The Fall - the Infotainment Scan

More Fall for your listening pleasure.

Mark E

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Hymnen

For Felix. My favorite KS work and one of the most important musical constructions of the 20th century. More info about it here.

Pluramon

Red Krayola - Singles 1968-2002

Hail Mayo Thompson, Texan Psychonaut and founder of The Red Crayola/Krayola.

"The Red Crayola were one of the greatest psychedelic bands of the 1960s and probably of all times. They played extremely wild and cacophonous music that was decades ahead of its time. They predated Germany's expressionistic rock (Faust) and the American new wave (Pere Ubu). Their "freak outs" were closer to John Coltrane's free-jazz and to Jackson Pollock's abstract paintings than to rock and roll. Their leader, Mayo Thompson, is a composer who ranks among the greatest living musicians (classical, jazz, rock). His revolutionary compositional style had few stable coordinates. His pieces float not because they are ethereal but because melody and rhythm are left "loose". They are organisms that rely on supporting skeletons that are falling apart as they move. Thompson placed his art firmly in the iconoclastic tradition that Frank Zappa had just founded, and simply increased the amount and the speed of noise. Parable Of Arable Land (1967) is one of the milestones of rock music, a carousel of savage harmonic inventions/sabotages. God Bless (1968) was even closer (in spirit if not in sound) to the likes of Edgar Varese and John Cage. It is not a coincidence that Thompson was rediscovered by the new wave ten years later: his Soldier Talk (1979) could have well been the album of the Pere Ubu (the band he eventually joined). As of 1997, none of the major encyclopedias and histories of rock music published in Anglosaxon countries mentioned them. " - Scaruffi

Yik Yak

Cortijo & His Time Machine - Cortijo Y Su Máquina Del Tiempo (1974)

Legendary album where the master Rafael Cortijo leads a killer group that mixes Latin jazz, salsa, and 70's soul instrumentation. Fresh, tight and groovy as fuck! Prepare to get schooled by the master!

baila y goza!

