VOTD 09/24/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Psilotripitika record 3 (Merzbild Schwet) (United Dairies)

Third day, third NWW LP. I intend to continue though I'll break things up soon with other albums and commentary soon. I have an album of traditional Ghana music that's awaiting a spin and blog posting.

Merzbild Schwet was the second NWW album of 1980, which clearly demonstrates how determined they were at the time. To think of what was going on in England at the time: Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records, NWW  and United Dairies, Whitehouse and Come Org, one more challenging (or even unlistenable) than the next, each releasing more than their in-house band, it must have been an exciting time.

I've recounted this conversation before, but I was at the Electric Banana with my friend Richard Schnap. We were young, enthusiastic, and saying, didn't the 70s suck? Isn't this an exciting time? Won't the 80s be great?

In retrospect, while a troubled time, the 70s seem much more interesting to me now, and the 80s represent the Reagan era. But then nothing's simple and it's incorrect to judge one decade more harshly than the other. (Or is it? Thinking of the current decade.) And specifically, I was excited about the boom in independently produced and released music. Those labels above are examples, as well as The Residents' Ralph Records, Larry Och's (+) Metalanguage Records, Chris Cutler's Recommended Records.

On the other hand, the 1970s might be my favorite decade for films. That's just an aside.

Who is NWW by the time of this record? There's frustratingly little information provided, at least for me who is always interested in such things. We know Steven Stapleton would soldier on with the project, and John Fothergill was almost definitely still in the mix at this point. Was Heman Pathak still involved? No indication either way. And with a clearly female voice singing/reciting on side one, others provided sonic materials as well.

What's clear is NWW's connection to earlier art movements, or at least inspiration from them. The title itself, Merzbild Schwet, references Kurt Schwitters. The two side-long tracks, "Dadaˣ" and "Futurismo", make reference to early 20th century art movements. Both the front and back cover images are largely collaged. One of the figures on the back cover is of a Viennese Aktionist, again connecting to yet another art and performance school/movement.

It's an easy thing to feel nostalgia for an era before we lived. I wonder what it was like to be in Europe between the two "great" wars, creating your own art movements, writing manifestos. The Surrealist Manifesto, the Dada Manifesto, etc. It seems exciting. Hell, what was it like to be in the theater for the first performance of Stravinsky & Nijinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps? People were supposed to have torn seats off the floor afterwards in outrage. It seems sad we can't feel that level of outrage over a work of art except for political reasons. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. 

"Dadaˣ" clearly plays on the listener's expectations, whatever those may be. The underscoring track is played at half speed, making it seem as though the record's playing at the wrong speed. There are pops and clicks that make it sound as though the record might have crud on the surface. It runs through a variety of ideas before, unexpectedly, everything stops and leads to some free jazz. That idea is then mixed and remixed. An aural representation of Dada? Maybe, maybe. 

Side two: "Futurismo". A reference to the Italian Futurists. Futurist paintings were explicitly pro-technology, and often displayed a single body in various forms of movement. Interesting that "Futurismo" would be the title of the most spare NWW track so far. It also seems more like the "aural landscape" that future NWW would be. A long backwards piano chord plays...a female says, "We have not spoken for days and days"...the piano returns, sometimes speed-manipulated. There's a long note on the clarinet. Ideas emerge, fade to the background. Sometimes it's sparse, sometimes densely but briefly packed.

How did Steven Stapleton feel about this one? It wouldn't be until the 5th LP, Homotopy to Marie, that he would say he was really satisfied with one of his albums. That it represented what he heard in his head.

This side sound like that first "mature" work. Less about being confrontational, more about listening.

 

VOTD 09/23/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Psilotripitika, record two (To the Quiet Men From a Tiny Girl) (United Dairies)

NWW day two, album two. Part of relistening to these albums is to consider them in the continuum of Steven Stapleton/NWW's work. Some things are starting to take shape on this album.

Like the first LP, I do not own an original copy of To the Quiet Men From a Tiny Girl. My copy is from the 1990 collection Psilotripitika, which includes the first three LPs plus a 12" EP of two compilation tracks.

Something that can be both exciting and frustration about NWW records is that there is no "typical" album. There are however generalities. The group's work (and to call it a group is a little deceptive in itself; it would wind up being Steven Stapleton and then a long list of collaborators) does fall very broadly under the category of musique concrète. Broadly put, recorded audio sources assembled, edited, shaped, manipulated and collected through recording techniques to create composition. 

