Beef Terminal - The Grey Knowledge (2002)

I don't really know anything about this guy - one M.D. Matheson trading as Beef Terminal, which I've somehow only just realised is apparently slang for a woman's area. The previous album, 20 GOTO 10, was sent into The Sound Projector for review about er… two decades ago, come to think of it, and it was chuffin' fab; and two decades have somehow passed before it's occurred to me to have a look and see if the guy did anything else.

I vaguely recall some loosely descriptive publicity material turning up with 20 GOTO 10, mostly focussing on the album having been recorded in Matheson's kitchen then musing over the mental well-being of the artist on the grounds of the album being distinctly less buoyant than, off the top of my head, Kylie Minogue's 1988 debut. Anyway, this one was similarly recorded in Matheson's kitchen and maintains the sombre mood established on the previous disc. One aspect of what drew me to the music of Beef Terminal was, perhaps oddly, the fact of it sounding as though it had been recorded on a couple of standard tape decks, one hissy backing track bounced onto the next deck with fresh instrumentation added in the absence of anything so lavish as even a portastudio. I'm admittedly overstating the rudimentary production values here, but 20 GOTO 10 had that sort of quality, and succeeded specifically because it made a virtue of its shortcomings, repurposing the hiss and rumble as atmosphere much as did, I suppose, My Bloody Valentine.

The Grey Knowledge sounds maybe a little more expensive, but Matheson has kept everything fairly simple, hence almost painfully direct in terms of raw emotional impact. Mostly it's sombre but melodic guitar almost bordering on the bitter-sweet, and I suspect a few of the pseudo-bass lines may be played on the E-string of the same. Rhythms, where provided, are either a cheap-ish drum machine or looped samples of noise, mains hum, or whatever. It's almost entirely instrumental - excepting a Eurhythmics cover, which probably makes more sense on disc than on paper - and effects are limited to a slightly boomy reverb here and there.

It's difficult to describe the nuts and bolts of what happens on The Grey Knowledge without it sounding massively underwhelming, and yet the sum of these parts is hypnotic, engulfing, and almost overpowering in its suggestion of tragedy, loss, and anything else which might reduce you to tears. If ever one should require a demonstration of the maxim about less being more, it's right here.

Residents - B*** S** (1971)

I still haven't quite got used to the idea that we now know the names written on at least two of the Residents' birth certificates, and somehow I prefer to continue to think of them as four anonymous beings who may or may not be of this planet. Similarly confusing has been my discovering the existence of this early, early album, apparently some Record Store Day thing which I presumably missed due to a general lack of enthusiasm for green vinyl reissues of Barry Manilow.

The original liner notes of Meet the Residents from 1974 muttered about the notoriety of earlier sound experiments, to which I never really gave much consideration until I noticed they had issued The Warner Brothers Album as a Record Store Day artifact, by which point I couldn't really afford the fucking thing. The Warner Brothers Album was approximately their first record, sent as a demo tape to the aforementioned label and accordingly rejected as too weird or something before being returned to the group - sent to the residents of the provided return address, which is how they came by their name; and this, discreetly abbreviated to BS for obvious reasons, was probably their second album, sort of, posthumously rescued from the can. It seems the bloke at Warner Brothers didn't think much of this one either.

The strange thing is that you really can tell it's the Residents, and yet it sort of isn't, not quite. The tendency to discordant nursery rhyming and pretending to be an alien was already very much a thing, but it sounds as though it was recorded on this planet by a bunch of hairies who may or may not have spent at least some time hanging out with Beefheart or even Zappa, guys who went about their daily business in regular clothes, and who probably had regular names written on birth certificates. The other strange thing is that BS is kind of groovy, jazzy and evocative in terms which had been thoroughly strained out of the musical gene pool by the time we got to actually meet the Residents, because they still sounded like a band of regular guys, at least around the edges of We Stole This Riff and Deepsea Diver Song. Peculiarly, after listening to this record, Meet the Residents still feels like their first album where this might be something popped through from an alternate universe or recorded during the negative time counting down to the birth of the band as we didn't actually come to know them, if you see what I mean. Typically, it seems not even the Residents themselves are unanimous in recognising BS as having been their own work. The more you know, the greater the mystery…