Albert Ayler - Love Cry

"Of all the protagonists of free jazz, Ohio-born tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler (1936) had the shortest career (he first recorded in 1962 and committed suicide in 1970 at 34), but he nonetheless managed to articulate one of the most radical aesthetics, second only to Cecil Taylor's. He often sounded like someone who wanted to create a virtuoso art out of anti-virtuoso playing. Ayler started out playing rhythm'n'blues. By the time he landed in New York, he had developed his idiosyncratic style (notably via an unrecorded European experience with Cecil Taylor in 1962). A quartet with trumpeter Norman Howard, drummer Sunny Murray and bassist Henry Grimes recorded Spirits/ Witches and Devils (february 1964), that contains four lengthy pieces: Spirits, the twelve-minute Witches and Devils, the eleven-minute Holy Holy and Saints. Each of them sounded like it was coming from a distant past, from a remembered childhood, as it incorporated simple, naive, catchy melodies. The performance was ferocious, though, as if Ayler wanted to contrast innocence and experience, or European order and African disorder. The live Prophecy (june 1964) introduced his trio with double bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, and added Ghosts (his most famous theme), Wizard and Prophecy to his exoteric canon. That trio was responsible for one of the most revolutionary recordings of the era, Spiritual Unity (july 1964), the (brief) album that made it explicit how Ayler was not interested in creating music out of notes but out of timbres, how his music was not a harmonic construction but a "soundscape". These new versions of Ghosts, Spirits and Wizard were delivered according to an apparently demented logic that mixed melodies inspired by folk tunes and nursery rhymes with emotional bursts of saxophone noises simulating the human voice. Murray's percussions (more cymbals than drums) had little to do with keeping the time: they produced a flow of disorienting noises that intersected and amplified Ayler's saxophone noises. By now, Ayler had refined his melodramatic vibrato. The "free" approach permeated the two side-long improvisations of New York Eye And Ear Control (july 1964), AY and ITT, with the trio augmented with trumpeter Don Cherry on cornet, Roswell Rudd on trombone and John Tchicai on alto, although the result was far less tight than on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (1960), proving that Ayler was a different spirit from the free-jazz crowd. The trio and Don Cherry returned to a humbler format with Vibrations/ Ghosts (september 1964), that added Children (actually just a fast variant of Holy Holy), the moving ballad Holy Spirit (with a spectacular Cherry solo), Vibrations and Mothers to the canon, and The Hilversum Session (november 1964), that introduced Angels in a tense mid-tempo version. Donald Ayler replaced Don Cherry for the one-sided LP Bells (may 1965), containing just one 20-minute track (fundamentally a madcap medley of marches and nursery rhymes) also featuring altoist Charles Tyler and bassist Lewis Worrell besides Sunny Murray. Spirits Rejoice (september 1965), particularly its title-track (performed by Donald Ayler, Sunny Murray, altoist Charles Tyler, bassists Henry Grimes and Gary Peacock), marked a transition towards a more religious mood and a regression towards the collective improvisation of New Orleans' brass bands. Spirits Rejoice basically revisited the format of Bells in a more organic and structured way, picking up along the way an impressive amount of debris of musical stereotypes. Holy Ghost (july 1967) documents a live performance with Don Ayler on trumpet, Michel Sampson on violin, Bill Folwell on bass and Milford Graves on drums (particularly Truth Is Marching In/Omega and Our Prayer). Ayler considerably toned down his music on In Greenwich Village (december 1966) and Love Cry (august 1967), that featured Donald Ayler on trumpet, Call Cobbs on harpsichord, Alan Silva on bass and Milford Graves on drums, and eventually returned to his rhythm'n'blues roots. After some kind of hippie-like spiritual crisis, Ayler turned to jazz-rock, soul and funk music, adding lyrics by a vocal singer, notably on Music Is The Healing Force of the Universe (august 1969). By employing a virtually unlimited repertory of tricks and a rich vibrato, Ayler expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone, but, most importantly, he did so while staging a multi-dimensional regression to a simpler age of music (whether the catchy folkish melodies or the military tempos or the collective improvisation of the marching bands). Ayler seemed to fuse the musical background of the pre-industrial society with an impulse towards the expressionistic cacophony of the industrial society. At the same time, his saxophone often seemed to intone shamanic invocations except to derail into frenzied explosions of vitality. Underlying all these contradictions was Ayler's exploration of sound for the sake of sound, that accounted for a completely new idea of music, away from the pillars of harmony, melody and rhythm. That was, ultimately, an exploration of the human psyche. Thus, at several levels of introspection and metaphor, Ayler's art was a mirror of society. Ayler's was the music of the collective unconscious." - Scaruffi

He once said the patch in his goatee was evidence that God had marked him as someone who would change the course of history. He was right.

Love Cry

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Elektronische Musik 1952-1960

It's Stockhausen dammit, nothing more needs to be said. Includes brilliant performances of "Gesang der Jünglinge", "Kontakte" and "Etude".

Teutonic master

The Velvet Underground - Squeeze (1973)

Hmm... The Velvet Underground or Doug Yule? Who's Doug you ask? He's that other guy in Velvet, the one that isn't Lou Reed, John Cale or Nico. Yeah, that one. Well after they broke up he had the gull to release this as a Velvet album, although it only featured him and some recruits. All the rest of em were enjoying flourishing solo career's of their own, poor Doug was left lying in their shadow. He could'nt even crack a record deal, so he stooped to this. He even manages to sing just like Reed, so at least it softens the blow. The song "Dopey Joe" is sung in the tune of "Lonesome Cowboy Bill", "Friends" sounds just like "Stephanie Says", im sure you can make plenty of comparisons of your own. So... in conclusion: if four Velvet Underground albums arent enough for you, delude yourself into hearing this, unbiased if possible. Its actually not bad.

squeeeze that cash cow.

[thanks to Forest Roxx]

The Durutti Column - Vini Reilly

More exquisite offerings from Master Vini and collaborators, released in 1989.

New Link

Various - Tommy Boy Big Blunts Volume 1

More Jamaican shit for my boy Abe, also known as Lionel Messi's personal waterboy. I keed I keed. Anyway, choice cuts from Sugar Minott, Barrington Levy, Wayne Smith, U-Roy and The Mighty Diamonds among others, all of them celebrating-what else?- the glorious herb. Pass that shit up son.

