Negativland Thigmotactic/Smith & Shields/Individuals pitches

2008 (I ended up covering Patti Smith/Kevin Shields’ The Coral Sea 

In the Voice, better version here :https://myvil.blogspot.com/2016/06/southern-crossing.html )

I could actually see putting Coral Sea with Negativland's Thigmotactic

(July 15). Smith and Shields see raise, and deliberately drop RIP

Artist-collector Mapplethorpe's visionary vessels of beauty into

the teeming dreaming tides of possibility, where he cracks into

freebird M, while Negativland are fascinated by ugly crazy dorky

commercial shit. 

In both cases, it's all about messing with mythologies, fallacies,

as weight and fuel.

This album  features Mark Hosler up front "singing", with the others

playing, and it confines most of the samples to Hosler's mosh of found

and new lyrics He doesn't let on which is which, what comes from his

own POV, though of course it's all his now, and none of it is; he's

free to mess around and pass on through other lives, kinda. But

there's no great air of self-congratulation, just of being at home in

what is not that far from a novelty-song country groove. Some of it is

terrible, some is awesome, but his attitude is more snotty than

snobby, more expressive of the basic, forever young pleasure of going

"nyahh nyahh, " yet not complacent, underneath easy shots. There's a

sense of restless reverie, somehow leading perfectly into bad, bad

vibrations of crappy old synths, teased into headrush waves, the

moonshine or cheap wine equal of Smith and Shields, buzzwise.

Takes

longer to get there, but it's effective. (Some lyrics, whatever their

pedigree, manage to oops upside the head, too)(as with Smith/Shields

the timing is crucial, though ain't it always.)Of course, this kind of

release has to filtered through scuzz, that's the only way these

deacon bohos can allow their listeners and themselves to enjoy the

material world, and the spirit world has to enter and exit via

jailhouse hooch, ideally. They get close enough, at least on best-tooned

tracks. Could also appeal to some fans of Residents, Primus, possibly

of Stampfel, Fugs,

The Individuals’ Fields/Aquamarine (July 22) is also about breaking on

through, as Fields first did when it jumped out at me from little

speakers on a Tuscaloosa sidestreet, soon after it was first released.

The title song followed me home ("Asleep in the fields/I'm drunk in

your bed, I walk by your houuuuse"), pushing through pedestrian

concerns and passing them along, song by song, situation by situation.

Not only does Gene Holder's remastering bring the dynamics of each

performance out more (and makes clearer how unmannered, undated so

much of this is), but, by placing the earlier, more freewheeling sonic adventures after climatic songs like "Leap Of Faith," we get the

illusion of progress, like they really did take that leap and keep

riding those records like flying carpets (there was another album,

recorded with a different line up, but it wasn't released). I don't

love every track, and I never did, but they all sound better,even the

best songs.(I used to think Janet's wail on the chorus of "Fields" was

a little much, but the remastering is revelatory, as usual)Amazingly

tight bass and drums, guitars do just enough, singers ditto; nobody

imitates the Talking Heads, etc ("Fields" does sound kind of like X,

but X at their best.). Songs of troubled youth, o yeah, but/and as

appropriate for spring and summer as it will be for fall and winter.

Might have more for end of July, but more likely Aug.