Peter Brötzmann tenor saxophone
Evan Parker tenor saxophone
Derek Bailey guitar
Fred Van Hove piano
Buschi Niebergall bass
Han Bennink drums
Recorded April 18, 1969 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg (Track 1)and April 24, 1969 at Rhenus Studio, Godorf (Track 2)
Engineers: Kurt Rapp (Track 1) and Conny Plank (Track 2)
Cover design: Peter Brötzmann
Produced by Manfred Eicher + Jazz By Post

To my knowledge, Nipples is the only album produced by Manfred Eicher to not appear on the ECM label. This curious throwback was recorded in April of 1969, months before ECM’s first proper release would go down that same year in the famed Tonstudio Bauer, which yields the first track here. Of that track, which gives this album its name, we are given no warning, jumping instead into a blazing cacophony of sound. Even though it feels like waking up out of a coma in the middle of Shinjuku crossing, a bizarre sense of comfort begins to emerge the more one basks in its unrelenting glow. The one-two punch of Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker on tenor saxophones bleeds on the proverbial page across which guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist Fred Van Hove, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and drummer Han Bennink add all sorts of diacritics, punctuation, and editorial asides. The result is like the chaos of peer review controlled in a single moving portrait wherein the listener’s visage gets split like Michelle Yeoh’s in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Despite (if not because of) this whirlwind approach, moments for solos abound, such as Van Hove’s flight of fancy about six minutes in. Against aggressive bowing and frontline drum work, his pianism kicks us in the shins and leaves us crawling for more. To that fray, Brötzmann and Bailey add uncompromising grit, all the while building up the ensemble to an ascorbic cohesion. A fantastic arco spasm from Niebergall in the third act yields equally favorable outcomes in this chameleonic chain reaction. All of this ends in a congregation of tails, each wispier and more meteoric than the last.

For the B-side, “Tell A Green Man” sheds Parker and Bailey to no less engaging effect. While the preamble from the rhythm section provides anything but discernible rhythm, its foundational qualities provide plenty of clay for Brötzmann and Van Hove to mold to their whim. Indeed, whim is the name of the game as irreverence ensues, dividing its equation until it bursts with the desire for recalibration. Niebergall’s scraping rears its tactile head for the listener to run a comb through, while Brötzmann gives himself over to less subtle temptations of vivacity.

Nipples first appeared on the Calig Records (Munich) in 1969 and was remastered by John McCortney in February 2000 at AirWave Studios (Chicago) for Atavistic. Three years later, Atavistic released a follow-up with outtakes from the same studio sessions. The result, called—what else?—More Nipples, offers up three tracks of invigorating mayhem. The title track gives up its ghost from the first moment, tracing its ephemeral paths with more delicate abandon. Despite a few ebb tides here and there, it focuses more on the inner than the outer. “Fiddle Faddle” is a reedy wonder dragged kicking and screaming through the fires of Niebergall and Bennink and may be my favorite of the collection for its control of free spirit. Finally, we have “Fat Man Walks,” which concedes to a groovier blues aesthetic, gut-wrenching and sincere in its devolvement into atonalism.

A much-needed call to attention in these dark times.