Thursday, December 31, 2009

RIP Rowland S. Howard


Rowland S. Howard, guitar player for the Birthday Party, Crime And the City Solution and These Immortal Souls and also a solo artist, died on December 30th waiting for a liver transplant. He was an enormous influence and inspiration for me and many others around these parts, as close to an idol as we could have. Rest in Peace Rowland, we'll remember you always.



Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc w/ Dead Men Tell No Tales (with Nikki Sudden)




Teenage Snuff Film


Also my man Grumpy has posted the entire These Immortal Souls discography in his blog, cop it and check it out.And some more Rowland related goodness here and here.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Triosk meets Jan Jelinek - 1+3+1



The Australian electronic/jazz trio's debut album (2003). Jan Jelinek is a german electronic musician mostly associated with glitches and sampling. The electronic and jazz elements seem somewhat separate on this album, like jazz musicians experimenting within the borders of jazz form with electronic sounds in the background, as opposed to the integration demonstrated in the following albums, this is mostly due to the free drumming technique which was developed after this album. Moment Returns (2004) was released just one year later and already showcased a lot of progress in the concept of time and composition .

This album showcases good musicians interested in evolving and expanding their sound palette, it's a great step in the growth of these musicians, as demonstrated in the following albums.

Triosk meets Jan Jelinek - 1+3+1

Monday, December 28, 2009

Saturday, December 26, 2009

gzus christ.


Le quiero dar las gracias a todos mis amigos por venir y gozar conmigo, los quiero a todos! Gracias a Kristen y a los bartenders del Cafe por dejarnos hacer escantes, Pandy, Raul y Dax por motivar con los crowd-pleasers, Samson por extender el pari poniendo de la gorda y al cumpleañero camuyeyo Kemuel por caerle, felicidades negro!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come - Kingdom Come


For Howard, Arthur's group after the dissolution of The Crazy World. Wonderful and demented prog/psych excursions of the highest order. Enjoy and more to follow from this band.

Morcilla

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Meters - S/T


Ive been on hiatus for far too long, here's a funkalicious offering. The seminal New Orleans outfit The Meters, their debut: an instrumental funk record thatll get you shakin and groovin, unless you're a nazi or dead.



git down.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Oren Ambarchi - Suspension


A great way to start enjoying the work of this magnificent Australian.

"Oren Ambarchi is an electronic guitarist and percussionist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. Born in Sydney in 1969, he has been performing live since 1986. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it’s no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it’s a laboratory for extended sonic investigation. He has performed and recorded with Martin Ng (Australia), Christian Fennesz (Austria), Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Pimmon (Australia), John Zorn (USA), Voice Crack (Switzerland), Sachiko M (Japan), Keith Rowe (UK), Phill Niblock (USA), Günter Müller (Switzerland), Evan Parker (UK), Toshimaru Nakamura(Japan) and many more. He recently toured with sunn0))), also contributing to their 'Black One' album from 2005."

"The brunt of Ambarchi’s work consists of gracefully looped guitar tones that, although often heavily processed so as to render their origins unrecognizable, are touchingly direct in their subtle shifts and warm, soft aura. This reissue of Suspension, then, serves to reassert Ambarchi’s ability to work with a darker, more sonorous palette. As with his more recent works (such as Grapes From The Estate), tracks still brim with energy, but here it is channelled in a more singular fashion; into more pensive – though also pretty – moods that are then captured from numerous angles.

Compositions hinge upon a simple superimposition of textures – a process which allows Ambarchi to shed a reliance upon complex and often distracting processing techniques and, in a rather precise manner, sharpen the angles and edges of these tones into dense, radiant drones that challenge as much as they engage.

