Catherine Ringer - "Ring n' Roll" Vinyl, 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, 2011 (Because Music)

These days when I think of the word France I immediately think of Catherine Ringer.   She and her late partner in crime, Fred Chichin were in Les Rita Mitsouko, not only the greatest band in France, but I think one of the great groups of the 1980s.  Chichin a great multi-instrumentalist and co-writer along with Ringer was a force of nature that couldn't fail to charm.  When I heard their album in Los Angeles at my friend's studio, I was seduced by the first song on side one.   Since the tragic passing of Chichin, I worried about what will happen to Catherine Ringer.   Worries are worries, but "Ring n' Roll" (released in 2011) is as great as any Les Rita Mitsouko album. 

Ringer has that 'it' quality that is difficult to define.  A great beauty, but the additional charm of her personality and force is breathtaking at times.   Beside Grace Jones, there is not another chic artist like Catherine.  She can walk into the room and transform it into another dimension.  So when she gets hold of a song, it's a wow moment.  On the most elementary level, I think of her as a French female Iggy Pop.   Another artist who has that 'it' quality that is hard to dispute or understand.  For one, Ringer knows how to rock.   As a singer, she can sing the most heartbreaking melody, but then in a flip of a coin, she can be hysterical.  Truly a star at its most glamorous and profound stature.  "Ring n' Roll" is 12 songs long and not a bump in the road for the entire album.  She works with RZA, Mark  Plati (one of David Bowie's great musicians), who I presume is her son, Rauol Chichin (on guitar), and a Japanese artist by the name of Coba.  Which funny enough the song, "Rendez-Vous" sounds like a Shibuya pop song from the 90s, but with Ringer bringing the music to a more textural level.  

Life cannot be a bowl of cherries for our Catherine, but when I listen to this album, I'm smiling from Side A to Side C (three-sided album).    The production (by Ringer, as well as RZA and Plati) is always a surprise, in that it follows the logic of one's imagination.   It has the Iggy "Lust for Life" zeal, but I feel Ringer takes it to the next level - a genius level.  One of the great artists of the 20th and 21st century.  

Liquid Liquid - "Successive Reflexes" 12" 45 rpm, Vinyl, EP, Reissue, 2015/1981 (Superior Viaduct)

Liquid Liquid is a remarkable band from New York City, and they made noise in 1981.  "Successive Reflexes" is an EP of five tracks.  They're really not songs, but more of a groove with tons of percussion instruments. There's a tiny essence of a piano, but mostly it's bass and drums.  In a sense, they remind me of ESG, another band from the New York area of that same time/era.  Clearly, LCD Soundsystem is very much influenced by Liquid Liquid, which is a hybrid of post-punk, dance music and disco - yet, more geared in the dub era of Public Image Ltd.   They also remind me a bit of the Factory Records band A Certain Ratio.   

They made live recordings, but I prefer this EP of studio work, due to the experimentation of the sounds they are making.  There is something clinical but raw sounding about their approach, but it is clearly music to make you hop, twist, and shake your body parts.   

Alex Chilton - "Like Flies on Sherbert" Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 2010/1979 (Vinyl Lovers)

There is music that brings sunshine to one's life, and then there is something like Alex Chilton's "Like Flies On Sherbert" that expresses an inner terror.    The world, in a sense, is a very organized series of relationships, that when one gets up in the morning, it is a high percentage that you will make out OK to get to bed that evening.  "Like Flies On Sherbert" conveys a life that is not in that motion.  One wakes up and faces a series of disasters, and how one dodges the bullet by the end of the way, depends on how you win out in the end if you are not damaged that badly.   This recorded mess of an album is a masterpiece. 

Big Star's third album, was a record expressing Alex Chilton heading in a direction in life that there were no guarantees that things will end up OK.   "Like Flies On Sherbert" is more of a mental state than a piece of music.   Its Southerness is of the gothic variety, and Chilton is one of the great figures of the South, in my opinion, in the same territory as William Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor.  The fact that the album cover is an image by the great photographer William Eggleston, gives this album a special nod to a culture that is both beautiful and rotting at the same time.   The music here, as played, is like the best food on the planet, but rotting in the back of a fridge, that is not always plugged in. 

Like Big Stars' "Third Album" this is a recording that has a few different editions and song selections.  The one I 'm commenting on is the album that was released by Vinyl Lovers in 2010 and includes four extra songs or bonus cuts.  Nevertheless, it fits into this aural madness.   Chilton's first official solo album is not a country or garage rock album, but hardcore Rockabilly.  Not nostalgic rock n' roll, but Rockabilly as a modern piece of music.  It has strains of The Legendary Stardust Cowboy or Hasil Adkins, then say Elvis Presley at Sun Records.   This is not about the music performed as tightness, but blown-up in a careless manner.   It's the audio equivalent of Gustav Metzger's work as a visual artist.  Alcohol never sounded so dangerous and crazed than "Like Flies On Sherbert."

The album is half originals and half covers.  The covers are mostly obscure rockabilly songs or deep country music.  The one surprise here is a cover of KC & The Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes." The original pieces of music on this album are minimal but carry much emotional weight.  The sexuality is wreckless such as "Girl After Girl," "My Rival," and "Hey! Little Child."   Being in the gutter and looking up at the stars, or even death can be a positive light.  One of the great albums of all time. 

Lou Reed - "Street Hassle" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1978 (Arista)

My favorite solo Lou Reed album is "Street Hassle."   It's the one album for me where Lou portrays the 'public' Lou Reed that we know and sort of love.   I may be wrong, but I feel that this is the last solo record where Reed is portraying a character.  His albums afterward, are basically Reed looking at the world as a first-person narrative.  Almost like a journalist covering his landscape in a John Cheever mode, or at the location of the gates of hell.   For instance, when he wrote and record "Berlin" he never at that time been to that city.  So, in a sense, the solo Lou is very much of a world that he made up, and put himself in as a character. 