Sensi

Wildlife Blacklist.

this doesnt reflect the opinion of the other collaborators, this is my own personal vendetta.

Animal Collective
Wolf Parade
Wolf Mother
Deerhunter
Panda Bear
Fleet Foxes
Kings of Leon(lion in spanish)

BLACKLISTED!!!

"no but you have to really listen to them" Do I? Im sure I can make due without anymore washed down beach boys.
I refuse to be told what to listen to by Pitchfork and their ilk. I understand how this can be contradictory considering the nature of this blog, but they have interests in mind, while i just have a lot of spare time.

The Embarrassment - Heyday (1979 - 1983)

Call me trite, but whenever i see the words "the best band you never heard of" I am instantly sold.


Reasons for this band being note-worthy:
1.They borrow the name from the novel Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (one of my all-time favorite authors).
2. They shared the stage with none other than Iggy Pop, William S. Burroughs & John Cale.
3. They were one of the original bands in the now seminal record label Sub-Pop.
4. They're rocking the thick rimmed glasses way before it became the norm.
5.They draw influences from all the right places, amongst them: The Feelies, Mission of Burma & Gang of Four.

BAM! SOLD!
This whammy of a double record spans their 4 year career.

still not scurrying to find the download link?

"It's hard to say the Embarrassment were ahead of their time: they were OF their time, as soundly and fundamentally as a band can be."

one & two.

Richard LLoyd - Alchemy (1979)

this isn't earth-shattering but it's a worthy listen for Television fans.

Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez- "Cachaito"

First solo effort from Cachao's son, pushing afro cuban music into unknown and wonderful territories.

"Buena Vista Club mainstay Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, who is widely regarded as the best bassist in Cuba, could have taken the safe route and recorded a straightforward collection of Cuban son/Latin jazz music. The resulting album may have been a bit predictable and mild, but the high level of musicianship would have ensured a quality product, particularly considering the impressive international cast that appears with Cachaito on this album. To their credit, however, Cachaito and his colleagues were willing to take some chances. Some tracks approach a Cuban version of dub music, as Jamaican organist Bigga Morrison's Hammond prods or Cuban surf guitarist Manuel Galban's instrument reverberates while the bottom drops in and out of the mix. French DJ Dee Nasty even scratches on "Cachaito in Laboratory," a partially successful experiment that yields interesting results even though it doesn't quite gel with the rest of the album. At times the tracks seem more like studio jams than fully realized songs, but the album's overall feel -- self-assured, relaxed, warm, even somewhat jocular -- is quite appealing. The musicianship, of course, is impeccable, including the amazing rhythm section of Cachaito, Miguel "Anga" Diaz on congas, Amadiot Valdes on timbales, and Carols Gonzalez on bongos. Other highlights include Ibrahim Ferrer's cameo appearance on "Wahira," the album's only vocal track; the full orchestral string arrangements by Demetrio Muniz and horn arrangements by James Brown saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis; and "Tumbao No. 5 (Para Charlie Mingus)," which was inspired by the Mingus classic "Haitian Fight Song." " - Todd Kristel

Anais

See comments.

Various - King Jammy at the Controls

Well, Abe's been bugging me to post some crazy jamaican dancehall vocalese shit lately, so I comply, starting with this awesome collection of Jammy's best and most notorious 80's productions, when he transformed from Prince to King. Includes amazing cuts from Shabba Ranks, Junior Reid, Nicodemus, Admiral Bailey, Nitty Gritty, the immortal "Serious Time" featuring Admiral Tibet, Ninjaman and Shabba, and the riddim that forever transformed the Jamaican musical landscape, "Under Mi Sleng Teng" with Wayne Smith. Essential stuff. More JA shit to follow.

Sleng Teng

The Happy Mondays.

"Along with the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays were the leaders of the late-'80s/early-'90s dance club-influenced Manchester scene, experiencing a brief moment in the spotlight before collapsing in 1992. While the Stone Roses were based in '60s pop, adding only a slight hint of dance music, Happy Mondays immersed themselves in the club and rave culture, eventually becoming the most recognizable band of that drug-fueled scene. The Mondays' music relied heavily on the sound and rhythm of house music, spiked with '70s soul licks and swirling '60s psychedelia. It was bright, colorful music that had fractured melodies that never quite gelled into cohesive songs."[AMG]

Continuing with my Madchester binge, here's two of the finer Happy Mondays outlets:

Bummed (1988)

Pills 'n' Thrills & Bellyaches (1990)

DJ/Rupture - Uproot

Sandunga already posted the excellent Nettle album, here's DJ/Rupture's mix from last year that was one of my favorite records of 08'. 

