Best Of The Rest Of 14: Synths & Who's New (To Me)

Synthesized But Not Synthetic

Thank god Matt Taibbi is back, because Rolling Stone had the worst Best Albums of the Year list of, well, the year. U2, Bruce Springsteen? Only Jan Wenner thought those albums were among the best of 2014. And Taylor Swift at #10? I heard Wenner broke his sacroiliac contorting himself to pander to so many audiences. But one big thing they did get right was putting Thom Yorke's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes on there. Much coverage focused on his method of releasing it as a BitTorrent file, but after you've downloaded the thing (you can also get it from Bandcamp) the music is what matters. And the music is very good, with Yorke's angelic tenor sounding better than ever over slightly off-kilter electronic grooves. Perhaps the only thing keeping TMB off my Top 20 was a slight sense of over-familiarity - as if this is pretty much the album we would expect him to make. But if Yorke is content to tread water, I'm happy to paddle next to him in his rarified ocean.

Fans of Washed Out and M83 should also delve into the soundscapes of Michael Hammond, composer, sound-designer, and singer, released under the name No Lands. An arty and ambient take on synth pop (think Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden), debut album Negative Space is gorgeous and never ceases to be intriguing. 

Although some reviews seemed to expect dance music from Patten's Estoile Naiant, it was really a series of electronic collages that kept moving forward without resorting to cheap rhythmic techniques. Mouse On Mars is in his DNA, just as Kraftwerk and Neu are in the DNA of Finland's Siinai. Their album Supermarket was expertly executed and focused on telling the story of a trip to, yes, the supermarket. Delightful and eerie in equal measures. When I think of Siinai, I often think of Seekae (something about the vowels), who released two albums in 2014. The Worry, the more song-based of the two, finds him working out some personal stuff over moody and colorful backgrounds. I like his plainspoken voice better than James Blake's and find him less pretentious overall. Find Seekae.

It could be coincidence or it could be the ripple effect of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's Oscar-winning soundtrack to The Social Network, but either way three of the year's most striking electronic albums were also soundtracks. Mica Levi's score to sci-fi art film Under The Skin creates a chilling mental movie using very simple elements. I wouldn't have expected such bleak rigor from the leader of the irritating Micachu & The Shapes, and I hope her dark night of the soul continues. Cliff Martinez of Drive fame is always worth listening to and kudos to the producers of The Knick for going with his anachronistic electronics instead of a period score. As always, Martinez's work is as slippery as a murderous icicle and just as cold. Son Lux has long been a favorite of mine and a nice end-of-year surprise was having his Original Music From And Inspired By: The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby drop on Spotify. Beautiful stuff, on the more ethereal side for him but with that signature feeling of consequence throughout.

I was on the Twigs tip before she was FKA and eagerly awaited her first full-length. As much as I tried, however, I did not swoon for LP1, finding it static and over-thought, although I did like Video Girl. At first I thought part of the problem with her album was that Alejandro Ghersi, better known as Arca, didn't produce the whole thing. His &&&&& EP was so stunning, as was his work on FKA Twigs early EP2 (not to mention the stuff he did for Kanye West on Yeezus), that I thought he could have saved LP1. But then his own album, Xen, came out and it was just as stiff, seeming to wither on the vine while I listened to it. The one highlight was Thievery, which burst from the general torpor with a beat straight from the dancehall. Hopefully Arca and FKA Twigs will get over themselves and serve up something more tasty in the future - they've both got the talent to do it.

Feels Like The Very First Time

Here's a quick rundown of some folks I heard for the first time in 2014 and who I now consider in the club, so to speak. They weren't all new artists but they were new to me.

I loved Courtney Barnett's draggy sound, witty lyrics, dynamite guitar and pure rock'n'roll attitude, all of which suffused the catchy, heartfelt songs on The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas. After seeing her rip the Bowery Ballroom apart by turning all those qualities up to 11, I know she has an even better record in her. Can't wait.