In the early works, one often finds minor sixth drones accompanied by delicate metallic ricochets and other faint flurries of percussion that are hypnotic and even seductive in their elusiveness. Later, however, the lengthy stretches of prowling bell-like tones and the distant sputter of amplifier buzz seem no longer subject to gravity and linger in an orbital realm where notes hang, dissolve and reform in a variety of permutations. With “This Evening So Soon”, for instance, the miasma of shifting guitar drones float freely in a sensuous austerity, where each subtle alteration in timbre or momentum works to heighten the suspense laced in between the threads of these finely woven tapestries." - Max Schaefer

Fina China

Monday, December 14, 2009

Triosk - The Headlight Serenade


the third and final album of a great trio with a unique sound that makes any moment an epic moment.

do it!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Triosk - Moment Returns


Triosk was from Sydney, Australia. Born 2001, died 2007. This trio comes from two musical persperctives, jazz and electronic music (not trance or house, but as in sampling, resampling, and digital signal processing, etc.) and they were definitely good at both. Moment Returns is their second album.

This album has intense textures and fades in and out of beats that can actually be followed, most of the samples aren't in sync or quantized, add to that Laurence Pike's (drummer) ability to play without a time signature (perhaps inspired by Ornette Coleman's free jazz movement) and you've got no back beat to hold on to, it's great. On the other hand, songs like Love Chariot, Two Twelve are heavily rooted in the beat, balancing it out nicely.

Sit back, dim the lights, listen.

Triosk - Moment Returns

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Aftermath


Last night's party was super fun.
Thank you to everyone who showed up and got shit-faced with us.
Here's the mix that was played.

Howard Roark
Sandunga Cat

Friday, December 11, 2009

Anniversary Party!



Celebrating a years worth of interwebz debauchery.
We'd be delighted if you'd join us while we put on some tunes & down some brews.

Tonight at 8:30 @ Cafe 103, Rio Piedras

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Robert Ashley - Automatic Writing


One of the most important American composers of the 20th and 21st century and some of his most disturbing, powerful works.

"A 1996 CD compiling three early Ashley works from the years 1967-79 -- some of his most experimental and out-there works. A classic electronic music collection and an ideal intro into the somewhat foreboding oeuvre of Robert Ashley's recorded works. The title piece is a 46-minute classic from 1979, which rather famously formed the basis for Nurse With Wound's A Missing Sense. Steven Stapleton's commentary upon this summarizes the intense vibe of this recording: "A Missing Sense was originally conceived as a private tape to accompany my taking of LSD. When in that particular state, Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing was the only music I could actually experience without feeling claustrophobic and paranoid. We played it endlessly; it seemed to become part of the room, perfectly blending with the late night city ambience and the 'breathing' of the building." The piece features the voices of Ashley and Mimi Johnson, with electronics and Polymoog backing, with a switching circuit designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. A fascinating and mysterious work focused on "involuntary speech". The second piece on this CD is "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" from 1968. It features the voice of Cynthia Liddell, backed by singers, bells and crackle. Originally issued on the Mainstream label, as an excerpt for a theatre work for amplified voices and tape. The final piece, "She Was a Visitor" is from 1967, originally issued on the infamous electronic compilation Extended Voices (CBS Odyssey), featuring experimental vocals works. Performed by the The Brandeis University Chamber Chorus, directed by Alvin Lucier. " Forced Exposure

El Seto

Monday, December 7, 2009

Techno Animal - Ghosts


More Techno Animal (you can find BOTB here). Kevin Martin and Justin Broadrick, pummeling your frontal lobes.

Canopy

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sandoz - Chant to Jah


Sandoz is Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire, Sweet Exorcist et al) in righteous massive dub mode.

