Continued from page 28
turing Jagger and Richards’ blended voic-
es, joined during its coda by a fervent
Gospel chorus and Hopkins’ rowdy
piano. The set’s second platter features
the original mono mix of “Sympathy for
the Devil” in high-fidelity 45RPM occupy-
ing a full side of 12” heavyweight vinyl.
The reissue’s gatefold packaging features
Barry Feinstein’s now-familiar and much-
disputed bathroom-graffiti artwork that
delayed the album’s original release as the
band clashed with label executives, taste-
fully hidden inside the sanitized wed-
ding-invitation graphics of a wraparound
slipcover. Also included is a flexible-disc
recording of a 1968 telephone interview
with Mick Jagger for London Records’
Japanese distributor. The young Jagger is
cagey with details about new titles and
songs, but the singer answers questions
about contemporary work by so-called
rivals The Beatles and describes the cre-
ation of the Stones’ new album as
“absolute lunacy.”
– Jeff Elbel
8
HIGH ON FIRE
Electric Messiah
(E1 Music)
No metalhead seems to be working
harder than guitarist/singer-songwriter
Matt Pike. Fresh off the success of his
other band’s first full-length release in 20
years (Sleep’s The Sciences) comes the
eighth studio album from his more linear
outfit. Opening track “Spewn From The
Earth” and title track “Electric Messiah”
are uptempo burners with a relentless
drumline and fuzzed-out power-chords
reverberating to the point where it’s not
clear where notes begin or end. Pike’s
beyond gruff vocal delivery is lost in this
sludgy mix to hypnotic effect. Mid-tempo
tracks like “Steps Of The Ziggurat/House
Of Enlil” (clocking over nine minutes) and
“Sanctioned Annihilation” allow space for
the tribal drumming to build. The latter
track features the most rhythmic instru-
mentation with its use of double-bass
drumming and syncopated chord strum-
ming. “The Witch And The Christ” is
another textured and multi-tempo
arrangement that allows drummer Des
Kensel to lead the way amid Pike’s fully
throated declarations. Where Sleep’s
droning ethos causes introspection and
daydreaming, High On Fire's Electric
Messiah is the much-needed rude awaken-
ing that always seems to follow.
– Jason Scales
guest Susanna Hoffs. Rain Parade makes a
psychedelic epic of the Three O’Clock’s
“As Real as Real.” “We adore this tune as it
has everything we like about psychedelic
music,” says Matt Piucci. With languid
Velvet Underground-styled guitar drone,
Stephan Junca’s “Ticket to Ride” drumbeat
and Steven Roback’s sun-stoned vocal, the
affection is evident. The Paisley
Underground wasn’t a genre; it was a
scene. These songs don’t sound alike, but
they belong together. Nostalgia has its
place in 3x4, but it’s not at the head of the
table. The love of friends and their collec-
tive musical dreams are the unifying ele-
ments that make this project so wonderful
to spin again and again.
– Jeff Elbel
7
7
THE BANGLES, THE
DREAM SYNDICATE, THE
THREE O'CLOCK, RAIN
PARADE
3X4
(Yep Rock)
The four core bands of Los Angeles’
Paisley Underground scene of the ‘80s
regrouped in 2013 for a charity concert.
These old friends reconnected and
hatched the idea of covering each other’s
songs. The most commercially successful
of the gathered acts was the Bangles, who
charted hit singles including the 1986 #1
pop hit “Walk Like an Egyptian.” The
Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade and the
Three O’Clock have all maintained their
influence and mystique outside of the
mainstream, with the members remaining
active in various musical pursuits. Dream
Syndicate has experienced a significant
revival since 2012, with 2017’s How Did I
Find Myself Here? measuring up to the
potent legacy of classic albums like
Medicine Show. Dream Syndicate’s cover
of the Bangles breakout single “Hero
Takes the Fall” becomes the most promi-
nent track on 3x4 due to its familiarity, but
the context makes the song even more
compelling. In an engaging booklet of
liner notes with contributions by each
artist, Dream Syndicate singer Steve
Wynn reveals that the anti-hero of the
withering “Hero Takes a Fall” is none
other than himself. He takes his medicine
gracefully. “It’s also quite fair,” he writes.
“Those weren’t my best days.” Later, he
adds, “If a perfect, three-minute pop song
had to be my comeuppance, my punish-
ment, well then, I got off pretty easy.”
Bassist Mark Walton and drummer
Dennis Duck propel the Dream Syndicate
version while Wynn and Jason Victor
mesh slashing alt-rock guitars. The
Bangles return the favor on “That’s What
You Always Say” from Dream Syndicate’s
Days of Wine and Roses album. Vicki
Peterson describes her instant connection
to the song from early Dream Syndicate
shows, and how she let her lead guitar
howl in tribute to the “unbridled yowl” of
original guitarist Karl Precoda. The Three
O’Clock play a loving and respectful ver-
sion of Rain Parade’s marvelous jangle-
pop single “What She’s Done to Your
Mind” that captures its influential roots in
the Byrds and adds a sky-sailing solo by
Louis Gutierrez. Michael Quercio’s
melodic bass underscores his shimmering
vocal harmony with Adam Merrin and
guest Susanna Hoffs. Rain Parade makes
24 illinoisentertainer.com january 2019
Discreet Music was an important step
toward his Ambient series. The side-length
“Discreet Music” pieces parts 1 and 2 intro-
duce simple sequences that delay and
unfold back onto themselves in the
Frippertronics technique developed on
1973’s No Pussyfooting album with King
Crimson
guitarist
Robert
Fripp.