C-Murder - The Truest Shit I Ever Said (2005)

C-Murder has, at least on a couple of occasions, been characterised as not much more than a Tupac impersonator, which has always struck me as a little unfair. Shakur's influence is undeniable and can be heard on certain tracks, but there's more to this guy's delivery, even if they share thematic common ground for reasons which should be fucking obvious. C-Murder's monologues lack the raucous celebration heard on much of Tupac's material, sounding positively introverted by comparison - a man on the edge mumbling and agonising to himself. It's intense, almost hard to listen to, and not actually like the work of any other rap artist that I can think of, once you listen closely.

Another thing which strikes me as a little unfair is C-Murder having been a resident of the stripey hole for a period now approaching two decades, following his supposed shooting of Steve Thomas in January, 2002. I'm no lawyer, but the case looks kind of patchy from over here, and it's possibly worth remembering that the American legal system often seems to have some difficulty telling the difference between actual use of firearms in murder cases and black men who rap about the same; but who the fuck knows?

C-Murder had issued four albums prior to incarceration, five if you include Tru Dawgs - although it's sort of a compilation - but not one which ever seemed quite so great as it probably should have been. Bossalinie from 1999 came pretty close to perfect but just wasn't quite there - way too many tracks, too many creaking skits, the usual trouble. Trapped in Crime could have learned something from previous mistakes but was ultimately hamstrung by the crisis of confidence which had seemingly overwhelmed the label, resulting in beats which aspired to snatch the crown back from that other New Orleans label by approximating what Mannie Fresh had been doing, while turning away from the producers who made No Limit great in the first place. So Truest Shit was his fifth album - sixth if we're counting Tru Dawgs - vocals recorded by his lawyer during visiting hours, then presumably striped onto the tracks after the fact.

I guess the sudden introduction of porridge to the artistic equation serves as one hell of a focus, because never even mind just great in context of the C-Murder back catalogue, The Truest Shit I Ever Said is a landmark rap album - intense as fuck but as ever kept in check by C-Murder's somber, contemplative delivery, and matched to the perfect range of beats - sharp, electronic and yet powerfully soulful. Even in tearing the club up, even during seemingly unapologetic tales of gunplay*, this is an album written by a man who has had a lot of time to think about this stuff, and his testimony is as powerful as you might hope.

Of course, it turns out he's released five more since this one, all vocalised from with the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which I've somehow missed because I've had a musically confusing decade. On the other hand, I make no claims towards being a rolling news service or having a finger on any particular pulse, so please feel free to use the above information as you see fit.

*: Possibly because he doesn't actually have anything to apologise for.

2Pac - Loyal to the Game (2004)

This return visit has been inspired by Eminem. I'd picked up a copy of Eminem's Kamikaze at CD Exchange and, as with most of his albums, it's good, even great, and almost a classic but not quite; and it occurred to me that it's strange how such a genuinely phenomenal lyricist and top shelf beatmaker has never quite delivered a classic album where even Spice 1 - off the top of my head - has at least four to his name; although admittedly I haven't listened to Infinite in a while, so it's probably that one if it's any of them. With every single album, Eminem always comes so close but somehow never quite gets there, and it's taken me a long fucking time to work out why that might be, or why I think that might be. It's the combination of his delivery with his beats - inordinately complex sprinkles of finely tuned particles, single syllables picking at the line in a sort of dizzying pizzicato which demands that the listener keep up; and which is dropped to a beat which often does something very similar but in musical terms, again with the pizzicato but this time as notes plucked over what may as well be the soundtrack to a silent movie illustrating the bad guy creeping tippy-toe up those stairs with an evil pantomime grin on his face. That's how it sounds to me anyway, and to break the problem down into basic English, the music and the delivery do roughly the same thing and so lack the sort of sonic contrast needed to make the thing work, or at least to make it work as it probably should; and I base this theory on 2Pac's Loyal to the Game which posthumously assembles Shakur's lines over beats provided by Eminem, and which is generally fucking fantastic and certainly a potentially classic album.

