now don’t talk to me about early Kansas. Really.
Happy the Man (according to Wikipedia, NOT named after the Genesis song) were from Virginia (later Washington, D.C) and managed to get two records out on major label Arista before the 70s ended. Their self-titled first from 1977 is a complex and extremely musical affair no doubt indebted to the aforementioned Genesis as well as Yes, King Crimson and others. There isn’t actually anything on the album that would suggest the band weren’t from England except for maybe the vocals. You get your passages of gravity defying musicianship, pathways for fluttering flutes and atmospheric acoustic guitars on this lovely debut. Apparently they toured with Hot Tuna and played to their biggest crowd opening for Jorma and Jack to 10,000 Long Islanders. They survived that and made more music but it couldn’t have been easy.
Definitely check out Runner by The Sea & Cake from 2012. I also really dig the first Prekop solo record. Rob Mazurek features prominently on it.
REM ‘s Green tour featured NRBQ as openers on several dates.