Eddie Dixon's Bump Key, which I might have found on Bandcamp myself if he hadn't contacted me first, was full of fractured Americana. I've also been having a ball discovering his earlier albums.

I had a wonderful night in Nashville thanks to Wild Ponies and Catherine Ashby and I've really enjoyed reliving it through their recent releases, Things That Used To Shine and Tennessee Tracks. Both records are filled with great music and great potential.

I've long enjoyed Sylvie Simmons writing in Mojo Magazine and elsewhere - who knew that she was hiding her quirky light as a singer-songwriter under a bushel? Her debut album, Sylvie, was beyond charming.

Ian William Craig is an operatically-trained Canadian tenor who knows his way around the studio, seeming to construct the spooky, layered pieces that make up A Turn Of Breath out of scraps of half-remembered sound. Striking stuff.

Richard Dawson has one of the weirdest takes on British folk I've ever heard, torturing an out-of-tune guitar till it bleeds. It's hard to tell if he knows exactly what he's doing on Nothing Important but I can assure you it sounds like nothing else.

Ben Howard's cinematic folk is far more conventional, touching on Coldplay at times, but there is a passionate heart beating underneath it all, and the tracks on his second album, I Forget Where We Were, often build to a real intensity. 

When Nick Mulvey was a member of the Portico Quartet, they were nominated for a Mercury Prize. He was nominated again for his solo debut, First Mind, which draws on folk, jazz and latin rhythms some of the same nubby-sweater warmth of classic Cat Stevens. His voice is a reassuring burr and he packs a lot of incident, melody and intelligence into his well-arranged songs.

Lastly, TV Girl's French Exit was a fun trip on the lighter side. These guys know their sixties pop and their St. Etienne and put it all together into shiny, smart packages with a faint sense of amusement. Don't let them have all the fun - join in.

What new discoveries did you make this year?



Still to come: Classical & Composed and Out Of The Past.

P.S. Since Thom Yorke hates Spotify as much as Taylor Swift (although perhaps for different reasons (and they're both dead wrong)), he is not represented on the playlist above - don't let that stop you from hearing Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.

Explosive Atoms In Brooklyn

Thom Yorke is a wise man but I have to admit questioning the wisdom of booking Atoms For Peace in 20,000 seaters like the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. While it is true that getting tickets when they first went on sale took a little work, there wasn't nearly as much browser refreshing as when tickets for Radiohead (his "other" band) went on sale a year prior. Atoms For Peace, while labeled a "super group" by many, is musically more esoteric than Radiohead and has none of the halo of that band's now ancient hit single to propel it. Having experienced the excellent sound Radiohead was able to achieve at the Prudential Center in Newark, I was more open to going to an arena show, especially in an even newer building. The thought of a half-empty arena was not so appealing, however, and when tickets were still available on the day of the show, it seemed my fears might well be realized.

After a great feast at Habana Outpost, my daughter and I walked into Barclays shortly before 8:00pm. The merch table was swarming but there was no line at security and the trip to our seats was unencumbered. I couldn't remember where we had ended up and was slightly surprised that the best seats I could get at my price point were up against the wall, at the very top of the arena. I had likely picked them because they were just slightly to the left of being dead-on to the stage. Our section, like many, was nearly empty, and the standing room on the floor held only a smattering of people.

Shortly after we arrived, the opening act took the stage with no fanfare. Performing in front of a small screen with clever hand-drawn animations was a computer/keyboard jockey and a drummer. A quick Google revealed that this was James Holden, an electronic musician, producer and DJ. The sound was complex and dynamic, with the human drummer adding a real kick. It was reminiscent of Fuck Buttons but seemed to have more of a point than their sometimes exciting but simplistically accretive music. Layering cool sounds together grows tiresome if there isn't real compositional backbone giving structure to the sounds. Holden's architecture held my interest and was enthusiastically received by the other early arrivals. If the IDM (intelligent dance music) idea interests you, his latest album, The Inheritors, is well worth seeking out.

