¥ Fig. 5 (ATP/Recordings)

¥ Liberation (ATP/Recordings)

Somewhere around 2003, the Brits really began to prick up their ears to ragtag psychedelic collectives like No-Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand of the Man, and Portland, Ore.'s Jackie-O Motherfucker. The London mag the Wire dubbed the scene "New Weird America" – a descriptor that failed to recognize that the community of American musicians wasn't all that new, necessarily. In fact, JOMF had been playing with shaman-folk magick for close to 10 years at that point and had already released their fourth and seventh opuses, Fig. 5 and Liberation, in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

Centered on the improvisational folk noodlings of Tom Greenwood, Nester Bucket, and Jef Brown, the Jackie-O Motherfucker collective (which began as just a duo) took on new players with each new recording. Their early records could be as tiny and intricate as they were brash and sprawling. But the pair reissued here by ATP/Recordings, a sidecar label for the finely curated All Tomorrow's Parties festivals, catches the group at their most accessible. Generally, they shy away from typically atypical experimentalism that sounds as easily made by outsider folkies as it would by Mills grads. Traditional song structures emerge, and the down-homey, dark prairie ballads "Go Down, Old Hannah" and "Beautiful September (We Are Going There)," both on Fig. 5, are almost like sweet treats of pop recognition.

Randomness still plays heavily on the JOMF style, but they don't make a habit of haphazardly poking and prodding at things for art's sake. Instead, Fig. 5 and Liberation skillfully tease out the threads of Old Weird America's past – Oliveros, Fahey, and Reich among them – and find a contemporary place for them. (Ken Taylor)