The Wire's 100 Records That Set The World On Fire [When No One Was Listening] (1998)

xpost

Szwed also wrote a p gd miles bio. he's a jazzbo, but not anti-electric miles, like martin williams or (iirc) stanley crouch

thanks for bringing Chrome back to mind (in a grim way though)

heh i wonder if this was the first issue of the wire i ever bought, i wouldve been 17? had certainly never even heard of a single one of these records anyway, and it set me off on a mostly disappointing albeit horizon-expanding hunt.

remember mark s' captivating ornette bit vividly though.

actually a lot of these i've forgotten i'd ever heard of let alone own a copy of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTDucXrNrJs

fuck yeah this thing

God, I'm glad this isn't a poll...

IIRC the 4 Hero, Jeff Mills, and Oval albums were treated as seminal records in their genres even back in 1998, so I'm not sure why they're on the list... Unless The Wire seriously expected "Atlantis" and "94 Diskont" to become popular outside electronic music audiences, which would be a bit silly.

4Hero were pretty cross over if I seem to remember.

So, just how challenging is the Derek Bailey album? Even they way the WIRE describe it makes it sound like a pretty unpleasant listening experience.

If I recall correctly, even.

This was a very well-thumbed issue in my house. Right now, just about the only thing left in regular rotation would be Gris Gris.

Aida, as it goes, is a perfectly listenable Bailey record.

BTW it was fucking hard to hear Arthur Russell back then if you didn't live in some record collector hub. For years, the only thing I could get hold of was a track from 'Another Thought' on an Ocean of Sound compilation.

And yeah, that quote about On The Corner is bullshit. It was sitting in just about every Virgin Megastore etc. from '94 onwards.

xpost

Aida? It's one of bailey's most beautiful albs - very delicate playing in places - though it doesn't significantly depart from his usual lexicon of sounds/strategies. Depends on how 'challenging' you find free improv to be, i guess, but it's not difficult/abrasive in the same way as something like silent tongues by cecil taylor is, say

What an obscene-looking couch.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SolR8-brL._SS500_.jpg

I'm genuinely curious about getting getting into Bailey. I picked up a copy of Lot '74 from a boot sale a few years ago and I found listening to it most disagreeable. To the extent where I thought that I'd found a record that had beaten me completely. I just couldn't envisage how anyone could get any pleasure out of it whatsoever. I'm sure I've gone into it arse about tit though and maybe should have just bought Standards on CD instead of waiting for vinyl to come up, which is what I prefer to do.

I'm cautiously listening to a bit of 57 - 67 free jazz which my mate has burned for me and I like watching various groups like The Thing or Aufgehoben but that's it I'm afraid. I don't really know anything about free improv, or, even if free improv and free jazz are even the same thing.

maybe try some of his more 'metal' albs, rather than Standards? Mirakle, on Tzadik, is a real real good'un

lots of the European free improv players had a background in, and love for, jazz, but on the whole they saw it as something different, even antagonistic towards, the American, blues-based jazz tradition. Bailey in particular was adamant he wasn't a jazz musician, partly because, Standards and one or two other examples aside,, he never worked with pre-written material.

Thanks. By metal you don't mean heavy metal do you? But I'm just on my way to a record shop now. Will try and pick up Mirakle, how exciting!

it's pretty weird there still hasn't been a reissue of karyobin.

Could we poll these maybe? I know a small bunch of them but some kind of peer approved guide to which of the many others were worth buying would be quite handy. (Although a poll probably isn't the best way to rank them.)

I guess I do mean metal in the heavy metal sense, in that some of the electric guitar albs he made in the 90s w/ ppl like Ruins are very dense, 'heavy' albs, tho' obv you wldn't confuse em w/ a slayer rec. Mirakle pairs him w/ the rhythm section from Ornette Coleman's Prime Time band, so these guys are laying down quite a funky background over which bailey blats and skronks. round about the same time he also made a disc w/ tony williams and bill laswell (Arcana - The Last Wave) that's even more power-trio-y, but i think that's p hard to find these days.

x-post

there was a cd reissue of karyobin in the 90s

yeah i know but that's going for £80 on ebay...

xp - thanks, that sounds great.

