ARTICLES
Ten Questions: Fat Jon
MUTEK 2006

ALBUMS
65daysofstatic
A Cloud Mireya
Ambarchi and Ng
Another Elec. Musician
Derek Bailey
Band Ane
Barzin
Black Gold 360
The Blow
Boduf Songs
Childs
Darc Mind
Dosh
Duopandamix
Fat Jon & Styrofoam
Liam Gillick
Shuta Hasunuma
Tim Hecker
Ilkae
Jack's Son
Richard Jäverling
Jazzkammer
Junior Boys
Last Days
Hanno Leichtmann
Luomo
Mandelbrot Set
Mountaineer
N.Phect & Dizplay
Part Timer
Karsten Pflum
Benoît Pioulard
Plus Device
+/- {Plus/Minus}
Relay
Saroos
Seht
Shedding
So Percussion
Sybarite
Trio Vopá
Marshall Watson
Weather Report
Donato Wharton
Christopher Willits
Xela

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
ESL Remixed
Four Tet
Garnier & Craig
Ginglik Saturdays
Michael Mayer
Henrik Schwarz

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Colleen
Delano and Xpansul
Detritus
Ed Devane
Eskimo
Feathers
Goldmund
Ezekiel Honig/Graphic
Ezekiel Honig
Eliot Lipp
Robert Lippok
Alejandro Lopez
Evan Marc
Porter & Carr
Sebastian Russell
Somone Else
Spaceships & Pings
SplitEP3
Simon Whetham

Derek Bailey: To Play: The Blemish Sessions
Samadhi Sound

Solo guitar albums are never more mesmerizing than when they're the product of Derek Bailey's unfettered imagination. To Play: The Blemish Sessions, the guitarist's 43-minute epitaph, actually came about serendipitously, as he originally recorded the material for David Sylvian's Blemish so that the singer might use portions of Bailey's recorded material for backing tracks. Recorded at South London's Moat Studios on February 18 2003, Bailey laid down eight pieces (six acoustic, two electric) in what would be his final studio date before succumbing to motor neurone disease at the age of 75 on Christmas Day 2005.

The robust and playful material teems with Spanish-style runs, spiky plucks, and playful webs of spidery runs. Cumulatively, they capture an irrepressibly inventive artist and a ferocious improviser. Wringing sounds from the guitar in every manner possible, Bailey bends notes here, scrapes them there, and builds them into tightly-coiled flurries everywhere. There's an unblemished quality to the recordings too, with Bailey's voice audible at the end many tracks, an effect that only enhances the release's intimate character. How remarkable it is, then, to hear him still determinedly rewriting the instrument's vocabulary and doggedly upending convention after so many decades of playing and recording. Though the label opted for a sober cover portrait, the innermost one showing a gleefully grinning Bailey would have been the better choice, given the immediacy with which it conveys the iconoclast's devilish spirit.

November 2006