2020 was the year that Jandek released more albums than any year yet (ten). Of course, though, they're all live albums recorded in years long past. Considering that Jandek impressively performs completely new and unique music during every live show (only very rarely doing live versions of songs from old albums), it makes sense that Corwood Industries wants to release every recording of a live show as its own album.
I'm past the point of having any sense of order in which I post my Jandek reviews -- if I try to post them in the order that I wrote them, it would be a lot more work for me because my older review drafts are much sloppier and longer. So I'm going to take a huge leap forward and post a bundle of reviews of relatively new albums for you all!
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Berlin Sunday: Laid back rock show with Sheila Smith on vocals. Not super memorable except for the faster songs, you can just skip this one honestly. 6/10
Manhattan Saturday: Nearly 3 hour non-stop noise rock performance across 3 discs. Wow, I have to admire the musical endurance and the energy. But the music is pretty standard Jandek-style noise rock, with only a few exciting moments. 6.5/10
Boston Friday: Avant-garde jazz album not far off from London Thursday, also pretty long. Not necessarily essential but if you want something similar to the other jazz albums, definitely check it out. 7/10
Montreal Sunday: Pretty creepy, haunting album that matches the album cover very well. The harpsichord gives it a slightly gothic, despairing tone. Meanwhile, the flute and saxophone occasionally goes back to the jazzy theme of the last few albums, and then the guitar adds dissonance. The style is generally very sparse and quiet and focuses on the emotional intensity of a moment rather than the energy of the performers. The lyrics are quite confessional and raw and center around death. The music is really inaccessible; this is probably one of the most difficult Jandek listens at 2 hours long total and with a couple of the most depressing tracks being over 30 minutes long. However, the raw emotion and subtlety evoked from this performance and its uniqueness are undeniable. 8/10
Fort Worth Saturday: Another accessible album with country blues influences (i.e. fiddle and banjo, country-ish lyrics and vocals), pretty similar to Hamman Hall! But it’s a little boring and long. Regardless, gotta love some relatively accessible country Jandek. Some parts are also genuinely hilarious because of Sterling's overly dramatic country-imitating vocals. 7/10
Rudyard’s: Jandek does so many genres on these live albums and we finally get to the Jandek funk rock show! Sterling plays guitar (noisy and weirdly melodic, similar to Houston Thursday) and sings with some band members who play wonky bass and drums with groove and rhythm. The crowd is unbelievably invigorating too - they react to every lyric, the cheering is great, and they even chant to the beat at one point. The CD consists of just one song titled “Two O’Clock Sun” with a few different sections. The lyrics are simple and charming, they’re like a stream of consciousness throughout a narrator’s day. It’s certainly a fun show and I understand all the hype around it. It boils down to the fun Jandek funk song, and it’s not as profound as his best work and it doesn’t try to expand beyond one idea despite being an hour long. Basically, that’s why I’m not calling it a top 10 Jandek album or anything, but I still love it, of course. 8/10
Grinnell Saturday: An instrumental chamber performance with Sterling on piano, plus band members on oboe, violin, and double bass. It’s basically a fully instrumental version of the brilliant Atlanta Saturday. However, this isn’t quite as coherent, with slightly more amateur-sounding instrumentalists. Sometimes they don’t even play in the same key as each other. And it’s a lot more boring, actually, since it’s 2 hours long and there are no lyrics. There are still some pretty sweet melodies here, and you have to love the more accessible Jandek performances. 7/10
Amsterdam Saturday: Pretty standard, relatively short noise rock performance with rather poetic lyrics. I guess it’s got pretty good bass too. A few fantastic highlights like the first song, but it drops off aside from that. 6.5/10
Aarhus Sunday: I finished all the previous Jandek albums a month ago and I waited the entire month for someone to upload his 2 most recent albums to the Internet so I could finally finish the whole Corwood discography and…!!! Well, this isn’t that big of a finale. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s your typical Jandek experimental rock show, with a very slow pace, calm droning vocals, and a long length; the main point of interest is the piano, which is played by two instrumentalists: Sterling Smith and Phil Todd. It’s slightly jazzy especially with the piano and Alex Neilson’s avant-garde drumming. It’s fine and non-offensive but it’s just so extremely skippable. 6.6/10
San Francisco Saturday: 2 hour show with the usual noisy rock style. The most unique part is Tom Carter’s bass, which is highly distorted and loud, making the show sound more like a duet between two guitars. The lyrics here are also pretty depressing and pessimistic. “Stop Hurting Me” was a highlight, the bass there kept a memorable kind of rhythm. But there’s also “Alone”, the most suggestive song I think the man ever wrote. It’s pretty hard to judge such an enormously long show though… I might raise my score if I relisten to it and get a better feel for it, but it’s also unlikely that I’ll do that considering the amount of Jandek live albums to revisit. 7.4/10
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