Oh, the woeful lot of the Captain Beefheart fanatic! He gets foisted upon him all manner of shoddily assembled product, recordings that seem hell-bent on frustrating even minimal expectations of common courtesy much less professionalism. Ah, but then there’s the music and, dammit, that usually renders all objections moot.

Dichotomy contains 23 tracks, apparently ranging in date from 1966 to the late 70s, culled from any number of sources including various bootlegs and studio tapes. They’re thrown together like so many salad greens with no regard for chronology or sound quality (the latter varying wildly). No dates or personnel are supplied and the titles of several pieces appear to be made up from whole cloth. It’s exactly the sort of crappy production that makes the urge to immediately and violently trash the disc difficult to overcome. However ... there’s the damn music.

And the music’s really pretty good. There’s a wonderful alternate take of “Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish” as well as an instrumental tracks of “Ella Guru,” “Hair Pie,” “Frownland” and “Sugar ‘n’ Spikes.” Don Van Vliet’s harmonica is featured to excellent effect on several raw and bluesy pieces and there’s a rather hilariously and psychedelically phased version of “Moody Liz” that alone is just about worth the price of the disc. Depending on which portion of the band’s career finds the listener’s favor, there’s pretty much something for everyone. I find the pieces derived from the “Bat Chain Puller” epoch a wee bit clunky though by no means unlistenable. But the “Trout Mask Replica” outtakes crackle with nearly the spark of the original and that makes this potluck kettle deserving of a mandatory taste.

Beefheart geeks (of which sect I don’t consider myself a member, despite considering Trout Mask and Lick My Decals Off, Baby to be two of the very finest rock albums ever created) may well already have much of this material on assorted cassettes and boots from years past. For the rest of us, Dichotomy is well worth the holding of a nose and the dip into the wallet. As Van Vliet and a bassist (Morton? Who knows? Arggh, how aggravating!!), chug into the desert bellerin’ “Sun Zoom Spark,” we can brush aside all the detritus and just say, “Thanks.”