Holden's 40 minutes passed quickly and and when the lights went back up, there were definitely more bodies in the building. While the roadies readied the stage, we listened to Duke Ellington - a little off-center but I never tire of his band's effortless swing and brilliant arrangements. I'd be curious to know if that was a band choice or just the venue's default soundtrack. I could imagine creating more anticipation for the Atoms For Peace sound with a mix including the likes of Fela, Miles Davis and SBTRKT.

In any case, soon enough the Atoms were on stage and launching into Before Your Very Eyes..., which also opens their album, AMOK. Nigel Godrich, producer of Radiohead, Beck and others, and Yorke wielded guitars with intricacy and muscle, while drummer Joey Waronker and percussionist Mauro Refosco created an underlay of simmering polyrhythms, and Flea, bass player for Red Hot Chili Peppers, stalked the stage while pummeling his four strings. The five of them were instantly locked and it was immediately apparent that the sound would be more dynamic and colorful than the heavily cut and pasted music on AMOK.

As always with Thom Yorke, there's a startle: that voice. It fills whatever space it's unleashed in, and seems to fill you up as well. It is simply one of the marvels of modern music and was in spectacular shape from the very first. Yorke's breathtaking and enormous singing might be one very good reason for choosing a large house like the Barclay's, as it seemed to find its full expression swooping around the rafters, among the pennants celebrating the past glories of the former New Jersey Nets. Even from our seats in the gods, his dancing was also a sight to behold. He seemed to latch on to every facet of the rhythm and interpret it in a remarkably loose-limbed fashion. Some find Yorke's movement style amusing - it is certainly easy to parody - but my feeling is that he is essentially an introvert and the dancing is not for display or entertainment but rather his honest reaction to the music, which so deeply involves his body and mind.

People continued to arrive and the center was nearly full by the fourth song, the spacious and sleek Ingenue. Based on casual observation of the people around us, I suspect some of the late arrivals were fans who couldn't believe their luck and some were more casual concertgoers who caught wind of a buzz around the show. Having more life forms in the space improved the sound, which was already pretty good, and also ramped up the collective energy. It was sheer perfection when the band dug into the deep groove of Stuck Together Pieces, one of the funkiest tracks on AMOK, and the cheer that arose when it ended was spine-tingling. If there were any doubters in the crowd, they must have been fully sold by that performance.

And It Rained All Night, from Yorke's 2006 solo album The Eraser, came on like the heavy black trains described in the song, and the intensity level rose even higher with the crucial pairing of Harrowdown Hill and Dropped, which were nearly overwhelming in their power. By this point, Atoms For Peace were doling out art rock of the highest order, with Dropped taking on a steely physicality that sounded like a Di Suvero sculpture in sound.

My mind kept trying to come up with ways to describe the sound I was hearing. The image of a cross-section of earth arose, with the percussion represented by the churn of insects and worms under the surface, the grass, trees and other plants standing in for the shapes and colors of the bass, guitars, keyboards and electronics, while Yorke's voice was all the living creatures that roamed and flew about, and even the golden sun shining on it all. This image worked for me somewhat, because it allowed for the way the layers in Atoms For Peace songs tend to remain discrete, each existing on its own plane, but also dependent on interaction with all the other elements to come to life. Even with the darkest songs, as far as content goes, there was a joy radiating from the five men on stage. They were fully engaged, playing at the top of their abilities, and exactly where they wanted to be. It was a privilege to witness.

I had a feeling Yorke would pull out either some old songs or a great cover or two but was still surprised during the first encore when he sat at the upright piano and started to sing Rabbit In Your Headlights, his collaboration with UNKLE from 1998. Co-written with DJ Shadow, the haunting song found new life in the Atoms arrangement. They followed it up with a fairly obscure Radiohead song, Paperbag Writer from the 2004 Com Lag (2Plus2IsFive) compilation. Coming as they did after a performance of Yorke's 2009 song Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses, the three songs constituted a mini-retrospective and clearly displayed the continuity in his work regardless of his collaborators.

