Hazel

Hazel
Studio album by The Red Krayola
Released	December 10, 1996
Recorded
Studio
Label	Drag City
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Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"I'm So Blasé"	2:31
2.	"Duck & Cover"	1:53
3.	"Duke of Newcastle"	4:14
4.	"Decaf the Planet"	2:12
5.	"GAO"	3:21
6.	"Larking"	3:31
7.	"Jimmy Two Bad"	3:38
8.	"Falls"	4:56
9.	"We Feel Fine"	2:49
10.	"5123881"	2:34
11.	"Hollywood"	1:14
12.	"Another Song, Another Satan"	3:01
13.	"Boogie"	3:58
14.	"Dad"	3:36
15.	"Father Abraham"	4:14
16.	"Serenade"	3:28

Background

• Hazel was the Red Krayola's second full-length album with Drag City.
• It was proceeded by their 1995 EP Amor and Language and 1996 single Chemistry.
• In 1996 the group also recorded the soundtrack Japan in Paris in L.A.
• The album is named after Mayo Thompson's mother.

Press kit

• 
  Hazel press kit

Personnel

Like many Red Krayola releases from the 1990s, the credits are listed only alphabetically on the album.

Performers/writers

Michael Baldwin (lyrics?), Werner Büttner (lyrics?), David Grubbs (guitar, piano?), George Hurley (drums?), John McEntire (drums?), Lynn Johnston (vocals, bass clarinet?), Albert Oehlen (drum machine, electronics?), Jim O'Rourke (electronics, guitar, bass?), Stephen Prina (keyboard?), Elisa Randazzo (vocals?), Mary Lass Stewart (vocals?), Mayo Thompson (writing, vocals, guitar?), Tom Watson (guitar?)

Cover art

The photo on the cover is by Cambodian-American artist Khiang Hei. He took it in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square student protests in Beijing.

The packaging design is by Christopher Williams.

• 
  Supporting Patriotic Students, 1989

Retrospectives

Mayo Thompson, 1997

"We do lots of mail correspondence," he says of his standard method of music by accumulation. "Albert [Oehlen] has a studio in Europe he uses and we send tapes back and forth. We seldom work in the same room, but I accept the conditions as I can. When I was 20 and had a band, we could hang out all day and it would be fun to hang out and play all together at once, but we're all working artists with other agendas as well." So, Thompson writes the lyrics and lays down the basic tracks and then ships them off to his collaborators and waits to hear the results, in what he calls an "additive process," where, as long as he doesn't hear something he "just absolutely cannot stand," he keeps his mouth shut and makes editorial decisions.

Mary Lass Stewart, 1996

Nobody who wanted to exert full control over everything would send tapes around to other people in the band and say, ‘We need some guitar parts. Put stuff down over what's done thus far.' So the work's collaborative in a very thorough sense. Part of the point of Mayo collaborating with so many different people over the years seems to be that he WANTS to be affected by them. It's very brave, I think.

Reviews

Aiding & Abetting

November 18, 1996

Somewhere, Mayo Thompson is the epitome of cheesy pop. Just not in this universe.

This is the latest installment of Thompson's well off-kilter pop sensibilities, as realized with a plethora of friends. The best known, most likely, is Jim O'Rourke, though the names Tom Watson and Lynn Johnston also jump out (though I doubt the golfer and cartoonist, respectively, are the persons involved).

The thing about the Red Krayola (and Thompson's other work) I like the best is that with a subtle shift, this stuff would be slopped up by the Counting Crowes set. Now, I didn't just compare Hazel to such dreck, but I'm just saying a genius can do wonders with subtlety. And certainly Mayo Thompson qualifies there.

Now, I could compare this easily to Roky Erickson, though Thompson generally sticks to more acoustic and sparse arrangements. The concept of mordant psychedelia, though, is a common thread. Indeed, to fully appreciate this music, you really have to separate yourself from this particular plane and reach out toward the sound. This doesn't require drugs (self-hypnosis works much better), but I suppose they wouldn't necessarily hurt.