I like watching various groups like The Thing or Aufgehoben

Might be worth giving someone like Last Exit a go, who were a pretty explosive free jazz group from the 80s with quite a driving, rock feel to them. Band was made up of Sonny Sharrock, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Bill Laswell and Peter Brotzmann, so there was a nice mix of different approaches involved.

Awesome. I have an album called Killing Time by Massacre ft Laswell, Frith and Maher, but I guess that is very much metal.

Or try classic Brötzmann like Machine Gun or Nipples... avoids the fusion aspect altogether while hitting the mainline of juggernaut sax layers and dense, electric... Damn, I sound like David Keenan - better stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_kVSsv_muU

^ Last Exit got pretty metal too sometimes

Bailey's Ballads was the way in for me. Probably picked up on it from here actually. I recall Marcello being a fan. Some really beautiful, delicate playing, shards of melody or jazzy chords which are then reconfigured in all kinds of way. He "deconstructs" them, but not in some kind of juvenile noise chaos manner. Not that there's anything wrong with juvenile noise chaos.
The Ruins stuff is kinda cool, but maybe their progginess reins him in a bit.
Last Exit is cool, but for me the best thing Laswell did with Sharrock is Ask The Ages. Definitely a jazz album, with the interaction between Sharrock and his incredible band (featuring Elvin Jones and Pharoah Sanders) being at the heart of it. Then Laswell gets Sharrock to overdub one or two extra guitar parts, so you've got an interesting tension between live, semi-improvised playing and studio trickery. But that's by the by, the main thing is the music, which is gorgeous. Many Mansions has one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time, and Elvin Jones slays on that track.

Have you got the Jazz Satellite comps Kevin Martin put together? You should be able to dl them. Loads of electronic or studio-fucked jazz stuff on here, from classic 70s stuff to industrial skronk. It avoids fusion by and large - even the tracks by Mahavishnu et al are more abstract and electronic. I found those a great way in to a lot of kick ass high-energy jazz influenced music.

Jazz Satellites is awesome. I didn't realize there was more than one volume though?

Oh I see it was never released.

http://kozmigroov.blogspot.com/2008/08/jazz-satellites-ii-original-version.html

Beat me to it!

And a good blog on the first vol:

http://surrealdocuments.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/various-artists-jazz-satellites-vol-1.html

Larry Young's Laurence of Newark, as posted above, is indeed the bomb, but there's also the album he did with Love Cry Want which is completely, gloriously nuts. Features one Nicholas on "Prototype Guitar Synthesizer, Ring Modulator, Wind, Rain, Thunder, Lightning, Water, High-Tension Wires, and Wailing Dervish". The synth guitar sounds insane.
Got a ltd reissue a year or so back. More here: http://prognotfrog.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/love-cry-want-love-cry-wantusa1972psych.html

I'm going to have to dedicate some time to pursuing and listening to music recommendations from this thread, thanks. I've got K-Mart's Macro Dub comps but not these.

cosign on Lawrence of Newark, which is genuinely slept. That Monoton album is also really cool. Have never quite been able to get into World of Echo, sadly.

er, slept *on*

While listening to the Camaron/Paco record the other day I was thinking again about owning every record. This is my favourite list of records.

IIRC the 4 Hero, Jeff Mills, and Oval albums were treated as seminal records in their genres even back in 1998, so I'm not sure why they're on the list... Unless The Wire seriously expected "Atlantis" and "94 Diskont" to become popular outside electronic music audiences, which would be a bit silly.

― Tuomas, Friday, 8 June 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They should *expect* it to be come known outside their milieu. About having aspirations beyond the music being confined to a room of genre enthusiasts. This is why its such a good list, and any thread on this would bring a variety of people with different erm, core listenings.

On another note I don't think I like Bailey's Ballads that much, or that the acclaim for them was a bit weird -- almost as if what he was doing was not enough. A lot of 'hey he can play a tune', which he always could - there are little melodies on almost every record, only that they are an unstable element, like everything in most of his music.

The list needs a sequel.

I just want to say that from the records I've heard (67/100) this list is one of the best I've seen and it seriously needs a sequel.

lol at all the "On The Corner was a number one summertime jam"-ism on this thread. "Who doesn't know 30 Seconds Over Tokyo by obscure-assed college rock band Pere Ubu, that's what I wanna know!" Lord almighty.

that's kind of what i was meant when i said "lord, the days before the internet" . something something barriers to entry something something

Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes is so insanely unlike anything his contemporaries were doing. Just came out on CD for the first time last year (after being out of print for 30+ years); can't recommend it highly enough.

xxp: Quite. But still, don't mock the advanced listening aesthete, they just have different erm, core listenings to you.

