#roughtraderecords

 Down from the Shelf #25 

James Blood Ulmer- Are You Glad To Be In America? (Rough Trade 1980)

An extraordinary, outraged, indignant, full driven punk-funk- jazz revolution captured on vinyl. After stints with Art Blakey, Joe Henderson and Paul Bley, Ulmer joined Ornette Coleman and there began his exploration of guitar harmolodics. This record confused and confounded critics at the time – it raged too hard for the jazz police and was too fractured to be simply funky- but forty years on it remains expansive and boundary pushing.

Side one delivers a prolonged explosive rush from the opening neurotic funk of ‘Layout’, the awkward angular ‘Pressure’ to the organised chaos of ‘See-through’. ‘Jazz is the Teacher (Funk is the Preacher)’ applies some brakes midway sounding almost conventional as it slides into the loose disguise of a song.  By track seven, after the pounding ‘Time Out’, the tempo cools with the tense swinging ‘TV Blues’ signposting the deep raunchy soul of album’s closing title track.

Granted the frenetic pace and restless energy of the album often pushes the band’s sound to fight with itself. Ulmer’s guitar can lurch between steely fluidity and clattering destruction. The twin sax of David Murray and Oliver Lake often bring solid foundations but then unexpectedly collapse. The rhythms jerk and slap at thrash metal velocity that sometimes seems on the edge of control. But it is such unpredictability and daring that makes ‘Are You Glad To Be in America’ one of the defining records of the No Wave- unsettling political music that rages against the state and the state of jazz.

Down From the Shelf #28

Blue Orchids- The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) [Rough Trade 1982]

After the Witch Trials, Fall refugees Bramah, Baines and Goldstraw form band, attract Peel attention, support Nico on tour and in 1982 release this post punk touchstone. Blue Orchids (so christened by John Cooper Clarke) made a grating guitar, whirling Farfisa sound, shot with an ironic twist. Part garage, part surf, part rampant jangle and woozy melody they were a one off...a rare specimen that deserves preservation.