Thanks for posting that Jeff Cotton interview, ehname. I dipped into the first 10 mins and hope to listen to it all later, as the guitar work of Antenae Jimmy Semens is one of my favourite elements of those early Beefheart albums.
To answer your question about
Unconditionally Guaranteed: for me, it was a big disappointment when I bought it, but I did grow to have some affection for about half the tracks:
New Electric Ride and
Lazy Music in particular. Bottom line for me is that UG could've been a decent album if they could've swapped some of the weaker tracks with the even more limited best bits of
Bluejeans&Moonbeams.
I used to have Mallard's self-titled, but never played it much:
Winged Tuskadero was pretty good but the other tracks suffered from the absence of the Captain, imo. Even the guitar instrumentals seemed to be toned down from the intensity I was hoping for after those
TMR ones. As for
In a Different Climate , I haven't heard it yet, but might give it a go on your rec.
As for Mu, it was Anteater who introduced me to them when I was a humble newbie here. Perhaps you'll be interested in this old discussion thread, ehname:-
https://www.musicbanter.com/prog-psy...mu-1971-a.html