By the end of the encore, there was no sense that the band had held anything back, but still the lights stayed down and Duke Ellington remained silent. After a few minutes pause, they returned and generously played two more songs, both from The Eraser. Atoms For Peace (the song) was adapted beautifully from its original version, with Flea parceling out the notes of the baseline as if he were just discovering them, and the comforting folk-derived melody enveloping the audience. It seemed almost inevitable that they would end with Black Swan, with it's darkly triumphant chorus: "We are black swans, black swans (but I made it to the top, but I made it to the top)." The song's bitter refrain of "This is fucked up, fucked up," was mined more for its rhythmic possibilities than the well of anger in the album version. I couldn't make out Yorke's face in that moment, but I felt a wry grin as he appreciated the transmutation of his dark night of the soul becoming an occasion of musical bliss not only for the ensemble on stage, but for the assembled in the audience.

The lights went up, the Duke returned, and we made our way through the excited throng back to the merch table, which was once again swarming. After buying t-shirts, my daughter and I went outside. There were groups lingering in the plaza, including a circle of friends sitting around one of the lights in the pavement. I got the impression they were trying to preserve the moment and I felt the same way.

AMOK is a great album and has made for fascinating listening since its release earlier this year. But I couldn't help thinking that it might sound slightly wan compared to the visceral and explosive music that filled the Barclay's Center on Friday. Perhaps Thom Yorke has a philosophical objection to live albums, or at least ambivalence, but I would urge him to reconsider and put together an official record of what he and his Atoms For Peace compatriots have been able to achieve on stage. It was tremendously exciting as it happened and should not be allowed to simply evanesce. I know it will stay with me for some time.

This short clip gives a hint of the moment when Harrowdown Hill ended. Get to the show and hear and see for yourself.

The Best of 2013 (So Far)

Bowie's back on top.

Typically, I'm the first person up in my house, getting up at about 5:00am to move the car, make the coffee, pack the lunches and clear the sink. I often catch up on favorite podcasts (like Soundcheck, Studio 360 or Sound Opinions) as I make these rounds but the morning of January 8th was different. I swiped open my iPhone to find a link cryptically shared by a friend of mine who lives in France. It seemed to be a new video by David Bowie - or about him - but I couldn't be quite sure. I broke from routine by tackling the sink first with the iPhone propped on the shelf in front of me, pressing "play" before turning on the water. My first thought was that the video for Where Are We Now? was a brilliant parody, that the need for new material from the Thin White Duke had inspired the internet to spew forth something that would cruelly taunt us fans. A minute into listening to the gorgeous, elegiac ballad and watching the intriguing visuals I knew: it was simply too good to be anything but the real thing. I could scarcely contain my elation at hearing something new from one of my heroes.

I also felt this was a good omen for the music of 2013 and that has been borne out by one great record after another. I'll attempt to corral it all in a preliminary Top Ten (which could become a Top 20 by year's end) and a few other lists.

1. David Bowie - The Next Day Here's why.

2. Kanye West - Yeezus Another masterpiece.

3. Jenny O. - Automechanic Great songs, great singing, deal sealed by Jonathan Wilson's brilliant production.

4. Jon Hopkins - Immunity Composer and producer Hopkins first came to my attention in 2010 as a collaborator on Small Craft On A Milk Sea, Brian Eno's finest record in many a year. Investigating further turned up some ok but not particularly characterful collections of electronic and ambient sounds. So my ears were open if not exactly primed when Hopkins appeared on Soundcheck earlier this year. His performance of Open Eye Signal quickly had me at full attention: Thick slabs of artfully arranged sounds welded to a groove of tectonic proportions built a composition that drew me in and engaged me completely. The rest of the album maintains the promise of Open Eye Signal, from glitchy tracks like Collider to the intimate ambient of Abandon Window and the title track. Electronic album of the year.