While this record shares some of the primitive improvisational qualities of the first record, it's notably different in two ways: its spareness compared to the first, and the increased use of recording techniques. There's more editing, adjusting of mixing and audio manipulation than the first. It sounds less like a freak-out than an aural landscape. That is definably the direction future NWW records would take. (Generally.)

Another important element is the artwork. Stapleton would not only be the single common musical/audio element of every NWW album, but he does most of the graphics as well. Befitting an approach inspired by and related to Surrealism, the back cover and insert artwork is collaged. (The back cover of the first LP was a collage as well, something I failed to mention yesterday.) The back includes a famous image from the film Battleship Potemkin, the insert and record labels using medical illustrations. Gray's Anatomy perhaps? For those of a certain age and from Pittsburgh, what was the source of The Five's foot-cutting image?

The insert also has a variation on the Nurse With Wound list mentioned yesterday. Some names the same, many subtracted or added, and the text is far smaller.

While perhaps not terribly consequential, NWW once again pushes the album length. Side one over 26 minutes, side two over 27. I now that record pressing plants advise against this. They're surely  pushing at limitations. It's really closer to what would be CD length than LP. 

With this second album, did they consider themselves a "band"? With this third release (the second being Lemon Kittens' We Buy a Hammer for Daddy) was United Dairies a bona fide (if tiny) label? I suppose both of those things turned out to be true. In retrospect we know both things are true, with a further development in technique and sound to come. 

VOTD 09/22/2025

Nurse With Wound: Chance Meeting on Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella. (United Dirter)

For no particularly good reason, I thought I might do a deeper dive into my vinyl collection of NWW records. Just what the world wanted! I don't how long and diligently I'll continue with this. I am again trying to develop more routines in my retired life, and I should check back in here more often again. Retired from a day job and education but hardly from music in general, to be clear.

So there's this record. It's fair to call it more of a curiosity or historical piece than anything. It's the first NWW LP, and the first on Steven Stapleton/John Fothergill's label United Dairies.

I've always found United Dairies a great name for their record label. It's funny but also is an early reflection of their interest in Surrealism. UD was initial both Stapleton and Fothergill, but before long it was strictly Steven's label. There was a time when I'd collect anything on UD, which mostly turned out good. Mostly.

I most definitely do not have an original copy. As far back as the mid 80s a copy could have set you back well over $100, and copies on discogs.com start at $2000 currently. For a record that's been reissued many times over, and really isn't that great of an album.

So three weirdo record collectors (weirdos collecting weirdo records) were given some free studio time. Without any particular ability to play nor plan, this record is the result. My vinyl reissue copy, from 2001, includes notes from Steven about the record's origins. He found John's guitar with ring modulator to be disappointing ("...ring modulators always sounded so great on album credits."). There's more here, and clearly more intentionality than a primitive trio improvisation: other musicians were added (Nicky Rogers on "commercial guitar), tapes were edited and manipulated. Nonetheless, it's a pretty modest beginning of what would be (primarily) Steven's creative life.

This album's original inner sleeve, reproduced in this reissue, may be as well known as any of the sounds in the grooves. Steven, in his more recent notes, states that the three friends (I've failed to mention the third, Heman Pathak) were avid record collectors. What attracted their interest? 1. Long tracks; 2. lack of vocals; 3. psychedelic-inspired art. The image on the sleeve is the so-called Nurse With Wound List. Text at the top reads: "Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden - step out of the space provided." That's a bold credo, statement of intent from the start. Below that text is a long list of artists they've collected, with the name Nurse With Wound breaking through chasm-like in the enter. There are many familiar names in the list: Kraftwerk, Terry Riley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Throbbing Gristle, The Residents, Steve Lacy, even Tangerine Dream and Frank Zappa. But other names include Out of Focus, Moving Gelatine Plates, Operation Rhino, Thrice Mice, Brainticket, Ovary Lodge, and many others of whom I have no knowledge. There are people who have tried to collect all of the artists listed, and more recently there are at least two compilations (one of French artists, one of German) of people on the NWW List.

In the more recent notes, Steven writes, "I would like to dedicate this record to John and Heman, wherever you are now; it was a great time and I think we made a beautiful album." 

Listening to it now, it really feels like more than enough by the end even if you're patient with it. Particularly the second side's "Black Capsules of Embroidered Cellophane" which clocks in at 28:21.