Rupture's mixes always have this unique cohesion to them. Drawing from a pool of worldwide artists these songs from varied genres and moods blend together perfectly going by with an almost dreamlike flow. The album feels like a journey from beginning to end which isn't very common amongst mix albums.

"Uproot oozes self confidence, with effortless mixing of disparate source material. The hour-long record does not seem to run nearly this long, due to the economy of ideas and excellent pacing. Dancehall bangers flirt with chamber music, Nigerian folk and Moroccan hip-hop, eventually decaying into an extended suite of near beatless ambient post-rock. The closing tracks recall Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a striking contrast with the first half of the record’s wobbling low-end bass and dub. It’s an exquisite way to cool off a mix. Uproot is an accomplished release from one of New York’s finest DJs, one that deftly illustrates his transition from showy wunderkind to an elder statesman of forward-thinking mixology."

Get it

Factory - From Joy Division to Happy Mondays (the history of the manchester scene)

A Certain Ratio - The Old & The New

A collection of singles and key tracks from these Manchester madmen. Essential post-punk for the kids.





SHACK UP!

Dezarie - Eaze The Pain

Material to get pumped up for the show. Dezarie is gonna play in our island January 24, 2009.
I`m gonna be spending my birthday listening to this incredible voice and one hell of a backup band. Latest production from the rastafari empress from the island of St. Croix, Dezarie. She has a voice that resonates through your whole body while the backing Midnite band makes a great foundation of sound.

What ah lady.

Supersilent - 1

Supersilent are:

Helge Sten (electronics, guitars, keyboards)

Ståle Storløkken (keyboards, synth, electronics)

Jarle Vespestad (drums)

Arve Henriksen (trumpet, voice, drums, electronics)

Cream of the crop of Scandinavian jazz and avant garde scenes, Supersilent play an incredibly energetic mixture of free improvisation with fearsome sound processing and inner ear-burning analog circuitry dead in the center.

"In the course of these long improvisations (each disc contains a track at least 25 minutes long and many others reach 15 minutes), the group moves through countless moods, drawing from ecstatic jazz, avant rock, noise, and electro-acoustics to produce captivating music that pushes far into experimentation and yet remains immediate, even at times accessible." - François Couture

This is the first album of the initial trilogy.

Audio Virus

Nettle - Build A Fort, Set That On Fire

Nettle are (or were) DJ/Rupture, DD, Jenny Jones, and Abdel Hak.

"As the opportunities for collage recordings become more and more detailed and intricate, artists like DD and DJ Rupture, who make up Nettle, are in a prime position to create collaged beatscapes the likes of which just weren't possible ten years ago. Digesting a wide range of music between them, Nettle bares the marks of two love affairs with sound. Each of the group's members bring with them a large record collection, which has been sampled and laid out into free flowing cut-ups. There's eastern and "world" influences, gabba kick drums, dancehall grooves, one off hip-hop vocal lines, processed drum n bass grooves and seemingly countless other reference points that map out this duo's artistic background. The end result of this collision of sound objects is hard to summarise. Like the artwork on this disc lifted from Goin's "Nuclear Landscapes", this record is the aftermath of a musical explosion. It;s the remnant soundscapes that exist post a studio fallout. They're alien and sometimes eerily unfamiliar, but there's a character to them that's truly unique and fascinating." - Lawrence English

Minesweeper Dub

Nico - The Marble Index

You can't hype this, son. Just download and listen. Intently.