5. Jace Clayton - The Julius Eastman Memory Depot I would be mourning the death of Mudd Up much more if not for this dazzling record, which firmly establishes Clayton as a major proponent and participant in the avant garde.

6. Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold It was great to hear Greg Kot revise his already high opinion of this endearing record. At first he had focused on the "ramshackle vibe" and "casual surface" but further listening revealed the craftsmanship behind the songs on this "supremely well-done record." I don't usually quote other reviewers, but I really couldn't have said it better myself. Great stuff with a real New York attitude. Think it's as easy as it sounds? Fuggedaboutit. I can't wait to see them in concert again.

7. Daniel Wohl - Corps Exquis Based on the company he keeps in the new music scene in NYC and elsewhere, it was only a matter of time before I ran into Daniel Wohl's music, and based on the bracingly original and stunningly beautiful sounds on his debut album, I'm glad it didn't take any longer for me to get acquainted. Corps Exquis, performed to a tee by the quintet Transit and featuring valuable assistance from Julia Holter, Aaron Roche and So Percussion, is actually the soundtrack to a video and performance piece but stands completely, entrancingly, on its own. The melding and merging of electronics and acoustic instruments sounds so uncannily inevitable in the nine compositions that the mind ceases to worry what is making which sound. This is also richly affecting music that touches on a variety of emotional colors. Don't wait for the show to come to your town - just get this album.

8. Wire - Change Becomes Us Post-punks never die, they just get smarter.

9. Mystical Weapons - Mystical Weapons In which Sean Lennon and drummer Greg Saunier (of Deerhoof) prove that the vision of Miles Davis's electric period was never about virtuosity (although they are both virtuosic musicians), but rather a musique-concrete-esque coming together of improvised sounds and textures. Seeing them in concert was like witnessing telepathy. One thing they get right that a lot of similar freak-outs don't is dynamic range. Lennon and Saunier seem to think more like co-composers than co-improvisers, resulting in a record that is consistently more rewarding with each listen. Lennon's wandering career is such that this could easily be a one-off but that's fine - it's hard to imagine them bettering it.

10. Chance The Rapper - Acid Rap This free mixtape is an ambitious, sprawling, and almost cinematic collection from 20 year old Chancelor Bennett. Caught between adolescence and adulthood, he raps in a reedy voice about falling in love, falling into bad habits and missing his mom's cocoa butter kisses. He sometimes sings lines and his signature sound is a little shriek that can convey frustration, joy or anger. There's a rhythmic flexibility to Chance's flow that meshes perfectly with the jazz-based grooves on some of the songs. There are plenty of guests on Acid Rap but Chance is in full command and I predict a bright future for this brave and intelligent new voice.

Bubbling Under

Rock-Type Stuff: Both Comedown Machine by The Strokes and Ghost On Ghost by Iron & Wine received a lot of blowback but I like them both and return to their wells of emotion and musical ingenuity often.

Amok by Thom Yorke's Atoms For Peace sounded much as expected - terrific - but I can't help feeling that this material is going to really take off onstage. I've got tickets for one of their shows at Barclay's Center so I'll find out in September.

The Mavericks are back with In Time - and dare I say "better than ever"? The sheer sound and power of these master musicians and the makes it easy to overlook the moon/spoon/June lyrics and (Call Me) When You Get To Heaven brings a new operatic flavor to the picture.

Amor De Dias returned with a second album, The House At Sea, and it's just as gorgeous as the last one. Any year with something new from Alasdair MacLean is a good year.

Pere Ubu secured their legendary status for their first three records alone but they occasionally pull together and put out something new that proves the continuing relevance - and edginess - of their approach. Lady From Shanghai is an uncompromising example.

Disclosure is the duo of Guy and Howard Lawrence, brothers who seem to have absorbed practically everything about the last 20 years of dance music - and they're only in their early 20's - and figured how to refresh and revive it on Settle, their debut full-length. When A Fire Starts To Burn is the standout track and an instant classic floor-filler, but no one at your party will complain if you just leave the whole album on.

