A harum-scarum bloodbath of sixties rock, seventies motorik-fusion, and eighties punk.

‘The landscape Orcutt Shelley Miller inhabits lies deep in the stoner American bedrock, fed by volcanic riffage and hypnotic phrasing with rhythmic nods to the SoCal ’60s and atonal slash piled on a mid ’80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, ultimately blasting a ‘big rock statement’ that treads the line between good times and blown minds.’

Terry Ork was an absconder from Warhol’s Factory. Starting in 1975, his label issued the debut 45s of Television and Richard Hell, as well as landmark recordings by The Feelies and Lester Bangs, not to mention Big Star’s Alex Chilton and the dBs’ Chris Stamey, and such acts as Marbles, Prix, Mick Farren, Cheetah Chrome, the Idols, the Erasers, the Revelons, Student Teachers etc etc.
The deluxe 190-page hardback book is stuffed with terrific photos. The exquisitely sleeved bonus 45 features two previously unreleased tracks by The Feelies — The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness from 1978, and a cover of Bacharach and David’s My Little Red Book, recorded live at CBGB, late 1976.

‘A Squeeze-meets-XTC vibed track that will appeal to fans of the Rangers, as it sounds like a half-remembered lost classic from an ‘80s infomercial beamed onto a thrift-store VHS.’

The basis of these works is a set of scintillating, widescreen improvisations by the Brussels-based pianist Pak Yan Lau (prepared piano, toy pianos, synth, objects and electronics) and Darin Gray (bass, preparations, objects and electronics), who has played alongside Jim O’Rourke for twenty years.
Over time Pak Yan added, layered, twisted, subtracted… including a recording of the underground tram in Albert, Brussels, for example. “I frequent this station all the time,” she says, ‘because my daughter goes to kindergarten there. One day there was an electricity problem, the whole station was humming, beautiful overtones coming out.”
“I liked the contrast between trudge (meaning you kind of move forward with difficulty and obstacles on your feet) and lightly (even in that situation doing it gracefully and lightly). The music on this record has that light/dark–ness.”
‘Mesmerising, fresh, inventive and intense,’ writes Stef Gijssels for The Free Jazz Collective.

‘Palestre is a study of higher-dimensional spaces and altered states of consciousness. It explores parallel dimensions and temporal anomalies from a perspective that blends mythology, modern physics, ADHD, transcendental music and club culture.
‘Sciogli Assurdi was recorded between art galleries, clubs, squats, and folkloric festivities in 2018.’

This is a great way into Partch, revisiting with gusto three well-known, relatively-compact works — a highly rhythmic dance piece, a cross-cutting film score, and Barstow, with HP intoning hitchhiker graffiti.

‘A diary of eight months spent in transient shelters and camps, hobo jungles, basement rooms, and on the open road’. A collage of readings and musical fragments, this long-lost journal of HP’s wanderings during the Great Depression (from cleaning sewers to tea with W. B. Yeats) is ‘an extraordinary musical portrait of an American pioneer, chronicling his occasionally hilarious and often heartbreaking struggles to forge a new music system outside the classical tradition.’

Thirty-four verses of expanded duets, the prototype of Delusion Of The Fury, thrashed out with the Gate 5 Ensemble over a three year period starting late in 1962, in a too-small space within an abandoned chick hatchery in Petaluma, California.
Plus a section of a rehearsal session, with HP himself giving direction, ending with a fine performance by Danlee Mitchell and Michael Ranta.
And finally a previously unreleased recording of Partch playing Adapted Viola, in one of the Verse 17 duets excised from the final opus.

Keyboardist with Heldon, Magma and co, joined on his debut LP by the likes of Richard Pinhas and Christian Vander — no less — together with Bernard Paganotti, François Auger, Didier Batard… An outstanding mixture of synthy electronics and jazz-rock. First vinyl issue.