Memento Hodie

Have A Nice Life - Deathconciousness

Deathconsciousness is a 5 year long labor of love from Connecticut duo Have A Nice Life. This is a shoegaze masterpiece, hailed by many as one of the best releases of 2008. This is one of those epic albums that has to be experienced in its entirety, originally released as a double album and included a 75 page booklet which Ive yet to see(if you find it let me know) the budget was a thousand bucks which included recording plus packaging, an incredible feat if you consider the time it took and the grandeur of the material.
The album's cover art features Jacques-Louis David's infamous portrait: The Death of Marat. A very strong statement considering the history of said painting. The music features droning bass lines, screeching goth-tuned guitars and catatonic beats which really steal the show. Their influences vary from Swans to My Bloody Valentine to Joy Division amongst other masters.
Just try not moving with the beat of "Bloodhail"'s chorus line or getting the hair's in your arm to stick up halfway through "Earthmover"

Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000

Savage Republic - Customs

"One of the most original bands to come out of Los Angeles during those fervent years was Savage Republic, led by guitarist Bruce Licher. Tragic Figures (1982) introduced a psychedelic and industrial music that was mostly instrumental and percussive, inducing trance and fear. The EP Trudge (1985) incorporated more explicitly elements of world-music. The atmospheric Ceremonial (1985) and Jamahiriya (1988), featuring new member Brad Laner, perfected their synthesis of psychedelic drones, middle-eastern cantillation and tribal rhythms. By the time of Customs (1989), their last album and their masterpiece, they had coined a musical language of extreme tension, instrumental subtlety and exotic appeal. "- Scaruffi

Throbbing Gristle, Glenn Branca, oil drums on fire, tribal percussion, situationist chants, monotoned guitars, two bass drone, next to nothing...

Rapeman's First EP

Alejandro Jodorowsky - El Topo Soundtrack

Original soundtrack to Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist western "El Topo". It was entirely composed by Jodorowsky himself and it perfectly reflects the mood of the film. If you watch it you'll know why.

Note: This is not the Shades of Joy release "Music of El Topo", this was the actual soundtrack later released by Apple on John Lennon's suggestion.

Later I'll put up the "Holy Mountain" soundtrack which features the demented Don Cherry.

Hell of Prostituted Angels

Keith Hudson - Pick a Dub

Seminal album by "The Dark Prince of Reggae". It's one of the first dub albums ever released and it features the incredible rhythm section of Aston "Family Man" Barrett and Carlton Barrett from The Wailers. Augustus Pablo also plays on a few tracks and it has cut up vocals by the likes of Horace Andy of Massive Attack fame.

"The late Keith Hudson's 1976 Pick A Dub was one of the first dub albums. Stuttering melodica, squelching keyboard and guitar chops and a mix which dropped instruments in and out of the sound picture every few bars made this one a must-have." -The Wire-

Michael Talbot Affair

Los Nikis - Los Nikis 1981-1989

This is not the original artwork for this album!

One of my very favorite Spanish bands along with Siniestro Total and Eskorbuto. They are just plain fun and put me in a great mood!

"Los Nikis ("The polo shirts") were a Spanish pop-punk group of the 1980s that were associated with la Movida. They were nicknamed "The Ramones from Algete" with songs that feature very simple music and humorous lyrics and subject matter. Some of the more famous song titles, for example, are: Mi chica se ha ido a Katmandu ("My girl left to Kathmandu"), Navidades en Siberia("Christmas in Siberia"), Olaf el Vikingo and Medicina nuclear.
Their cover of Born to Be Alive consisted of just repeating "Me voy a Benidorm" ("I go to Benidorm!"). They also covered Rhythm of the Rain (originally by The Cascades) as "No vuelvo a ir a Benidorm" ("I won't go to Benidorm again") with lyrics criticizing mass tourism in this Spanish coastal city. The local administration declared them personae non gratae."

El Imperio Contraataca

Small Faces - Small Faces (1966)

This one's for Fishscale.

"Small Faces were an influential British mod/psychedelic band of the 1960s, led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane with Kenney Jones and Ian Maclagan (who replaced original organist Jimmy Winston). The Small Faces were all genuine East End mods and they ranked second to The Who as Britain’s premier Mod band."

"The best English band never to make it big in America."

Shake

Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters - Super Ape

You heard the most recent stuff from the Jamaican Madman, now hear him in his absolute prime, blasting off new soundworlds through the valves of his humid, interzonal Black Ark.

Creation

Ron Asheton of Stooges infamy dead at 60.