Wasn't mocking. I'm basic.

to follow up on an earlier strand of thought...

i was reading a memoir this afternoon in which the author walked into a restaurant where on the corner was playing. it's not a music-related book, but the guy's a music geek and gets excited when he sees that world come into connection with his own.

xp: Fair play. I own a fair few of these records but none of the jazz/improv ones. It's a foreign country to me.

Who is the memoir of?

the memoir is beaten, seared, and sauced: on becoming a chef at the culinary institute of america by jonathan dixon. turns out all the chefs at the cia are into jazz, hardcore punk, and the grateful dead -- they'd dig the wire list, i think.

I think Anthony Bourdain probably likes Alice In Chains though.

Thought it was very badly researched that the original article came with a photo of the wrong Bad Brains since the Hudson bros one lasted so long and the Cro-mags drummer one didn't.

But I remember reading that article quite a bit. Still got it somewhere.

Nice job on that Spotify playlist - they have a lot more of these than I would have expected. Remembering the days when one would be psyched to come across one of these rarities in a record store...

voted for anything but Charles Ives cos i'm an idiot

here's a little sampler i threw together (no sequencing, no re-tagging, just music for any order you like):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bgizq2 (part 1)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nietlx (part 2)

ps: oh god, the last exit stuff is SO GOOD.

i come back to this list every now and then when i thurst for something new to listen to but don't know where to turn. one of the greatest records this list turned me onto would be the iggy pop/james williamson record. what a gem.

p.s. thanks for all the samplers!

Jazz *Night* In America---not always (but sometimes) a lot of Might on this well-meaning, wide-ranging NPR series (which has a number of downloadable shows on site).

"I looked up the list (surprised nobody just straight-up posted it in the thread) and I own or have heard about a quarter of it. There are a few other things that intrigue me, but not that many; I'm never gonna go on some quest to Hear It All."

I did? And it was posted by JBR back then but the link has died.

Its not a quest lol its just 100 records and most of the albs are ~40 mins -- some of which are in lots of genres I like bits of but never gone in deep. Really looking forward to the Al Green tonight.

The odd recording is single length. Satisfaction, Nesting Stones..

A few things on there taht I hadn't realised were.
Fingers inc Another Side which I'd like since having the vinyl and finally got a legit release about 4 years ago. I think th edouble vinyl may not have even been fully legit.
Family Fodder and the Fire engines are both bnds i really like and have loved isnce p[icking up things fro reviewws i early 80s NMEs a few years later.

Pierre Akendengué - Nandipo
Louis & Bebe Barron - Forbidden Planet OST
Joey Beltram - Places
Chrome - Half Machine Lip Moves
Fire Engines - Get Up and Use Me
Electric Eels - Agitated / Cyclotron
Fingers, Inc. - Another Side
Silver Apples - Contact
Mark Stewart & The Maffia - Learning to Cope with Cowardice
Steven Jesse Bernstein - Prison*

Nandipo is really good, quite a range of arrangments. The Forbidden Planet soundtrack is a really inspired choice, such an insane compilation of noises. Same for Silver Apples but I am not sure I liked the singing. Places is ok...Beltram has one idea and it was already wearing it self out by the end? Fingers Inc. is probably the album I spent most time with, its just such a gorgeous assembly of a cyborg that feels and sings!

Fire Engines, Chrome nd Electric Eels are all versions of something kinda raw that is fine and I'd rather see it live if anything.

Mark Stewart might be like a John Lydon record if he took his personality out of it.

* only a track or two on youtube...not enough to make a call.

Never heard any Chrome live recordings but I can't imagine it being the same thing without all the microphone and tape fuckery.

yeah they were studio-only until 1981, iirc that's one of the issues that broke up the "classic" lineup

This issue was early in my Wire-reading days and I was completely bought into the idea that there was this parallel universe of records that were only described in terms of other records I'd never heard. I dutifully wrote down half the list in a notebook and would annoy/baffle salespeople in record shops with "do you have DBL Live by Fushitsusha? Or anything by Blue Cheer?". A few of the records I did find changed my life: Sextant, Paris 1919, In Greenwich Village...