Hip Hop: Jonwayne has been on my radar since 2012's Quakers collection. Passing Fancies is merely the best of the quirky songs he's been releasing on cassette over the last couple of years. Can't wait for his official debut.

Prodigy & Alchemist's Albert Einstein is great, if not quite at the level of Return Of The Mac. Essential 2013 hip hop.

If Pusha-T can maintain the level of Numbers On The Boards for a whole solo album, we might stop wondering when the next Clipse album is coming out.

Jazz: I probably keep up with new jazz the least of all the kinds of music I listen to. If there were more records as bold, expansive and thrilling as Without A Net from the nearly 80-year-old Wayne Shorter, that would change in a heartbeat. Recorded at several live performances and featuring several compositions from his past as well as Pegasus, a new work performed with Imani Winds, Shorter and his blazing quartet splash around on stage like whales in a bathtub - its joyful but you feel disaster could be around the corner. It's called "without a net" for a reason.

Classical: The world of Brooklyn Rider produced two great albums so far this year: A Walking Fire, which features Bela Bartok's Third Quartet bookended by contemporary gypsy music and a new composition from violinist Colin Jacobson; and Recursions, the wonderfully wide solo debut by violist Nicolas Cords.

Benjamin Britten's centennial has produced one new classic recording amidst all the reissues and repackages: Britten Songs by tenor Ian Bostridge, accompanied by the piano of Sir Antonio Pappano, and, on five songs, guitarist Xuefei Yang. It's sublime.

Out Of The Past: Speaking of reissues, Light In The Attic has packaged Bobby Whitlock's first two solo albums as Where There's A Will There's A Way and it burns. Anyone who has been moved by his vocals on Derek & The Dominoes tracks will want to dive into his emotionally profligate way with a song. Big, bold arrangements performed by an all-star cast (Harrison, Clapton, etc.). 

Another great label, Strut, has done something of a public service by exhuming the work of Romanian progressives, Rodion G.A. A touch of Krautrock, a touch of psych - it get's better with every listen. Thankfully The Lost Tapes are lost no more!

The wonders of the Miles Davis Bootleg series continue with volume two, Live In Europe 1969, which features a line-up that never recorded in the studio. Four concerts, one on DVD, and you won't want to miss a note.

Finally, more Hendrix is on sale. Again. But fortunately, People, Hell & Angels is as fresh and energetic as Valleys of Neptune was slack and rehashed. The remixing might be slightly aggressive but it's great to hear his guitar jump out and transform the air around you. Supposedly, this is the last new collection of studio material. I assume that means that the Experience Hendrix folks will be concentrating on live recordings, so I'll put my vote in for a professionally mixed release of the storming set at Randall's Island in 1970.

What 2013 releases are still in rotation around your way?

Do The Cut & Paste

It all starts with Edgard Varese. In a 1997 interview, producer Teo Macero claimed Varese as a "second father," specifically citing his Poeme Electronique (1958) as the inspiration for the radical studio manipulations Macero introduced to the work of Miles Davis in the late 60's. Watching Varese assemble the pieces of his remarkable Poeme must have triggered something in Macero's mind: recorded music (and sound) is plastic, in the original meaning of the word. Today, the idea of jamming with musicians and then looping, editing and adding to that material to manipulate it into a composition is just one tool in the record-making arsenal, and a common one at that. But when Miles Davis's In A Silent Way was released in 1969 the idea of taking whole sections of recorded music, copying them and splicing them to other sections, essentially composing in the studio, was a rare thing indeed.

So that makes Varese the spiritual father of so much of today's music, including Atoms For Peace, the extra-curricular project of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, which has just released its long-awaited debut album, Amok. The all-star group was originally formed to do live shows of material from The Eraser, Yorke's solo album from 2006. Including Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich, Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass, studio maven Joey Waronker (Beck, etc.) on drums and Marco Refosco on percussion, the band put in studio time over the past few years, creating a wealth of material for Yorke and Godrich to work with.