Hell, the stuff sounds pretty damned amazing even if you're just passively listening. Of course, this is participatory music and the muse demands no less from you, the listener. Hear and obey, O minions of music.

Entertainment Weekly

December 13, 1996

Rob Brunner

Thirty years into a career as a professional weirdo, the Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson has settled into a sort of surrealist lite rock that's far stranger than the noise that usually passes for psychedelia. In Hazel, he mixes gentle guitar; flat, Lou Reed-style vocals; and an assortment of unusual instruments into a blend of familiar elements that seem to have been put together all wrong. In Thompson's hands, though, it all sounds oddly right. A-

Austin Chronicle

December 27, 1996

Greg Beets

Unlike too many of his Sixties brethren, Mayo Thompson of the Red Krayola continues to re-invent his already-singular vision at every step. From the heady Parable of Arable Land days in Houston through his work with Pere Ubu in the early Eighties to his elusive-but-formidable presence on today's Chicago avant music scene, Thompson has always strayed far to the left of convention, finding hidden beauty in the seemingly incongruent. This time out, he enlists the help of debtors such as Gastr Del Sol guitarist David Grubbs and Minutemen/fIREHOSE drummer George Hurley to herd the Krayola's traditional free-form freak-out atmosphere into the form of actual songs in some cases. Although a lot of Hazel is presented in a cut-and-paste carnival of strange narratives, short bursts of guitar/synthesizer, and bold U-turns galore, songs like "I'm So Blasé" and "Larking" capture the same infinite pop energy Chris Bell once reigned in. Makes sense, actually, since a primary tenet of free-form is to throw boundaries out with the bathwater. Thompson refuses to let little inconveniences like time and space get in his way. As a result, his music retains the same obscure vitality it had 20 years ago. 3.0 stars

Phoenix

January 16, 1997

Roni Sarig

Formed out of the late-'60s Texas psychedelic scene that spawned other cult obscurities like the 13th Floor Elevators, the Red Krayola made a bunch of increasingly abstract records in 1966 and '67. Then they all but disappeared until the late '70s, when sole remaining member Mayo Thompson resurfaced in England with a new generation of dada skronkers, including members of Pere Ubu, Swell Maps, and X-Ray Spex. For Hazel, as for other recent recordings in the current RK resurgence (two albums, an EP, and a couple of singles since 1994), Thompson hooks up with Chicago avant-rock scenesters John McEntire (Tortoise) and Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs (both of Gastr del Sol), among others. The entire cast (15 in all) produce what could be Thompson's most successful amalgamation of melody, rhythm, and experimentation yet. Where past RK outings have been jagged and opaque, Hazel emphasizes accessible ("I'm So Blasé") over impenetrable ("Boogie"). Angular and dissonant are still well represented, but so are pastoral, rocking, and even funky. Tracks like "Another Song, Another Satan" shift easily between free-form abstraction and well-crafted tunefulness; they're thoroughly listenable without sacrificing complexity.

Eye

February 20, 1997

B.F. "Mole" Mowat

The sponsors of this, the 13th entry in the Mayo Thompson/Red Krayola catalog, are arguing that said catalog should be recognized right up there with the Velvet Underground. And while that's a really noble intention n'all, it won't happen (at least in this century), despite the debt the growing ranks of moderne outré-types owe to father Mayo. Think of Pere Ubu, Swell Maps, Essential Logic and The Raincoats -- all of which had the opportunity to work with Mayo -- and then think of what they in turn inspired. The phrase "small but mighty" comes to mind. "Small," as in the relative physical size of their combined audience. "Mighty," as in terms of mental capacity.

Having said that, this is a really nice album, chock-full of those low-key song gems played with those trademark gravity-defying techniques (derived from but not dictated by jazz, rock, blues and folk forms) that you'd expect from RK & Co. (who, on this album, consist of Chicago's finest "ooters"). That in itself would make it "worthwhile," but there's a wonderful sense of non-affected humanism tempering the proceedings in a fuzzy-warm way. As a result, I can slip into this repeatedly and comfortably .

