I'll try some sort of sub-haiku shit in ripping out a few reviews w/ a minimum of verbal wastage. A stack of shit has landed in my hands lately, so let's see what can be said...

DON CHERRY - Hear And Now CD
Paid a silly amount (well, not too silly; about US$18) for this turkey, originally released in 1977 and since reissued as a Japan-only deal. Cherry? He's the fuckin' man. Stick on any '60s Blue Note platter, Eternal Rhythms (w/ Sonny Sharrock!), any BYG mind-blower (especially Orient and Blue Lake: they'll change your pathetic life), Brown Rice or any of his late '70s/early '80s offerings w/ the Codona trio on ECM and YOU'LL HIT THE ROOF. Throw on this stinker and you'll hit the bathroom. What the fuck was up w/ this? I'd lay it down to being a mid-career slump-slash-stab at commercialism a la Sonny Sharrock's Paradise, which in fact it does bear some resemblance to... except Paradise really ain't that bad. Hear And Now, on the other hand, sounds like the kind of candy-assed hard-rock/disco/fusionoid jumble you mighta heard on a slow night down at Studio 54 at the time. Oh well, I guess he did come back and make those killer Codona discs...

PS - if anyone can land me a copy of Cherry's Organic Music Society 2LP from '73, in which he covers Pharoah Sanders and Terry Riley, for a non-ridiculous price, please contact me, pronto!

JACK BREWER - Rockin' Ethereal/Harsh World CDs (New Alliance)
Paid a whopping 34 cents for the both of these. Yep, 1 cent for the former, 33 cents for the latter. Of course I paid about $6 in postage, but still... I guess those price tags say more about their lack of general sellability/notoriety/desirability amongst the human populace than I could muster, so I really should just leave it at that. From 1990 and 1991, respectively, I've always had a fond a great fondness for at least Rockin' Ethereal ever since my bro brought it home from the 'States in early '91 (an autographed copy, no fuckin' less) and we flogged it heavily for a good 18 months. Harsh World I can take or leave. Some nice lyrical work from the Sacc. Trust-er, though the thin production and lack of oomph from his backing compadres (inc. an ex-SWAster!) does the music no justice. You'll love or hate this stuff. 'Trust devotees need at least ...Ethereal sittin' pretty in their place of residence, though the monumental swing of, say, We Became Snakes, is not present. At the prices I paid, I certainly have no regrets.

RAINCOATS - Odyshape CD
Still haven't snagged their debut on eBay yet... every time I think I'm getting close some jackass makes his move and boosts the price to wallet-emptying levels I'm not yet ready to reach. But this, their sophomore release, I must've gotten in a fluke week when all Raincoats fans worldwide were stuck in a coma. A nice piece of work it is, too, fitting perfectly w/ all the other artsy rad/leftist/anarcho nonsense which was happening w/ Brit post-punk at the time. That is, mix up the likes of This Heat and Rock Bottom/End Of An Ear-period Wyatt (both Charles Hayward and Wyatt play drums here, natch), Art Bears/Henry Cow/RIO-rock, way-early Scritti, PIL ca. Flowers of Romance and all the other hipster bin-cloggers the squatters of the time were oogling over (dub, Ornette, Miles, Don Cherry, Indian ragas and scratchy old Folkways/Explorer Nonesuch discs) and somewhere in the mix lies the Raincoats. Way better than the vastly over-rated Slits (and let's face it: Cut plods nowhere), I still haven't given up on that debut... a CD I saw countless times in various bargain bins throughout the '90s and stupidly ignored.

The new season of Six Feet Under starts in a minute; I'm outta here...