TEENBEAT !

With their “differences” settled, the two Zip Code Rapists made a back-together-again-for-the-first-time comeback with the disarmingly competent 94124 EP, taking the opportunity to announce a new morality in the bozo-funky “Zip Code Gentlemen.” Of course, it’s a joke, and the skimpy record (six songs, a one-minute live fragment plus a self-described “filler” remix) soon finds the two up to their old tricks, faking their way through a dubious Nashville two-step (“I Need Him”), a muck-slinging product endorsement (“Ranch Style Beans”), sick-puppy pop (“Happy Like Larry”) and fucked-up live covers (“The Look of Love,” the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”). With that, plus the significant inclusion of a perverted Southwestern ballad (“Henderson”), the Zip Code Rapists finally reach their ultimate destination — they’re a Ween tribute band, after all. (Ira Robbins, Trouser Press)

НИИ Косметики or the Scientific Research Institute of Cosmetics are a rather extraordinary Soviet pop group who I’d say win the title of having the best band name translated into English. The group was created in 1984 by a certain Michael “Methodius” Yevsenkov in a cellar in the Moscow underground, which is where they stayed for most of their career.

During the 80s, every move of the group was perceived to be a scandal. Not only were they operating illegally, since all musical groups in the Soviet Union were supposed to be registered with the government, but they were also shocking their contemporaries on the fringe with live shows that were said to resemble parties more than concerts. It was not uncommon for there to be more actors and actresses on stage than musicians. Organizers of their shows were even interrogated by the KGB on occasion, but Methodius himself, it was said, was a fearless guy. In 1986 НИИ КОСМЕТИКИ self-released their first album titled “История болезни” (The Case Record). (Johnny Disaster, Porch of the Mystics)

What an album this is. Underground new-wave straight out of left field, tape hiss and all. While there are a few misses, solid pop tunes like Пушка (“Cannon”) and Счастлив (“Happy”) more than make up for it. Definitely worth digging into.

If you know anything about Zoogz Rift, it’s that a lot of people don’t like him. He’s known for his loud, obnoxious, immature sense of humor (e.g. his band was named The Amazing Shitheads) and for his constant paranoid ranting…and that’s what his fans say. But his fans also point out that his wildly original music owes nothing to any typical genre cliches, and he has refused to cater to the public almost to the point of commercially shooting himself in the foot.

Rift is usually compared to the likes of Zappa and Beefheart, and he does share their love of complex compositions that, unlike many too-precious proggies, still rock out with a vengeance. His instrumental lineup, often including the likes of trombones and vibraphones, can be reminiscent of Beefheart. But while Zappa sneered, Rift howls in pain. And if Beefheart came out of the blues, Rift sounds like he was caught up in the punk scene exploding around him at the time. He’s from L.A., in case you didn’t guess.

Yes, there are going to be tracks on these albums that you’re not going to like. When someone won’t stop screaming about the “idiots” of the world without getting specific, it can become it’s own kind of idiocy. But don’t let that stop you. For one thing, there are lots of instrumentals that demonstrate the tightly-rehearsed near-virtuosity of Rift and his bandmates, especially the also-infamous bassist/guitarist John Trubee, and the late drummer/vibeist Richie Haas. And these albums boast some great songwriting - funny, rockin’, rollin’, even cathartic. There are musical places that you’ve never been to before. (Mr. Fab, Music For Maniacs)

The now-forgotten Phoenix, AZ label that brought the world the rote hardcore stylings of JFA also launched the recording career of the Sun City Girls. The trio’s self-titled 1984 debut sounded nothing like their labelmates and not much like anything else at the time. The closest parameter might have been the early, desert-damaged work of the Meat Puppets, but even at this early stage the Girls were smearing ethnic musics (“Black Tent,” “Helwa Shak”) with their own sardonic, twisted, and sophisticated world view (“Rappin Head,” “The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Trick”) like few artists before or since. The fact that the band had been recording more or less constantly since they coalesced from the ashes of a band called Paris, 1942 — whose drummer was none other than Maureen Tucker, late of the Velvet Underground — had already made the Girls a whirling dervish, and several tracks here, including “Caravan of Scars,” became staples to which they would consistently return. This eponymous 17-song record certainly doesn’t attain the soaring avant-garage world music sting of their best 1990s efforts, but it is important as both a fine place to wade into the SCG gene pool and as a historical marker, signifying the official onset of the group’s magnificent recorded legacy. (Patrick Foster, Allmusic)