Thing is, Lou Reed -- while not being the brightest of individuals these days -- was right when he said that "anybody could play the songs" on the first VU & Nico LP. You couldn't say the same about the material here -- any attempts at linear reproduction or interpretation by most musicians would be sorely confounded by the non-rote dynamic/forms used. It's music played with a universe-sized scope, rather than universal music per se. That's not meant as a criticism, either. Like the best of Mayo/RK's work, repeated listenings lead to repeated listenings as the 5,000 layers of the onion unravel in all directions. It takes highly trained individuals to do that and not sound like post-grad bores.

Addict

1997

Gil Kaufman

[...] The latest collection of Thompson's exploding plastic inevitable, entitled Hazel (Drag City), again teams him with younger peers like Gastr Del Sol members David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke, as well as Tortoise's John McEntire, in addition to former Minutemen drummer George Hurley, Slovenly members Tom Watson and Lynn Johnston, violinist Elisa Randazzo and old friends like German painters Werner Büttner and Albert Oehlen, photographer Hei Han Khiang, visual artists/composers Stephen Prina and Christopher Williams and English teacher Mary Lass Stewart. If the list seems terribly eclectic and skewed more towards the visual arts, that's the way Thompson likes it. [...]

[...] The collection starts off with the fairly innocuous cut, "I'm So Blasé," a mellow funk tune that's almost perversely straightforward and catchy, only to downshift into "Duck & Cover," a disjointed acoustic frizzle on which Stewart and Johnston recite frantic poetry-like streams of consciousness over zigzagging acoustic guitars.

"I've never strained to make specific visions in my songs, but there is a certain picture aspect to song space," says Thompson, explaining why a song like the scattered-jazz of "Jimmy Two Bad" sounds like an image you can just make out in your head. [...]

Thompson says he's learned well a lesson from avant garde composer John Cage, who, when asked once why he didn't close a window to minimize the interference from some pigeons on the ledge, took pains to explain that they were part of the sound picture he was creating. That kitchen sink philosophy comes to life on songs like "GAO," a maddening cauldron of cash register sounds, dueling guitar feedback and electronic pings that sounds like a one-man band tuning up, yet still retains enough of a semblance of unity that you can hear each instrument breaking through the clouds at some point and hogging the spotlight, if only for a few seconds.

"I haven't set out to assault the audience," Thompson replies to a charge that songs like the noise collage "Boogie" and the creepy teen sex and drugs tale "Larking" are purposely obtuse and off-putting. "There's a certain amount of consideration taken into account of what reactions people might have when listening to our albums. The aim is always to make popular music. Sometimes accessibility is honored in the breach and sometimes it's straight out honored. The inaccessibility or accessibility is based on me wanting to hear a certain tone." Thompson admits to not knowing how those people with their "finger on the public pulse" do it, how they know what collection of sounds and words will trip the public's wire. "I exist in that same time and space, but I'm somehow out of it also. What we present is not a homogeneous set of tunes, but a variety. We're not trying to put rough and ready messages into packages," he says. [...]

Rolling Stone

February 27, 1997

Elisabeth Vincentelli

Melody Maker

Ben Myers

Alternative Press

March 1997

Rocktober

Winter 1997

Alphabetically, Mayo Thompson may be the 13th contributor listed, but he's #1 in our book! Much richer and diverse than the last Crayon-Rock release with a couple of real barnburners in the mix! Sounds like an updated Hatfield and The North.

AllMusic

Richie Unterberger

Mayo Thompson has expressed bemusement at the constant categorization of his work as "quirky." Hazel, however, will do nothing to stem the tide of that adjective showing up in reviews such as this one. The Red Krayola do not seem interested nearly as much in connecting disparate styles as jumbling them. So you'll hear a languid, Lou Reedish drone segue into a John Faheyish guitar pattern backed by weird female vocals, and then a light reggaeish thing about Christian soldiers marching onward. The lyrics are not constructed to make a point, but to reflect the rhythm and fragmented patterns of everyday thought and conversation. It's interesting, but too nonchalantly strange to evoke a passionate response.