"Sandoz is the solo moniker of Richard H. Kirk from Cabaret Voltaire. Inspired by twenty years of listening to Jamaican music, Richard H. Kirk has now mixed contemporary electronic dance music with Jamaican reggae and dub styles on Sandoz In Dub-Chant To Jah. As a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, Richard H. Kirk has been a pioneer of electronic music for more than twenty years embracing all the new developments in electronic dance music: In 1978 Cabaret Voltaire signed to a fledgling Rough Trade records releasing experimental electronic/post-punk classics such as 'Nag Nag Nag' and 'Do The Mussolini.' Ten years on and Cabaret Voltaire were sharing musical ideas with Chicago house pioneers such as Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy as well as their counterpart Detroit techno stars such as Derrick May and Ritchie Hawtin. With Sheffield's Warp Records acknowledging the debt that local group, Cabaret Voltaire, had played in defining electronic music, it was fitting that Richard H. Kirk started his solo project, Sandoz, on Warp's seminal Artificial Intelligence series. Twenty years on and Richard H. Kirk has made the logical link between his twenty years of experiments in electronic music and a similar process that Jamaican dub pioneers such as King Tubby, Lee Perry and Augustus Pablo were making in the 1970s. Sandoz in Dub -- Chant To Jah also makes the connection with contemporary Jamaican dancehall styles -- mixing elements of ragga, digital drum and bass and steppers into the equation." - Forced Exposure

Atenolol 50 mg

Friday, December 4, 2009

Jarboe - Disburden Disciple


Pops request. More Jarboe to overwhelm you body and soul.

Galateo

Julian Priester/Pepo Mtoto - Love. Love


For Pandy. An electric jazz masterpiece, featuring almost the complete Mwandishi band and the amazing drumming of the unregarded Kamau Eric Gravatt (Weather Report's original drummer) and Nudgu Leon Chancler (who Miles sacked from his group for not fixing his bass drum).

Personnel: Julian Priester: trombones, baritone horn, post horn, whistle flute, cowbell, small percussion, ARP 2600 synthesizer, Proto-type ARP string synthesizer; Pat Gleeson: ARP 2600 synthesizer, ARP Odyssey synthesizer, Moog III, Oberheim digital sequencer; Hadley Caliman: flute, saxophones, bass clarinet; Bayete Umbra Zindinko: fender rhodes, piano, clavinet D-6; Nyimbo Henry Franklin: fender bass, acoustic bass on all except �Love, Love�; Ndugu Leon Chancler: drums on all except �Love, Love�; Mguanda David Johnson: flute, soprano saxophone on all except �Love, Love�; Kamau Eric Gravatt: drums, congas on �Love, Love�; Ron McClure: fender bass on �Love, Love�; Bill Connors: electric guitar on �Love, Love.�

"
Let's not beat about the bush. Love, Love is a monster of an album. Despite its age (30+ years), it's a must for anybody interested in living, breathing, unexpected music. Julian Priester was an alumnus of Blue Note, Sun Ra and most importantly for this record, of Herbie Hancock's revolutionary Mwandishi group which recorded only three albums in its all too brief lifetime.

Each of those Mwandishi albums was a brilliant melding of the cosmic and earthy, extemporisation and groove. Love, Love was recorded after Hancock dissolved his sextet in order to explore an avowedly populist angle with the hugely successful Headhunters. Together with trumpeter Eddie Henderson's two post-Mwandishi albums, Realization and Inside Out, Love, Love represents one of the late masterpieces of a style later christened "Kozmigroov".

Although comprising two lengthy slabs of music clearly intended to be heard as a suite, it's side one (as it was in the days of vinyl) that grabs the listener by the lapels and proceeds to groove remorselessly for a full nineteen minutes. Love, Love however is no feelgood piece of happy-go-lucky frippery. Rather, its relentless bass vamp is likely to plough a deep furrow through your consciousness. Spine tingling shaken percussion presages the arrival ofNyimbo Henry Franklin and Ron McClure's basses which well up and sweep forward, singularly intent upon adhering like superglue to the groove.

For the next 18 minutes, a host of players appear and disappear like spacecraft attacking offworld teflon-coated targets. synthesist Pat Gleeson, saxophonist Hadley Caliman, guitarist Bill Connors and drummers Eric Gravatt and Leon Chancler are among a host of star contributors. As hypnotically repetitive as Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love", as deep as Parliafunkadelic or Miles Davis's Dark Magus band on their darkest days, it's also difficult to resist associating the title track with the deliberate hypnosis of longform techno.

