Jandek - Bristol Wednesday & Chicago Wednesday (2010)

Strange, reclusive, yet prolific artist operating from Houston, Texas since 1978. Little is known about him. Music ranges from blues and electric boogie music to spoken word and avant-garde chamber music. Runs the Corwood Industries label for his own releases, the first of which was credited to The Units and appeared in 1978. All subsequent recordings have been credited to Jandek (including all reissues of the Units album). Jandek performed his first concert unannounced in 2004, 26 years after he released his debut. He has gone on to perform a handful of concerts every year since, slowly releasing them in their entirety on Corwood.

Much-anticipated issue of both sets from Sterling Smith’s performance with Chris Corsano and Mick Flower at The Cube in Bristol on May 17th 2006. Both sets have an odd compulsive energy which is almost at odds with the characters of the players involved. Corsano seems to be more ‘inside’ the tracks than really propelling them, knocking them sideways and subtly deforming them while Flower’s playing is more in the pulse style that he brings to his work with MV & EE. The second disc is more overtly ‘explosive’, with Flower switching to Japan banjo, and the resultant tangle of strings is beautifully complex. But despite both musicians’ innate iconoclasm, the show is really Sterling’s, commanding the group with a quiet confidence, wrapping his tongue around the lyrics and getting into some cranking guitar breakdowns.

If jandek came from the trendier parts of New York,or even, Chicago.He would be hailed as an improv noise genius, like Arto Lindsey, or Lee renaldo, among many others. In fact he was doing this, even less commercially, before they'd even played their first gig.
Jandek's live appearances, as 'The Corwood Representative" , are probably the most accessible and conventional stuff in the Corwood oeuvre. A sort of No Wave for the 21st century,reminding one strongly of a funkier DNA, a more consistent Golden Palomino’s or a jazzier Sonic Youth.
Basically, its Jandek with guitar, backed by very capable improv-savvy musicians, and it works.