Since I find Red Hot Chili Peppers loathsome, I will admit to some anxiety around Flea's involvement with Atoms For Peace. I needn't have worried, however, as he avoids the dreaded thumb and seems to take more inspiration from Jah Wobble than attempting Larry Graham, blending perfectly with the other musicians. The end result is a consistently fascinating assemblage of Afro-pop guitars, deep bass, chattering percussion and rich electronic sounds, from chordal washes to astringent jabs of sound, all with Yorke's feather-light voice, often in falsetto, floating above. Amok is a great headphones album, with layers of sound buried in the mix, waiting to be teased out with repeated listens.

There are no songwriting credits per se, but it is safe to assume that York's melodic and lyrical interests were the strongest influence on how the songs finally shaped up. In both cases it follows close on the heels of Radiohead's The King of Limbs, which contained similarly ambiguous harmonies, circular melodies and, in the words, a general sense of anomie and bruised disillusionment. On the whole, however, it's a more satisfying album than TKOL, feeling more complete and less like a blueprint for endless remixes, although I'm sure there will plenty of those to come.

For anyone familiar with Radiohead, there is nothing intrinsically surprising about Amok, but working with some new collaborators has definitely introduced more dynamics and rhythmic flexibility into what we've come to expect from records featuring Thom Yorke. As wonderful as Amok is, it should be said that it seems to continue a retreat from the more soulful and direct communication represented by In Rainbows, which is sounding more and more like a culmination of sorts with each passing year.

In the same interview, Teo Macero also illuminated the process that led to such towering achievements as Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and other classics from Miles Davis's first electric period: "His stuff was mostly written down. I mean it was worked out in the studio. But I would record from the time he got there...until he left. And then...I would edit everything."

But before Miles and his musicians entered the studio, the music was also worked out on the road. We have ample evidence of that part of the process on an extraordinary new set, Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2, which features four concerts from the fertile period in 1969, between In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. The band here, featuring Wayne Shorter on sax, Chick Corea on (mostly electric) piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums, was famously short-lived although each member was part of the expanded ensemble that made Bitches Brew. Versions of moody masterpiece Miles Runs The Voodoo Down recorded in Antibes a month before the Bitches Brew sessions, as well as Wayne Shorter's Sanctuary, which appeared on the same album in a very different form, provide a feast for the analytic mind when comparing them to their well-known studio takes.

But analysis is mostly shunted aside by the spectacular and fiery attack of this group, which played without pause each night, blasting through a varied set of old and new material. Miles was in a period of transition and this collection showcases one fulcrum point in his legendary career, with two concerts before the Bitches Brew sessions and two after. One thing that is immediately clear is that he was in top form, playing with power and blasting off 16th note runs with impunity, applying a style he perfected in his previous period to the new electric context. As he got deeper into rock and funk, his trumpet playing included more atmospheric textures, rhythmic wah wah excursions, and he began a deepening involvement with playing the organ. Some of that was due to the poor health (from drug use and other factors) that led to his retirement in 1975. But not here - he leads the band with command and control, taking classic tunes like Nefertiti to new and more dynamic heights and presenting new material with an assured swagger.

The fourth disc in the set is a DVD, featuring a concert in November 1969 in Berlin filmed in living color. It's well-edited and makes for illuminating viewing - Miles and the band were completely engaged and listening carefully to each other. The concert, like all the shows presented is brilliant, full of complex interplay, melodic invention and occasionally touching on the outskirts of free jazz. Though there is nothing tentative about these concerts, Miles and his players were still finding their way in the new world they were creating. Some of that future included Teo Macero in the editing room, cutting and pasting, but Live In Europe 1969 is a glorious reminder of the potency of live, uncut performances, and is now an essential part of the story of Miles Davis.