Side two, "Images/Eternal Worlds/Epilogue" is an ambitious medley that sucks cataclysm, spookiness and melody into close orbit. Less single-mindedly cohesive, it's still a stunning piece of electric jazz, a thrashing, roiling beast that serves to remind how brilliant this shortlived period of hothouse innovation was. It's taken ECM far too long to issue this on CD, but thank goodness they've finally done so." - Colin Buttimer

Masacote

Andrew Hill - Compulsion!!!!


More Blue Note greatness, this time's one of the greatest pianists ever in one of his 60s masterpieces.

Personnel: Andrew Hill: piano; Freddie Hubbard: trumpet, flugelhorn; John Gilmore: tenor sax, bass clarinet; Cecil McBee: bass; Richard Davis: bass (3); Joe Chambers: drums; Nadi Qamar: African drums, thumb piano, percussion; Renaud Simmons: congas, percussion.

"
The five exclamation marks following the word Compulsion are completely appropriate for a title. Of all the distinguished albums of Andrew Hill's career as a pianist/composer, this is arguably the most passionately executed. The monumentality of this recording can best be realized by looking at its recording date of 1965. Coltrane was leaving his classic quartet and experimenting with multiple drummers. Archie Shepp was likewise experimenting with heavily augmented percussion sections. Art Blakey's earlier recordings with various African and neo-African drummers were popularly circulating in jazz circles, as was Babatunde Olatunji's popular and influential Drums of Passion. Into this drum-laden time stepped Hill.

What makes this album sound so fresh after decades is the consistently intricate and emotionally galvanizing interplay between Hill, his polyrhythmic rhythmic section, and the horns. John Gilmore, here on bass clarinet and tenor sax, always had an astute way of pushing Hill into playing at the top of his intelligence, making me believe that the best Hill recordings were those with Gilmore contributing. As for trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, this was the kind of session that also challenged him deeply, as his freely searching and scorching solo on "Premonition" illustrates.

As for Hill, you can sense that this was his moment of heeding Cecil Taylor's dictum that a piano consists of eighty-eight tuned drums. His percussive attack on the title track is a furiously rhapsodic soundtrack to the mid-1960s. The four compositions tend to run together with repeated listening as if this is one suite of sound and fury, with "Premonition" as a pensive, meditative interlude.

This long-overdue CD reissue helps heighten the presence of the superb contributions of bassist Cecil McBee, and drummers Joe Chambers, Nadi Qamar, and Renaud Simmons. I recall my original vinyl copy had a murky sounding smear of bass drum sounds, not that it stopped me from wearing out the grooves quickly. This recording is a core document of 1960s jazz." - Norman Weinstein

Rabo e Gallo

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Wayne Shorter - The All-Seeing Eye


I'll be posting a run of Blue Note underrated classics, starting with this Shorter gem, one of his most difficult and dense efforts.

Personnel:

Wayne Shorter (Tenor Saxophone)
Freddie Hubbard (Trumpet and Flugelhorn)
Grachan Moncur III (Trombone)
James Spaulding (Alto Saxophone)
Herbie Hancock (Piano)
Ron Carter (Double Bass)
Joe Chambers (Drums)
Alan Shorter (Flugelhorn)