Was listening to Joe Meek last night and it's so so good, a one-time kind of madcap record.

Yeah it's an interesting list from a time of erm scarcity compared to today (obv there's always a ton of good available stuff to listen to anyway) and in fact even then...when I picked this issue up years later in a used magazine rack I was downloading all sorts on soulseek so I while I was aware that things sank until a reissue that most of the world was really available. Of course there was also more to navigate.

Otm @ that indie ideal of 'in a parallel world this would be no 1' behind it.

Very weird to work through this range of music again. It's easy enough but I feel old too.

This is good stuff, keep it up!

William S. Burroughs - Call Me Burroughs
Tony Conrad - Four Violins
Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different
The Bill Dixon Orchestra - Intents and Purposes
Esquivel and His Orchestra - Other Worlds Other Sounds
Fadela - N'sel Fik
Family Fodder - Monkey Banana Kitchen
4hero - Parallel Universe
Robert Fripp - Exposure
Stan Kenton Plays Bob Graettinger - City of Glass

I love Burroughs' voice: its just so like his writing, a really nasty drawl. To have both Tony Conrad and Lou Reed's MMM is over-egging it a bit? The former probably needed much more of a write-up back then, both have that 'smooth' go-to-sleep-to quality that a lot of these kind of records have. Hadn't heard the Bill Dixon before (although I've seen him live with Cecil Taylor) and I wonder why he slipped though because this is a terrific album (don't know how much he was written about really). Family Fodder is the post-punk album of the batch that was fine but I'll never listen to again. Betty Davis is a particular sound I like but don't get a lot out of repeats (not that I'm repeat listening a ton of these anyway). Exposure is fucking hilarious, Fripp trying to make a young person's record but he was always old, and that's ok. The singing is often better than a Crimson record, and the lyrics have to be (doesn't take a lot). Esquivel is that flirting with esoterica (?!) I need to do a bit more digging, it sorta flew by me really.

I couldn't tell whether N'sel Fik was a single or the album so I stuck with it as a single for now but its that particular addictive sound that masks a lot of stuff that again, needs digging into (Rai is lovely but what's next, what are they singing about etc.)

The two records that really got to me were the 4Hero, which I did know about but never got to hear. So much skill to the arrangements around the monstrous jungle beat that is massaged in all sorts of ways, you could spend several lives with those textures. The Stan Kenton/Robert Graettinger is like a side of modernism that I hadn't quite come across. I found it an incredibly abrasive record, ugly but not boring at all but I don't quite know why. Hardly used to the tone of it. The ILX thread (Kitsch in jazz (also Stan Kenton S/D)) is kinda funny.

late Bill Dixon is so so brilliant, Tapestries for Small Orchestra is one of my faves, amongst quite a few others.

I'm very jealous that you got to see Dixon with Taylor. The albums they made together (one with Tony Oxley and a more recently released collection of duets) are both amazing, because Dixon pulls Taylor closer to his soundworld - sparse, exploratory - than the other way around. And I love Dixon's whole catalog - the albums he made in the 80s and 90s on Black Saint/Soul Note have been gathered up into a 9CD box that's fantastic.

he didn't seem to lose his desire to make radical great music to the death, just zero complacency.

Will dig me some Bill Dixon later this year, thanks to both of ya.

Listening to the Kenton album on Spotify now - it's pretty fascinating stuff.

Comus - First Utterance
Michael Gibbs - Michael Gibbs
Al Green - The Belle Album
Kip Hanrahan - Desire Develops an Edge
Ram John Holder - Black London Blues
Son House - Father of Folk Blues
Ken Ishii - Garden of the Palm
Gottfried Michael Koenig - Terminus II / Funktion Grün
Monoton - Monotonprodukt 07

So got round to Comus and I gotta say folk jams I can take or leave (although not as impressive as the weird turns around a song that Incredible String Band can take, if we are gonna keep comparing) but the vocals on this are really not that good.

Koenig/Monoton/Ishii are all bobbins from different times and places - very much here for it. You could listen to those three and take stock, breathe in some history and culture and be impressed and all.

Michael Gibbs is an interesting sorta free jazz not quite record. Heard that about a week ago and would need another listen. I'm guessing there are improv people on the line-up and maybe that's why this made it onto the list?

