You're Never Alone With a Cigarette (Volume 1)

With the untimely passing of Charles Gocher, the Sun City Girls came to a too-soon end, but brothers Alan and Richard Bishop, while working on newer projects since, began work on a new archival series of releases to collect the many odds and ends the band created over its nearly quarter-century of existence. You're Never Alone with a Cigarette, taking its name from a 1989 single, starts the series with nine songs from that late-'80s period, nearly all of which were done during recording sessions for Torch of the Mystics. If anything the passage of time shows how their initially idiosyncratic vision has become an accepted way forward for many bands since -- the mix of free musical improvisation and varying musical traditions as filtered through rock instrumentation sounds thrilling still. Both sides of the title-providing single anchor either end of the disc, "100 Pounds of Black Olives" providing an inspiring start with Richard Bishop's fluid guitar work, while "The Fine-Tuned Machines of Lemuria," in a newly restored 12-minute edit, ends the collection on a flourish. Other selections range from "Plaster Cupids Falling from the Ceiling," which mixes choppy, strong sections which could have been on some Factory Records releases circa 1981 with suddenly surging, exultant freakouts, to the less-than-a-minute long "Harmful Little Armful (For Will Shatter)," a softly shuffling late-night-barfly Gocher composition about the Flipper bassist who died of an overdose. Three outright rarities fill out the disc, all being covers or reinterpretations having never been previously released -- a great version of "Sev Acher," a composition by a kindred mix and match musical spirit, big-band jazz leader Artie Barsamian, an equally inspired take on Gerhard Trede's end theme music for the TV show The Wild World of Animals, low-key and swinging and instantly memorable to anyone who ever saw the show, and an interpretation of a traditional song, "Amazon One." ~ Ned Raggett