"
With hindsight, this challenging and highly rewarding album appears to be an anomaly in Wayne Shorter's career -the largest acoustic ensemble effort to appear under his name, and the most open in structure until the beginning of his electric period with Super Nova nearly four years later. At the time of its release, however, many people heard this music as a logical extension of Shorter's previous work and a characteristic statement from the more explanatory wing of the Blue Note family. Both the future progress of the saxophonist/composer's career and then unheard contemporary works that have since come to light reinforce the exceptional nature of this music.
Shorter had been uncommonly prolific during 1964, his first year as a Blue Note artist. Three classic albums of his playing and writing were recorded in that year - Night Dreamer, Juju and Speak No Evil. Even though The All Seeing Eye was the next Shorter album issued by the label, we now know that two additional sessions had been recorded earlier, The Soothsayer and Etcetera, which means that Shorter had completed six albums in a mere 18 months! While The Soothsayer and Etcetera are both worthy statements by one of the period's most important artists, producer Alfred Lion clearly felt that the freer use of tempo and structural daring of the present collection made it more indicative of where Shorter was heading. That the music here is more of an emotional piece with the incredible tenor sax work Shorter contributed to the Miles Davis Quintet Plugged Nickel recordings from the end of the 1965, is a judgement borne out by The Soothsayer and Etcetera.
The music should also be heard in the context of other Blue Note recordings from the period such as Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue and Components, Tony Williams's Spring (featuring Shorter) and Andrew Hill's Compulsion. On these albums, modal and free improvising appeared to be merging, with rhythmic continuity loosened up without totally abandoning familar notions of swing. Larger ensembles than the typical quarter or quintet were often involved, although the energizing muscle of the rhythm section players proved to be just as important as the flexibility of the front-line soloists. As far as the rhythm section goes, little need to be said regarding Shorter's Davis Quintet mates Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, while the equally brilliant Blue Note house drummer Joe Chambers reflects the influence of Tony Williams as well as his own composerly slant on the music.
The five horns present a tale of two cities, Indianapolis and Newark. Hubbard and Spaulding are the Indiana contingent, with the trumpeter, a longtime familiar of Shorter's from the tenure the two shared in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Spaulding had played Shorter's music before, at The Soothsayer session of the previous April, and would play it again (on flute as well as alto sax) on Schizophrenia in 1967. Trombonist Grachan Moncur III had worked with the Shorter brothers in the reportedly precocious Nat Phipps band that Amiri Baraka recalled hearing at high school dances in Newark during the early 50s. The trombonist also used Wayne on his Some Other Stuff LP for Blue Note.
This was the sole Blue Note appearance for Wayne's older brother, the late Alan Shorter, who is otherwise best remembered for his work on Archie Shepp's 1964 Four For Trane and his own 1968 collection Orgasm. Baraka, writing as Leroi Jones in a 1959 Jazz Review piece that was the first article on Wayne in a national publication, reported that the pair were known as "the two weird Shorter brothers" in their native Newark, and the familial iconoclasm comes through clearly in the writing and flugelhorn solo on "Mephistopheles".
Given the subject matter of the program here, a final connection might be noted to "A Love Supreme", which the John Coltrane Quartet had recorded 10 months earlier. Shorter, like Coltrane, possessed the unique inquisitiveness and focus to address such infinite subjects, though typically the resulting music here shows greater ambivalence and eccentricity. It also marked the penultimate product from a period that produced a deluge of music under Wayne Shorter's name. He was back in the studio with Hancock, Chambers and Reggie Workman four months later to record the tracks for Adam's Apple, then allowed 13 months to pass before recording Schizophrenia and another 30 prior to Super Nova. By then, the young man that Leroi Jones had recalled in 1959 as "rather distant" with a "secret smile" had begun moving toward a persona that would make him the jazz world's version of the Cheshire Cat."- DK

Cabezon

Sun City Girls - The Dreamy Draw


Another installment of SCG's Carnival Folklore Resurrection Series. Dementia In Excelsis.

Cabo Rojas

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Gentleman Jesse & His Men in Puerto Rico.



Nos visitan Gentleman Jesse & His Men, "Power Pop" de Atlanta, junto a The Barreracudas

Miercoles 2 de Diciembre
Taller Ce, Rio Piedras
Davila 666 y Las Ardillas
$6

Viernes, 4 de Diciembre
La Respuesta, Ave. Fernández Juncos 1600, Santurce
Davila 666 y Los Vigilantes
$6

El disco cortesia de Borrate Este