Ram John Holder is hilarious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_John_Holder) - its the fella from the Desmonds (have a just about memory of that show). Its a solid band to me, one track had some cool pedal effects. And its a very London album (if you check out the titles), so it has that charm.

Best of the batch was the Al Green, Kip Hanrahan and Son House. With Al I was sorta surprised at...what felt like restraint in the vocals and how much space there is for the instrumentals, and everything just seems so perfect and accomplished and bang on the money about it. The Kip has all sorts of bossa and light jazz arrangements, he seeme to have been an interesting arranger type figure who got all sorts of people involved in his records. Son House is...Son House...yeah. Even when he is much older and 're-discovered'. Showing who is the daddy.

Belle Album is just one of my all time favourite albums. That "restraint" is part of what I love about Al Green - voice of an angel but he has this inward-looking, meditative or reminiscing quality in his singing that he uses a lot - he's entirely capable of going full belt but he rarely does, and it creates this intimacy with the listener more than almost any other singer that I listen to.

Glad you liked Pierre Akendengue too, another favourite of mine and not much discussed as far as I know

Yeah, I've got two more lots of records to listen to from this list but then I think I will look at a few discographies. Akendengue and Al Green are on that list.

Just racing some through some albums yesterday and now...just gotta the powerful sound in Gön Bia Bia. Might be my favourite find.

Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark
X-103 - Atlantis *
Walker Brothers - Nite Flights
Luke - I Wanna Rock
Bally Sagoo Wham Bam 2 – The 2nd Massacre
Public Enemy Apocalypse 91... - The Enemy Strikes Black
Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City
Pearls Before Swine - Balaklava
Annette Peacock - I'm the One
Ron Pate's Debonaires feat. Reverend Fred Lane - Raudeluna's Pataphysical Revue *
Le Nimba de N'Zerekore - Gön Bia Bia
Youssou N’Dour - Djamil
Master Musicians of Jajouka - Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka

Tim Souster - Swit Drimz**
Nancy Sesay & The Melodaires - C'est fab**
Jean C. Roche - A Nocturne of Nightingales**
Christian Marclay - Record Without a Cover***
Glenn Gould - The Solitude Trilogy****

The Larry Young is the 2nd free jazz find, really good stuff. I think Atlantis is fine but its struck me just how little bobbins has developed over the decades and yet has managed to retain some sort of appeal that is bigger than say, free jazz or improv (I think with those two its os much depedent on what you bring to the room and there is an alchemy, and maybe its like that with the dancefloor too...the correspondances would be good to verify and explore someday).

I wanna Rock vs Public Enemy is a bit of a half-arsed take on rap. One is Public Enemy and the other is notoriety and from that I'm guessing The Wire didn't know where to go with it. The Iggy Pop was kinda fun and must've been liberating post-Stooges, perhaps? I don't whether he was plotting new directions, which is what Scott Walker was definitely doing.

The Annette Peacock is the one from the batch that really should've caught fire if its from the POV of a really well made record/ton of talent on show/'new' voice etc. The electronics are beautiful.

Other than that I love the records from Africa and Le Nimba de N'Zerekore is an incredible band! That is just the record I would've never ever heard of if it wasn't for this list. Same for Ron Pate which is interesting for how its deploying free jazz type sonics, kinda dadaesque and ok.

* Not all tracks available on YT
** Not found at all on YT
*** it is an idea, read and get it
**** this is like a podcast, think its on YT but its 3xCDs, might fuck about with it one day but that's it.

Cabn you still play the Record without a Cover? I thought people were supposed to have been walking on them for the duration of an art exhibition.

Saw marclay in the late 80s at the ULU.
was intrigued by the records he was supposed to have jigsawed and pieced together . Not sure if i have exactly the full picture of the pricess, would have thought there might be some problem with lining up grooves. BUt he was supposed to have made tehse art pieces out of existing records in taht way

Jajouka has some really good stuff on it, i love Your Eyes Are Like A Cup Of Tea would think the core riff might be something somebody would nick and do something more rock with. But noisy repetitive trancey drone is really great,. I heard taht Jones was supposed to have processed things electronically quit e abit. Don't really have soemthing to compare that to though.

& do love Lawrence fo Newark which is pretty awesome and came out on cd about 10 years ago. May be long gone by now. Which isn't great. Would think something like that might stay in print. Have enjoyed most of the Larry Young I've heard from Unity in 65, through LIfetime and up to Fuel in the mid 70s. He;s also on Love, Devotion, Surrender and the support tour which are all pretty great.