On, but there's more. This reissue has a second disc. One side is "Strain, Crack, Break", which is a mixed/overlapped/manipulated reading of the NWW List by David Tibet. Concluding with, "All of these bands are completely shit." The reverse side has the figure from the cover image etched into the vinyl. Spiffy!

Well, it's mostly onward and upward from this one, should I continue.

VOTD 09/11/2025

 Modern Jazz Quartet: Concorde (Prestige)

Some days I seek a record or CD for the purpose of writing about it here. It's one of the reasons for the blog, right?

Other days I seek the music for my mood, or a reason. I don't just listen for writing.

I wanted something lower-key today. I don't mourn the death of Charlie Kirk. I didn't wish him harm but I consider him one of the problems, not one of the solutions. Not that I even knew much about him, being over the age of 30. 

I don't especially mourn 9/11, though I remember the day. I was living in my old house on Beechwood Blvd, sleeping in before my day at CAPA High School. My wife was already on the job. She called to say, "Just put on the TV right now." I tuned in to watch the second plane fly into the second tower. More students than not showed up that day. I didn't teach any lesson. I told the students to go online, read up on what's happening, or just sit and talk.

It's not so much that I consider the Modern Jazz Quartet to be musical comfort food, but at the same time it is. Low-key yet with concentrated intensity. My father, a big fan of MJQ, has posed the question of why they aren't better remembered or respected. I don't have an answer, any more than I do to his question why some pieces enter into standard practice as opposed to others. Maybe it's the chamber music quality that makes this less remembered than the Coltrane Quartet. 

Milt Jackson is the obvious star in the group, but that's too easy considering he's the primary melodic voice on vibes. John Lewis on piano is much more the glue. Hold things together. In this respect he reminds me of Teddy Wilson in the Benny Goodman Quartet; he's the proverbial center of the storm. Everyone else circles around him. 

I saw the Modern Jazz Quartet, I guess in this configuration (Jackson, Heath, Lewis, Kay) in 1982. It was at Heinz Hall in downtown Pittsburgh as part of the Mellon Jazz Festival. It must have been June 17, because it was Stravinsky's 100th birthday. A cake was wheeled on stage. My companion for the night, Chuck Gorman, noticed that Milt was repeatedly looking at his watch.

Opening the concert was the Wynton Marsalis Quintet. Chuck said, give these guys a year and they'll be amazing. Surely enough, I saw them almost a year to the later a Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, and they were indeed great. My favorite player by far was pianist Kenny Kirkland. There was a loss.

And to follow up on that thread of thought, the day after MJQ at Heinz Hall, I saw Ornette Coleman & Prime Time at Carnegie Music Hall, with the Chico Freeman Quartet opening. Chico played freer than I associate with most of his records. Ornette was a free jazz funk assault: him, two guitars, two basses, two drummers. Far too amplified for the space. I saw my friend Sachiko afterwards (last time I saw her) and she remarked, "I didn't expect Ornette to play disco!"

I wish I could see her now to ask her about her current opinion. Disco it definitely was not.

MJQ plays though some standards and a few originals here. Probably like most of their records. Comfort food?

VOTD 09/07/2025

VA: Z-95 8Tracs

Purchased in a local used record store, somewhere

I'm going autobiographical again, and some eastern PA niche history. 

I always had an affinity for music. Some my earliest experiences with music were TV commercial jingles. My mother told me she was impressed I would and sing the most complicated one, such as the song for Apple Jacks cereal.

It was really about age 12-13 I started paying more attention to music, which included listening to the local rock FM stations. These were the days of what was once called AOR: album-oriented rock stations. You were just as likely to hear an album cut played as a single. Nothing typified this more than Steely Dan's LP Aja; I remember hearing every song on that album played on the radio at least once. "Peg" was the big hit, but the "real" rock stations were more likely to play "Josie" or "Deacon Blues". 

I grew up more-or-less half away between Philadelphia and New York City, a little closer to the former. The closest metropolitan area was Allentown/Bethlehem. It was at the vital age of about 13 I discovered the rock station WEZV out of Allentown.

If I'm correct about my history, WEZV pulled a literal WKRP. In that sitcom, an easy listening station changes format mid-song into a rock station. I remember telling a friend my favorite station was WEZV, and commented, "That easy listening crap?" What I remember is that every time I tuned in, I heard either Queen or Blue Öyster Cult being played. Fine by my 13-year old self. Within a year, the call letters had been changed to WZZO. Z-95. Far more rockin'.