At the risk of enraging basement dwelling representatives of the fully intact cherry community, 2Pac was never the greatest lyricist of all time. He had an amazing delivery, stuff worth saying, and certainly qualifies as a great, but he was never the greatest; and while those first few albums might justifiably be termed classic and the rest are mostly decent, his posthumous reputation seems out of all proportion, not least because those posthumous albums have been pretty damn patchy, sprawling double disc sets presumably released as such so as to make the most of what few genuinely memorable tracks emerged from the final sessions. I get the impression that 2Pac's last months may have been mostly compulsive studio work, heavy dope paranoia, and hardly any sleep because that's how those albums sound. They're worth a listen, but they can be hard work and the beats, with one or two exceptions, are fucking terrible - bland karaoke funk which may as well have been lifted from the closing credits of low budget cop shows.

Whether by accident or design, as producer, Eminem's mission statement here seems to have been to finish 2Pac's legacy on a high note, something which at least reminds us how much we loved 2Pacalypse Now and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. So Em's plinky-plonky Addams Family themes are here contrasted with a quite different sort of vocal, 2Pac's driven yet leisurely cruise through whatever was on his mind that day; and the combination is dynamite, bringing out the best of everyone. To be fair, it's kind of a weird listen, not least for pairing 2Pac with the likes of Obie Trice, Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent and others who were probably still propping up the walls of technical colleges back when 2Pac and Alanis Morissette were talking about opening that restaurant together; and it's weirder that 2Pac calls out his posthumous collaborators by name even as their own verses refer directly to his passing. I'd heard that Eminem hired a 2Pac impersonator for those beyond the grave shout outs, or else indulged in some sort of improbable tape wizardry, but it maybe doesn't matter because the joins are invisible and the whole thing hangs together beautifully, regardless of the potential time paradox. A few of these tracks are sort of familiar, with vocals lifted from existing recordings, or variant takes thereof, but Loyal to the Game nevertheless feels like a real living, breathing album rather than something scraped off the cutting room floor. It's emotionally powerful, intelligent, inspiring, and without all the exhausting beef of those posthumous Death Row releases; and is as such probably closer to how we need to remember the guy.

We should probably also keep in mind that this is the sort of thing Eminem is capable of when he has his eye on the ball, which is pretty impressive and should definitely count for a classic album. As though to illustrate the strength of Eminem's vision here, we end with four bonus tracks from fellow producers, not least among whom would be Scott Storch; and if they range from great to more of what we had on those Death Row discs, they sound so out of place as to belong to something else.

Contrary to the protests of certain nutcases, I still say he was a very naughty boy rather than the actual messiah, but Loyal to the Game at least stands as a memorial to what was so great about the guy before the picture got distorted.

Intensive Studies - Perfectly (ab)Normal (2019)

I anticipated something fairly noisy given the cover and involvement of +DOG+ persons, but this is quite different, or at least an album which makes sense as being approximately descended from Expandobrain - who were amazing, for those of you who remain stubbornly unconverted. Intensive Studies are a little more informal, maybe a little more raggedy around the edges, but it's roughly the same psychological landscape. What we have are songs played, possibly even improvised on the spot by a band of guitar, bass, drums and vocals. There's an occasional bum note or missed queue and not all of the songs end at quite the same speed as when they set out, so it could almost be a rehearsal recording, although the sound quality is exceptionally clear. I'd say it reminds me of Pavement, except I haven't heard much Pavement and only have a general impression of what they sounded like. I won't say it's lo-fi because that seems kind of insulting to me. More than anything, Perfectly (ab)Normal reminds me of at least a couple of bands of which I myself was a member, so technically we're talking up to the job at hand rather than anything flashy and definitely no guitar solos. Specifically it reminds me of at least a couple of bands of which I myself was a member and which had been listening to a hell of a lot of Warsaw and early Joy Division demos, although it doesn't really sound like Joy Division beyond some vague awareness of their having existed. Lyrically it makes me think of Steve Albini, inhabiting that same twilight land of screwy, slightly upsetting folk narratives of Biblical reality and rural feuds. Without seeming like it does a whole lot, Perfectly (ab)Normal really gets under your skin.

Buy it here.