Album Notes

Formed in 1983, the confusingly eclectic New Music group Headless Household has just released its fifth album: mockhausen is a collection of outtakes, improvisation, and other artful noises, and is the least “commercial” one yet. From a motley range of sources, both live and studio-bound, structurally free and…well, slightly less free, a strange continuity emerges. One could even call it psycho-meditative.

The discography: Headless Household (1987), Inside/Outside USA (1993), Items (1996), and Free Associations (1999), mockhausen (2000), all released on Household Ink Records. The group: Dick Dunlap, plugged and unplugged keyboards, Tom Lackner, percussions, Chris Symer, basses, Joe Woodard, guitars and turntables. Guests kindly join in, too. On several tracks, including the great New York-based alto saxist Dave Binney contributes his more-than-two-cents worth, attitudinal trumpeter Jeff Kaiser can be heard on “Skippy Elvin,” and Ellen Turner offers her luminous pipes to the concluding ballad, “Wintry (Invention).”

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Mockhausen is everything Headless Household's previous album, Free Associations, was not. The latter was the band's most commercial release in 15 years of existence, but as the pendulum coming back only to go farther in the other direction, Mockhausen is a lot more experimental than any of their first five albums, something expressed in the title itself, a play of words on the name of Karlhein Stockhausen.
Mockhausen is anything but song oriented. Mostly made of collages, this material comes from outtakes, live recordings, found sounds, and free improvisations involving all members of the band and a few selected guests (longtime friends Jeff Kaiser and Dave Binney). This is a big change from the song-oriented, almost entirely Joe Woodard-penned Free Associations, best epitomized by the guitarist's new interest in turntables. Sounds collide and song excerpts overlap in a collage frenzy. Surprise and deconstruction are the two main concepts used, but the listener still has a few moments to rest his ears, like on Dunlap's beautiful piano solo "Elvin" or the jazz ballad closing the album. This is Headless Household at their most adventurous and their best. — François Couture, All-Music Guide