One of WZZO's primary commercial sponsors was an Allentown head shop. I don't remember the name, but I do recall their mascot was Buzzy the Bear. I found it hilarious someone turned up in an Allentown holiday parade dressed in a Buzzy costume. 

WZZO's programming was a little more interesting initially than what it would later became. They flirted with New Wave, Jim Carrol's "People Who Died" and The Nails' "88 Lines About 44 Women" in rotation. There was a short-lived show "Power Rock" which was a Punk and New Wave showcase, the first place I heard Devo's "Social Fools". 

Those things aren't an effective way to make money though, and the programming shifted to something closer to what Pittsburgh's WDVE is now. A straight-forward classic rock station, even though some of the music was then current.

So some time around 1980, the station decided it would release a compilation of local talent. According to the notes, they received eighty demo tapes, boiling down to the four groups on this LP. That must have been a real chore, plowing through those tapes. I imagine many were quickly deemed "pass". 

Who made the cut? Mountain Jam, Jimi Gear, John Fretz and the Bounce, and P.F. and the Flyers. There's no reason at all why anyone reading this would have heard of any of those groups any more than someone in the Lehigh Valley would have heard of, say, Hector in Paris. 

I owned this LP in high school. It was exciting to think that local bands were given the chance to record and release some of their music. These things were uncommon at the time! I would later sell it off in a mass record purge I've done a couple of times, only to buy it again recently for $5. Someone wrote on a sticker: "Great unknown Allentown PA bands!".

Great is a stretch.

Oh, some of it's okay. Copies of this apparently made it farther out than Lehigh and Bucks Counties. If so, did it make the scene surrounding Allentown sound provincial? Second rate, second market?

Mountain Jam was the name I remember hearing Z-95's concert calendar and gig announcements. I think there was hope that this would be the regional band that would break into something bigger. In terms of location, the Lehigh Valley isn't such a bad place to be. You can drive to NYC or Philly, gig and drive home the same night. Mountain Jam sounds like serviceable if unremarkable folk-rock. I'd invoke the Allman Brothers, but that would suggest MJ is more interesting than they are. They sound fine, and it's probably the best produced pair of songs on the album. 

Next up: Jimi Gear. He's right on the cusp of something like Loverboy but with synth lines more closely associated with New Wave. It's all multitracked, and maybe there'd be more juice if he had a real backing band. 

John Fretz and the Bounce? Straight forward pop rock. I'm probably sounding cruel, but I found it instantly forgettable on current listening. 

The group I found exciting in high school was P.F. and the Flyers. The first of their two contributions, "Black Hole Tone Dance", grabbed my teen ears. It's the only instrumental on the LP which automatically makes me more interested. Now? Not as excited but it's definitely not bad. I remember wanting to play the piece myself. I think I would have been aware of what a whole tone scale was at the time. Maybe. I didn't exactly benefit from superior music instruction in my high school days, I learned many of these things myself. Their other song, "I Do Do That", is a kind of white-boy take on reggae. It's okay, still better than the majority of the rest of the album. 

Where are they all now? Who even remembers this LP exists? How many sit in landfills? And maybe I should be more grateful. With so few of these things documented at the time (unlike now, in which you can stream a gig live on Youtube or Facebook) shouldn't I be thankful that anything from the then-scene was captured at all?

PS the title: it's an obvious play on words, eight tracks/8 track tapes. I don't miss cassettes all that much, but 8 tracks seemed especially stupid to me. When my family was buying a new car in 1978, my father asked, cassette or 8 track? I said, PLEASE, cassette.

VOTD 09/03/2025

Nocturnal Emissions: Befehlsnotstand: The Incomplete Werk of Nocturnal Emissions. (Sterile)

Purchased used at Amazing Books and Records, Squirrel Hill

I've sometimes used this forum to comment on the state of being a record hound. How, through the years, the chance to purchase used albums of interest has waxed and waned. The opportunity to buy something really unusual, and at not a completely outrageous price, seems to mostly be a thing of the past. Finding the Batman and Robin LP with Sun Ra last week was something of an exception. Not that it's a particularly valuable slice of vinyl, but rather to find it in the wild was exciting.

Even more than that particular album, any sort of 1980s industrial/experimental/noise LPs are very rare to come across, even at premium prices. I paid a what I consider to be a lot for my recent purchase of Hoisting the Black Flag, the early United Dairies compilation, because that we close to the top of my "want" list.