"Ron Asheton, guitarist and founding member of the Stooges, was reportedly found dead at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan this morning. He was 60. Official cause of death has not yet been announced but initial indications suggest Asheton had a heart attack. Police entered Asheton’s home and discovered his body on a couch after his personal assistant was unable to reach the rocker for days. Detective Bill Stanford told Michigan Live it appeared Asheton passed away several days ago.

As the guitarist for the Stooges, Asheton crafted some of rock’s most memorable riffs, including “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “No Fun” and “TV Eye.” Guitarist Asheton, along with his brother Scott, Iggy Pop and original bassist Dave Alexander formed the Stooges in Detroit in 1967. The original lineup released two albums, The Stooges and Fun House, before Ron Asheton shifted over to bass guitar for 1973’s Raw Power. All three LPs made Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, ranking at Number 185, 191 and 125 respectively. Asheton was also Number 29 on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

After the Stooges initially split, Asheton went on to play with the New Order (not the U.K. one), Destroy All Monsters, New Race and the Wylde Ratttz, a supergroup featuring Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis and Mike Watt,[i have got to hear that!!!] who would eventually become Asheton’s bandmate when the Stooges reunited in 2003." -Rolling Stone

The Del-Byzanteens - Lies to live by. (1982)

Super awesome NYC post-punk, featuring acclaimed film director Jim Jarmusch on vocals and keyboards no less. This is cream of the crop, new york elite in full effect. Their stuff is all out of print, thanks to Nachete from Commercial Zone for always being ahead of the curve. Their myspace has some stellar tracks as well.

If you're still skeptical check them out live, featuring John Lurie (Lounge Lizards, Down By Law) on sax.


"At that time everyone in New York had a band," Jarmusch recalls. "The idea was that you didn't have to be a virtuoso musician to have a band. The spirit was more important than having technical expertise, and that influenced a lot of filmmakers."

If I only had one life, let me live it as a lie.

Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo

One of my favorite hip hop albums in recent years. Spank Rock bust out the party rap (influenced heavily by Baltimore club music) in full effect all while maintaining an underground vibe as well. Naeem Juwan's lyrics are hilarious and ironically raunchy mainly inspired by 2 Live Crew (ex. the chorus of "Coke & wet, bitch, guns, nigga, holla!" on the appropriately titled "Coke & Wet") while XXXChange's production is one of the true highlights of the record. The classically trained producer throws out some incredibly clever beats that never sound repetitive or cliched. Easily one of the best producers right now. Check out their live show as well if you want to have a good time.

Ass-shaking competition champ

Sun Ra - Space Is The Place (1974)

"Why doesn't the earth fall? How can you walk upon it? Its the music...its the music of the earth, of the sun, of the stars, the music of yourself, vibrating... yes, you're music too. You're all instruments, everyone's supposed to be playing their part, in this vast orchestra of the cosmos."

Is it just me?

talking heads - the great curve


supergrass - kiss of life

Demon's Claws - S/T

Lo-fi, garage rock n roll from Montreal, CA. Good, simple, grimmy, boozey, this is what teenagers with no aspirations or dreams to "make it big" other than the next dead end bar would sound like.

Get it

Dusk + Blackdown - Margins Music

Abelardo request. One of the top dubstep/grime releases in 08. From Boomkat:

"It's been a long time coming, but dubstep hack Martin 'Blackdown' Clarke and co-producer Dusk have finally completed their A-Z of London's sonic landscape in the form of 'Margins Music'. Blackdown's writings on his hallowed blogpsot have long been hinting and suggesting at a music that encompasses the rich diversity of London's myriad of multi ethnic communities and their inherent territorialism. So alongside his trusty sidekick, the pair invite us for a mooch round their end. From the opener 'Darker than East' we set out with sirens blazing and a running commentary from Target for company, but it's 'Con/Fusion' featuring the first of many lush vocal contributions from Farrah that will really hold your attention, before moving through predominantly south Asian ends on the run of 'Lata VIP' to the string led bollywood pomp of 'Kuri Pataka'. The album takes a swerve into sweaty grime territory at the halfway point with 'Concrete streets' feat Durrty Goodz and the massive 12" cut 'The bits' feat Trim on furious form, making the breezy respite of the album highlight 'Dis/east' all the more welcome for it's rich tapestry of cooling textures shaped from swirling strings and tripping piano lines. This prepares you sweetly for the final tracks running on a steppers vibe til the album's closure, with 'The Drumz of Nagano' rolling out some Oriental rhythm mysticism before killer recent single 'Focus' comes to the end of the line with that epic crescendo. As a package it's quite an accomplishment as a sonic charting of LDNs urban life in this decade and if you've been following his blogspot or consider yourself to be a connoisseur of the finer end of the grime/dubstep spectrum this comes very highly recommended."