The Velvet Underground years are spotless.  Full-on Lou genius work.  The solo career is a hit and miss, but when he's great, he's really fantastic.  "Street Hassle" is interesting to me because he's playing with the sound of the studio or the live recording.  This is such a murky sounding record that if it is a 3D object it would be mud or a heavy dish of food.   Aurally I think of Lou digging from the bottom to the top to get air, and there is something very closed off like one is locked in the basement, and one is really trying to break a hole to get light/air.  

The songs themselves are fantastic.  "Real Good Time Together," I think is an old Velvet's era song, and if memory is serving me correctly (always doubtful) it was on a live Velvet's album.  Nevertheless here it's a minimal piece of music, that builds to a tension, that eventually breaks loose.  A lot of the songs are arranged in that fashion.  The album's set piece is "Street Hassle," which is in three parts, yet still very contained narrative and the music arrangement is very tight.  The strings arranged by Aram Schefrin is minimal minded, that has a touch of Philip Glass/Steve Reich intensity. There is also a Bruce Springsteen uncredited cameo as well. 

The other song that sticks out is "Dirt."  Very direct, angry, catchy and wonderful.   This is very much bad-ass Lou Reed in his prime.  It's interesting to note that Reed's partner-in-crime, both Iggy Pop and Bowie also released ("Low" and "Idiot") compressed sounding records around this time (1977/1978).  There is an aesthetic link between these three albums.   Not sure if they were aware, or it was something in the air at that time.  Still, "Street Hassle,' the album,  is a remarkable piece of work.  

Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza - "Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza" Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 2016/1966 (Schema)

Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Conssonanza is a group of Italian composers who got together to make improvised 'noise' music.  The most famous member of the band (orchestra) is Ennio Morricone, who plays Trumpet within this experimental group.  The others are composers, who border on the classical or are writing film track music.   Here, they can go wild, and wild do they go.

This is music that is not open-ended but contained in an aesthetic history that is a combination of Fluxus and music by John Cage.  Perhaps even traces of The Art of Noise (the other Italian Futurist sound movement) not the British 'pop' group.  Using conventional instruments, they make new sounds by altering the instruments or through electronic means.  What sounds like chaos is really master musicians working in a format that takes chances at a high point, yet never fall off the cliff.  At times ambient but more likely in one's face, this is essentially 20th-century music that changes the shape of the air around them.  I think of their music more sculptural than anything else.  

The album was released in 1966, and this is a reissue, that is in a limited edition of 500.  Pick it up before it goes bye-bye.  The other composers/musicians involved besides Morricone are Jerry Rosen, Frederic Rzewski, Franco Evangelisti, Roland Kayn, Mario Bertoncini, Ivan Vandor, and John Heineman.   The sound of 1966 that is the new sound

Michel Polnareff - "Michel Poinareff" Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 2008/1966 (Universal)

The Lou Christie of French rock is Michel Poinareff.  Well, mostly due to his vocal style, which can go as high as the stars, if he chooses that route.  Ponareff's first album is classic French pop.  Still, I suspect that he wanted to go beyond his country's borders.  Side one I presume was recorded in England, due that he worked with lyricist Keith Reid, who either at the same time or a tad later, became the words-man for Procol Harum.  He also used Charles Blackwell as an arranger, who worked with Burt Bacharach on the soundtrack "What's New Pussycat" as well as working with my favorite eccentric producer Joe Meek.  So, with those two, our M. Poinareff was in excellent hands. 

This is a very strong debut of a songwriting talent, who is still with us, and for me, a mysterious figure.   In fact, I suspect he's a mystery to a lot of people.  Like the tide in an ocean, he comes and goes as he pleases.  Still, from 1966 to the end of the 1970s, he was an iconic presence in France.  Visually stunning, but with an incredible knack for writing memorable melodies.   There's not a bad cut on this album, and I would recommend it as an introduction into the world of Poinareff.  The garage rock sound of "La Poupée Qui Fait Non," "Time Will Tell"  (lyrics by Reid) and his fifties orientated (and could be a Morrissey favorite) "Love Me, Please Love Me" are essential cuts. 

Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier - "Les Chemins de Katmandou" Vinyl, LP, Album, OST, 1969/2017 (Finders Keepers)

It has been described as the lost soundtrack, due to the belief that the master tapes were burned in a fire, but alas, not the case. Just misplaced.   Finders Keepers, the great reissue label, have just put out this great gem of the Serge Gainsbourg world.  I suspect that the album is more Jean-Claude Vannier than Gainsbourg, but nevertheless, it has the traces of Serge's greatness and sleaziness as well since this is a soundtrack to a grade-Z film about French youth in Katmandou, and all the fun that goes with that journey.  

The album is very much in the same mode as the Gainsbourg/Vannier soundtracks of this period.  Funky workouts with traces of exotic percussion and of course, the sitar here and there.  The listener can hear the sounds that made up "Melody Nelson" as well as Vannier's great solo work "L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches." The beauty of the album is very much under the arrangement skills of Vannier, who is superb.  One is never sure what is going to be around the corner with respect to his arrangements.   He and Gainsbourg were a fantastic team, and this lost (but now found) soundtrack is essential to both fans of Serge's soundtrack work as well as with those who love Vannier's experimentation and sense of aural adventure.   Vannier to me is the French Jack Nitzsche.  Both were in tuned to their subject matter, whatever it was a film soundtrack, or arranging the instrumentation behind a singer - it's a classic mode of music-making, and one that I personally miss in contemporary music in 2017.