Much sought after by an ever-increasing body of dedicated fans, this is the famous first album by an unforgettably unique and tragically misunderstood vocalist. Recorded and released in 1968, this album tells as much about the producer — Frank Zappa — as it does about the singer himself. Cal Schenkel’s cover art ties it in with Zappa’s own releases from that period. Considering the fact that Fischer appeared with the Mothers of Invention on several occasions, it is a shame that only two selections allow listeners to savor the interesting combination of Zappa’s guitar and Wild Man’s total-release vocalizing. “The Taster” sounds a bit like Paul Anka’s “My Home Town,” while a very psychedelic tantrum called “The Circle” has Zappa’s best lysergic fuzz guitar up in front alongside the screams of the Wild Man. When he sings his theme song “Merry-Go-Round,” Fischer is accompanied by the Bizarre Percussion Ensemble. Their expertly executed clunks and clangs and rattles and squeaks were also layered over live location recordings of Wild Man Fischer on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, as he sang songs for loose change in front of the Whisky A Go Go and the Hamburger Hamlet. There is also a humorous poetry performance (“The Madness and Ecstasy”) by Kim Fowley and Rodney Bingenheimer, who rant about the historical and social importance of Wild Man Fischer. But the real gold in this album is an extended series of unaccompanied short songs. These are masterpieces of private whimsy. “I’m Working for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics” ends with a wonderful emotional outburst, as Fischer runs around the room screaming “stay away from me!” His surrealistic magnum opus, “The Leaves Are Falling,” sounds almost like “Papa Oo Mow Mow,” but employs a strange noise that Fischer seems to have made by clucking his tongue against his upper palette. Other highlights include “Think of Me When Your Clothes Are Off” and “Jennifer Jones,” an outrageously funny epic tale of competitive serial killing. Fischer periodically describes his own life, what it was like to be different, how he thought up original songs and tried to share them with the world. Especially powerful is “The Wild Man Fischer Story,” whereby the singer carefully reenacts his adolescence, describing how his mother actually had him committed to a mental institution twice for singing in his room. It is a mean story, a succession of misunderstandings that set the stage for a lifetime of being misdiagnosed, misrepresented, and misunderstood. Fischer quarreled with Zappa, frightened the Zappa family, and plunged this amazing record into limbo, as none of the surviving Zappas want anything to do with him. Negotiations are underway, and true Fischer devotees are wistfully waiting for the day when his first album will make its first legitimate appearance on compact disc. (Allmusic)

If you want a real case of musical whiplash, you can hardly do better than to put on this album. The title and packaging might lead you to expect a resolutely avant-garde piece, probably with screeching and discordant guitars. Instead the songs are absolutely gorgeous jazz and pop hook-laden stuff driven by vocal harmonies, cheerful organ riffs, and a horn section most soul bands would kill for. The lyrics are bitter, alienated, and cynical, but intelligent and poetic throughout. The result is indescribably wonderful. Any garage punker with three chords can rail against the injustice of the world, but John Trubee belts out “The Last Parade” with a brass section playing an arrangement that would do justice to Ennio Morricone. You just have to listen, captivated by the incredible juxtaposition of sentiment and music. Trubee will probably never become a popular artist because he won’t make any concession to popular taste and his own instincts are too confrontational. Even the dreamy “When My Ship Rolls In,” which has lovely pedal steel work and a ballad structure, dwells on the injustices of the past as much as the bright future that the singer envisions. The two instrumentals on this release are confrontational in a different way, mixing genres between spaced-out jazz and classical structures in a way that is genuinely exciting. Strange Hippie Sex Carnival is music to listen to intently and to marvel at, and it is well worth the effort to find a copy of this rare release. (Richard Foss, Allmusic)