Rican dubsteppas

Homelife - Flying Wonders

Wonderful kozmigroov exotica by Paddy Steer (Biting Tongues)'s collective, with plenty of help from Biting Tongues-808 State mastermind Graham Massey. Martin Denny jams with the Mwandishi band inside Morricone's ring modulator.

Mancunealo

This Heat - Deceit

I discovered this like two days ago and i still can`t tell you how mind blowing this album is. The shit is amazing. The following is taken directly from wikipedia:

"This Heat were active in the ascendancy of British progressive rock and punk rock, but stood apart from those scenes due to a radically inventive approach that touched on numerous different styles and genres, but was always confrontational and politically charged. Their commercial success was limited, but This Heat are widely considered a missing link between progressive rock (especially krautrock) and such later experimental genres as post punk, post rock and noise rock."

I guess Slint was pretty influenced by these dudes as well.

Angelo Badalamenti - Music from Twin Peaks.

"Sometime ideas, like men, jump up and say 'hello'. They introduce themselves, these ideas, with words. Are they words? These ideas speak so strangely. All that we see in this world is based on someone's ideas. Some ideas are destructive, some are constructive. Some ideas can arrive in the form of a dream. I can say it again: some ideas arrive in the form of a dream."
-Log Lady

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog- Party Intellectuals (2008)

Ribot's "first rock band since high school". Jeez Louise.

"Ceramic Dog
1. chien du faience: expression: frozen with emotion, as in the perfectly still moment before a fight breaks out.
2. Ultimate kitsch object.
3. A free/punk/funk/experimental/psychedelic/post electronica collective, featuring Marc (Cubanos Postizos, John Zorn, Tom Waits, etc etc), plus two of the best young players on the New York/California underground improv/experimental rock scene, Shazad Ismailly (bass) and Chess Smith (drums)
4. Not a 'project': a real band.

"Marc Ribot's new power trio, filled out by the remarkable versatile rhythm team of bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, is his rawest band in ages." (TimeOut NY)"

todo el mundo es kitsch.

The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone

HOLY SHIT.

Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies

The first album of Pierce's longest-running and notorious project, that set the bases for the songwriting in subsequent work. Lovely shit.

Space

Arthur Lee & Love - Live at the Knitting Factory, May 1st 2002

Love, one of my most cherished bands. When I found out back in 2006 that Arthur Lee had died of leukemia, i felt intense grief as if he were a personal friend. But i truly feel as if he were, his lyrics and arrangements move me deeply, and have accompanied me through thick and thin. Forever Changes is an irrefutable masterpiece, ive heard this record countless times and it fails to grow old. Well, after Artie served a 12 year sentence for firearms possesion he went on tour in 2002 with Johnny Echols(original guitarist of Love) and the "Love" band also known as Baby Lemonade(my guess is its a Syd Barrett reference). This live album is an excerpt of said tour and it includes many of my fav Love tunes, including: she comes in colors, alone again or, que vida, you set the scene, etc. etc. Here the violins and horns are replaced with some blazing guitars which really add some spice to it, one hell of a show, you can really feel the energy of the crowd. enjoy.

Thrum pum pum pum...

Burning Face - Noos

The first proper album from PR's greatest band (in my humble opinion). Deeply melancholic (won't say "gothic", sorry), almost morose post-punk maneuvers with strong doses of psychedelia thrown in. Isabela's finest. Their myspace is here, and there you can listen to more recent material which differs stylistically from this album but damn it still sounds fucking great. HAIL!

Tephra

Killing Joke - s/t

A life-changing album for me and a freakin' masterpiece of dark, menacing, aggro post-punk with metallic overtones.