I definitely don't go hunting for Nocturnal Emissions LPs. I don't really know that much about them/him. The band, if you can call it that, is centered on Nigel Ayers (now there's British name). I remember their albums were generally part of that early 80s British industrial/noise scene, half a generation behind groups such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. The in-house label was Sterile Records, which also released an LP by MB and cassettes of Lustmørd and SPK.

But there's a NE album in a neighborhood used book and record store. Not cheap but not outrageous either. (I know I'm being evasive. More than ten dollars, less than fifty.)

This gives you a general sense of their direction. More often than not NE sounds a bit like Cabaret Voltaire, with early drum machine, distorted vocals, noisy instruments. Sometimes it's more of a wall of sound, but not the sheer confrontation of early power electronics groups. Can I describe this as cheeky? That's too cute. I get the sense of Nigel being young and passionate, enjoying the noise but not wanting to alienate everybody. As an album, it feels like an assortment of odds and ends; some of the tracks are taken from live performances, according to the sleeve.

For my personal collection it feels like a piece of the puzzle of that time and scene filled in, filed in between to my Bourbonese Qualk and Nurse With Wound albums. 

CDOTD 09/01/2025

 Mustafa Özkent vi Orkestrasi: Gençlik Ile Elele (Finders Keepers)

Purchased used at The Exchange in Squirrel Hill

I bought a new boombox yesterday at Best Buy. I dislike having to rely on a big box store for such things, but it seems there are few choices otherwise. 

Why a boombox? I wanted something portable I could play outside if need be, plus it's a combined CD/cassette/Blue Tooth player, which I can run through my stereo. I had been using a DVD player for CDs, but it lacked a screen to display tracking. 

Compact discs, such a rise and fall. I don't hide that I love vinyl. However I will continue to defend CDs as a format. They can hold close to eighty minutes of audio, don't degrade on multiple plays if you handle them correctly, they're light and take up very little space. Try moving 500 LPs as opposed to 500 CDs, and you'll gain an appreciation for how heavy and bulky vinyl albums really are.

Cars don't come with CD players any longer. To play discs in my car, I bought a $20 portable player, hot glued the power supply running from what used to be the cigarette lighter, and connect using an 1/8" cable. Unlike built in players in decades past, the disc doesn't pick up where it left off when you restart the car. 

I remember a time when, if you wanted to pick up a cheap copy of something used just to check it out (for example, I wanted to hear Miles Davis' Tutu), the cheap one was the vinyl over CD. That has completely reversed now. Vinyl, new or used, has reached some ridiculous prices. 

I did a small bit of research though, and maybe I'm not being entirely fair. The first LP I bought for myself was Kansas' Leftoverture. (Hey! I was thirteen!) Let's say I paid probably $6 for it new. According to an online inflation calculator, that would be $34 in current money. 

New single LPs often run about $35. I don't know, it still seems like a lot of money though.

The Exchange is a chain of new/used media and collectables in western PA and Ohio, and probably beyond. For a time the dollar bins were a wealth of real scores, such as when I found two Fela Kuti CDs for $1 apiece. I'd also say the used in general were more varied and interesting about ten years ago. I don't think I'll ever find something as multiple disc sets of Morton Feldman and Harry Partch on the shelves now. But I still look.

Which brings me to this oddity. It was sitting in my neighborhood Exchange. I suppose someone must have put it face out on the shelves, because why would I have ever noticed it otherwise? Who is Mustafa Özkent? Why is there a chimp wrapped in recording tape on the cover? It was the quotes on the outer cover that got to me, including, "The Harry Partch of Turkish Pop..." There's also notice it's part of the "Anatolian Invasion Series". Okay, now I'm interested. Being a used CD, it was at most $8 if I remember correctly.

So what is it? Let's start with the basics: all instrumental (fine by me). The instrumentation is guitar (often with wah wah), organ, bass, and drums, with possibly some additional rhythm instruments mixed in. It's vaguely kind of psychedelic; I'm reading the album originally dates to 1973. Driving bass grooves, often very prominent, with soloing on guitar or organ. The pieces are generally simple. if everything was less intense, you'd almost start to head into easy listening. I have found this a a good thing to put on for cookouts. It can play in the background, but will catch your ear sometimes.

Discogs.com indicates that a single original vinyl copy has sold there for $1700, with another currently up for $2150 (from South Korea!). Too rich for my blood, I'm happy to experience this for $8.

And wouldn't it have been a shame, that I'd never have gotten to hear this gem without the inexpensive CD version crossing my path.