Interestingly, my initial playback of Part 1
was eloquent, expressive and satisfying
when accidentally played at 33 RPM. At
proper speed, the sequence was equally
pastoral but more uplifting as designed.
The album’s second half includes three
inventive variations upon excerpts from
Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major,” wherein
Eno manipulates performances by the
Cockpit Ensemble strings. The setting of
1978’s Music for Airports is obvious, but it’s
hard to imagine Chicago’s O’Hare
International airport as being represented
as serenely as anything that unfolds on the
album’s four meditative and almost hym-
nal sides. “1/1” has a calming effect as
Robert Wyatt’s thrumming piano traces an
unhurried melody. Perhaps it’s because
Eno envisioned this music during the gold-
en age of glamorous air travel, long before
the TSA had anything to do with it.
– Jeff Elbel
8
RICHARD LLOYD
The Countdown
BRIAN ENO
Discreet Music
Ambient 1: Music For
Airports
Ambient 4: On Land
(UMe/Virgin/EMI.)
Key entries from Brian Eno’s ambient
music catalog enjoy the deluxe treatment
in these Abbey Road remasters helmed by
Miles Showell. Ambient 1: Music for
Airports, Ambient 4: On Land, and Discreet
Music are among titles releasing as half-
speed mastered, 45 RPM, two-LP sets for
top-quality audio. Distant bell tones chime
hypnotically in a distant sound field as
machines hum and a sonic haze of elec-
tronic wind drift through the foreground
of On Land’s “The Lost Day.” “Tal Coat”
threads a burbling synthesizer into a hyp-
notic drone, accented by rich swells of bass
and the uneasy tension of arid static. Other
songs incorporate sounds found outdoors,
including clattering rocks and frog song.
By its nature, this music emphasizes the
underlying character (i.e., the ambiance) of
each song’s setting, and these new masters
allow listeners to picture themselves with-
in the environment of tracks like
“Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960” and its
vanished seaport. Eno may have imagined
his music deployed as background materi-
al, but he also filled the songs with detail
and imagination. Does the sound of
“Lizard Point” evoke the sun-bleached
peak of a desert rock formation? Does
“Lantern Marsh” feel dark and humid,
claustrophobic and surrounded by insects
and furtive animal life? Whatever the
imagery, ideally the sonics are experienced
through immersive audio, and On Land
makes for wonderfully evocative head-
phone listening. Eno wrote in 1978 that his
ambient music was meant to induce calm
and a space to think while retaining the
sense of genuine interest that background
music like Muzak erased with its bland
homogeneity. In 1975, Eno’s concept of
generative music was evolving, and
(Plowboy)
Founding Television guitarist and
Matthew Sweet sideman Richard Lloyd
returns with his eighth solo album full of
sharp post-punk riffs and pop savvy. From
the opening notes of “Wind in the Rain,”
Lloyd reminds us all that Tom Verlaine
wasn’t the sole source of lightning cap-
tured on 1977’s Marquee Moon. Each song
on The Countdown including the rumina-
tive “Smoke” is built upon a bristling gui-
tar lick in Lloyd’s inimitable style and
heightened by his potent lead work. Atop a
grim and gripping minor-key groove,
Lloyd peels off sinewy and anguished fig-
ures during “So Sad” that will remind
longtime
listeners
of
Television’s
“Friction.” Overall, The Countdown is edgy
and organic, benefitting from live-in-the-
studio takes with the backbone of bassist
David Roe and drummer Steve Ebe that
allow Lloyd ample room to take flight. Ebe
creates a thundering groove that is both
tribal and strangely urbane during “Run.”
Roe propels the power-popping and para-
doxically noisy “Whisper” with spiky but
soulful punk bass a la Graham Maby’s reli-
able bottom-end for Joe Jackson’s “I’m the
Man.” Lloyd’s rough-hewn and weathered
voice isn’t the album’s main attraction and
may be an acquired taste for some, but it’s
an honest vehicle that charms during the
romantic and lighthearted snap of “I Can
Tell.” After an album brimming with out-
sider observations, stratospheric guitar
soars alongside Joe Bidwell’s percolating
organ during “Countdown” as Lloyd pre-
pares to wave goodbye from outer space
since he’s “had enough of planet Earth.”
Fans of any level are directed toward
Lloyd’s
fascinating
2017
memoir
Everything is Combustible: Television, BGB’s
and Five Decades of Rock and Roll. Grab the
book and read about Lloyd’s unconven-
tional and barely believable (but true!) past
while playing The Countdown to hear what
he’s up to as he approaches decade num-
ber six.
– Jeff Elbel
7