PS: Please tells us of any dead links so we can remedy the situation.

PSS: Fuck Megaupload.

Wardance

The Flying Luttenbachers - Constructive Destruction

And thus, the Luttenbachers and their improv terror tactics were born. The Weasel Walter-led collective rumages through godforsaken landscapes of pure retina burning noise prog jazz abandonment that'll leave mouths agape and more than a few saying "stop that shit it's fucking obscene!". Xenakis meets Magma in Ayler's rehearsal space. For more about the great Weasel, go here.

I know some coffeehouses I would love to see become ashes

Various Artists - Afro-Rock Volume One

One of many great compilations of great fucking african funkified electric music with touches of psychedelia, soul, and cuban spice, featuring great cuts from Jingo, Super Mambo 69, Yahoos and Bokoor Band among others, and including Geraldo Pino's immortal "Heavy Heavy Heavy". Get fucked in afrodelic zones of debauchery.

buttahbean

Cooooooooooooooooooooooomments

Wayne Shorter - Moto Grosso Feio

Where Wayne goes bonkers, put Chick Corea in charge of marimba and percussion, Ron Carter on Cello, Dave Holland on guitar along with John McLaughlin, rounds out the ensemble with an unknown drummer (and Miroslav Vitous?) and sets off to the heart of the sun on full-on zonked kosmigroov fashion. A neglected gem on Wayne's discography. "Iska" coming soon.

Montezuma

Noxagt - The Iron Point

Norwegian power trio consisting of bass, viola and drums, they bring your daughter to the slaughter via destructive viola drones, massive bass riffage and Valhalla rhythms ready to make your living quarters the stuff of forgotten ruins.

"Noxagt started as another Brandsdal-related home-documented vision, with short bursts of maximum confusion plotted over a handful of 7” singles. Their first album, a compilation of previously released tracks, clocked in at around 40 tracks. Their line-up has since added Jan Christian L Kyvik on drums, and Nils Erga on viola. Kyvik and Brandsdal released a ragged, mean-toned 7”, Special Piss, on the Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers label in the late 90s, an appropriate embryonic representation. But when the trio turned their attention to the song structures and conventions of metal and grind, Noxagt took off.

Erga’s viola is the core disruption that throws Noxagt’s music off its notional genre-dictated axis. His sound takes in see-sawing drone-work, rough scouring, and shape-changer melodies that turn on a dime. As The Iron Point builds, the viola seems to accumulate the distortion and grit flinted off the other instruments. On “Thurmaston,” Erga reels off a seasick melody, all queasy scrapings and muddied tone. Brandsdal and Kyvik trade in more predictable moves, but to no less effect. Kyvik’s drums work rhythm and counter-point, only occasionally ‘falling back’ on approximations of blast beats, using those moments as punctuations; a sudden rush of blood to the head. Brandsdal’s bass is weighty and caked in filth. When all three lock in and push a song into overload, as they do on “Naked in France,” the experience is head-wrecking.

The Iron Point closes with a cover of Tom Rapp’s “Regions of May.” The original is drawn from Pearls Before Swine’s first album One Nation Underground; Noxagt capture an ascending chord change that the original performance touched on only fleetingly, and draws out its cumulative power. Where the primary text was equal parts voluble and tender, Noxagt explode the song, shaping it as epic architecture. And the choice of cover is appropriate. Pearls Before Swine’s music took the folk tradition and charged it with pharmacy and eschatological concern. Noxagt’s music does a similar thing to metal, introducing new kinds of avant tendencies into metal’s core epiphanies, drawing a long bow of drone through their impact-heavy songs. Perhaps metal truly is the folk music of the urban wasteland." - Jon Dale

Overdo it Billy

These Immortal Souls - Get Lost (Don't Lie!)

These Immortal Souls were: Rowland S. Howard (Boys Next Door, Birthday Party, Crime and the City Solution), his brother Harry (C&TCS), Epic Soundtracks (C&TCS, Swell Maps, Jacobites) and Rowland's wife Genevieve McGuckin. They played a blues drenched, elegant and atmospheric brand of post punk strongly informed by Southern Gothic writings and general aura of loss and bleakness. This is their first album, a lost classic.

Hide