Oh forgot Anette Peacock, I'm the one is pretty great.Odd Elvis covers and all. Wish they'd reissue the late 70s stuff though

& Comus really is a thing in itself which might just be undermined by the existence of taht 2nd lp. The First disco of teh Sanctuary anthology is really great and pretty other. 2nd is teh 1974 prog lp and far less essential.
First Utterance hints at madness and obsession and fun things like that though. Maybe possession.

Yes hard to track down Lawrence Of Newark unless you want to pay through the nose. I have one track from it on a Wire compilation. Love, Devotion Surrender is good too.

>Ron Pate's Debonaires feat. Reverend Fred Lane - Raudeluna's Pataphysical Revue *

this did make it to CD! a lot weirder than the Shimmy Disc Fred Lane discs, in a way that sort of safely frames it as performance art but man when they break to that extended performance of Anne LeBaron's 'Concerto For Active Frogs' that really gets me pumping my fists in the air

Got a near mint copy of Lawrence of Newark for a tenner off Discogs last year

There’s a mint copy of it for $16.99/£12.90 on discogs now

wow, was thinking 10 years ago might be a bit less than when the Lawence of Newark cd came out. it's actually close to twice that, Castle put out a number of Perception label reissues in 2001.
Still would think thatmight be something people might want to keepo in print but maybe I'm confusing quality with what sells.

this did make it to CD! a lot weirder than the Shimmy Disc Fred Lane discs, in a way that sort of safely frames it as performance art but man when they break to that extended performance of Anne LeBaron's 'Concerto For Active Frogs' that really gets me pumping my fists in the air

― Milton Parker, Saturday, 15 August 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Ah I think I've heard the wrong record because I mistakenly heard one of the Fred Lane records: https://www.discogs.com/Fred-Lane-Ron-Pates-Debonairs-From-The-One-That-Cut-You/release/2937571

And not this: https://www.discogs.com/Ron-Pates-Debonairs-Raudelunas-Pataphysical-Revue/release/1357335

I will listen later.

Cabn you still play the Record without a Cover? I thought people were supposed to have been walking on them for the duration of an art exhibition.

YT has an excerpt. I assume is just crackly sounds. Might look at that one later as well.

i have a copy somewhere, relatively unwalked on

on YT all records are unwalked on.

(Bally Sagoo was a lot of fun though I think some of the groves are overcooked. Pearls Before Swine was really meh and the Cohen cover wasn't doing anything)

Dug out some old Bally Sagoo CDs in response to this thread: Wham Bam 2 is pretty good but I like Essential Ragga (which the one just before WB2) whole lot more.

Odd that that Public Enemy is on that list, it's hardly obscure and I think was the last time when PE were part of the Zeitgeist.

Odd that that Public Enemy is on that list, it's hardly obscure and I think was the last time when PE were part of the Zeitgeist.

― Boring, Maryland

public enemy were for a very, very long time the rap group White People championed to prove that they were Not Racist

i checked out some of the lesser acclaimed ones, records that the people writing the list probably didn't really listen to much but just wanted to champion to prove that their avant-gardism was not a culturally imperialist project. i enjoyed bally sagoo ok, don't knowk how it's dated but i'm sure there are worse records in the genre. if anybody ever talked at all about bally sagoo in the states i don't know who they are. i liked the chaba fadela too. the rai i know is mostly from, uh, i think a numero comp and the cheikha rimitti album which is really clearly and obviously an attempt to cross over to hipster western audiences but is also very fucking good

re: pearls before swine, balaclava never struck me much but i got a friend who's really into tom rapp. rapp was also big in the terrastock scene, bardo pond, and the free folk and all that, i get the sense that he's up there with the incredible string band in those circles

rapp could write some beautiful songs. "raindrops" is a great one. some of the stuff on "wizard of is" hits me pretty good too, but it's mostly rough and wild recordings - that's my scene. "love, you are not alone", you know, fucking amazing song.

I've subscribed to the wire for a long time and there has been a very visible changeover fro the old guard (yer Penmans, Reynoldses, Watsons with a focus on white 60s derived avant garde) to a less white and male stable of writers and focus of coverage. All to the good of course.