The Residents are true avant-garde crazies. Their earliest albums (of which this is the first) have precedents in Captain Beefheart’s experimental albums, Frank Zappa’s conceptual numbers from Freak Out!, the work of Steve Reich, and the compositions of chance music tonemeister John Cage — yet the Residents’ work of this time really sounds like nothing else that exists. All of the music on this release consists of deconstructions of countless rock and non-rock styles, which are then grafted together to create chaotic, formless, seemingly haphazard numbers; the first six “songs” (including a fragment from the Nancy Sinatra hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”) are strung together to form a larger entity similar in concept to the following lengthier selections. The result is a series of unique, odd, challenging numbers that are nevertheless not entirely successful. The album cover is a fierce burlesque of the Beatles’ first U.S. Capitol label release, sporting puerilely doctored photographs of the Fab Four on the front and pictures of collarless-suited sea denizens on the back (identified as Paul McCrawfish, Ringo Starfish, and the like). This is an utterly bizarre platter that may appeal to very adventurous listeners.

Vol. 2 was the Nihilist Spasm Band’s second album. Recorded live at the Toronto Music Gallery on February 4, 1978, it was released on the venue’s own small imprint, Music Gallery Editions, the same year, a decade after the band’s first LP No Record. Vol. 2 had quickly become a rarity until the Japanese label Alchemy Records reissued it on CD in 1996. The album opens on what would become the Nihilist Spasm Band’s anthem, “No Canada.” One must understands the NSB doesn’t play “songs,” each improvisation being unique, but vocalist Bill Exley does reuse his best texts, anchoring the improv into something already known to the seasoned fan. That’s how the verse “No Canada/Home of the beaver/Home of the maple leaf/Animals and vegetables” will become a highlight of their show for decades to come. “Stupidity”, another “favorite” is also found on this record. Sound quality is fine, although the reissue has been mastered at very low volume. Vol. 2 is most valuable for being the only album where Bill Exley makes extensive use of (or abuses) the theremin. The band produces a lot of noise and the whole thing ends abruptly with “Elsinore,” which sounds truncated at the end.

Nihilist Spasm Band - No Canada

This is it: the ultimate collection of John Oswald’s Plunderphonics. All the missing pieces, all the essentials, and all the tracks that executives of the record industry tried to erase are included on this two-CD box set. Oswald has been working on his techniques and esthetics of sound collaging since 1969, but was mostly active in this field during the late ’80s/early ’90s. He pushed the notion of sound collage to an artistic level barely imagined before him, while raising a number of issues on plagiarism and the notion of copyright. Here, all the tracks listeners have heard about but were never able to find have been gathered, along with excerpts from works that remain available elsewhere. Disc one focuses on songs (i.e., tracks in which lyrics [or at least syllables and phonemes] play a part): from the cannibalized Carly Simon/Faster Pussycat “Vane” to the androgynous voice of Dolly Parton (“Pretender,” where she sings a duet with a slower version of herself) and the infamous “Dab,” a reworking of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” Disc two is comprised of tunes, where the sonic material comes from classical, jazz, and more. Highlights include the revised “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ “Also Spracht Zarathustra” (titled “Z24”), the three “Birth” pieces, and the exhilarating “Mach,” where the Kronos Quartet battles with a heavy metal band. The cut-up hörspiel “Case of Death” acts like a bridge between the two discs. Record collectors who managed to put a hand on the shortly available original recordings can breathe — most of the tracks show slight differences, such as remixing, editing, and sequencing. All pieces segue, sometimes with tricky interludes hidden in the index of the CD track. The 48-page book accompanying the set contains historical and technical comments from the composer for each of the 62 pieces. Ending in 1996, like Greyfolded: 1969-1996, this collection is definitive and closes a very important cycle in Oswald’s musical activities. Plunderphonics 69/96 is must-have for any serious avant-garde fan.

John Oswald - Power