tachdé - Deluge

finally! a 2012 release from the boys of Tachdé. this album will surely cleanse your soul with some psychedelic soundscapes, acoustic compositions, haunting vocals and floor rattling grooves. give it a try, you wont be disappointed.

stream it brah.

Lifetones - For A Reason

Charles Bullen (This Heat`s guitarist) started listening to some reggae music after a DJ friend of his turned him on to it. after the Deceit sessions he decided to start a project based on these caribbean rhythms and took it to a whole new level. inspiring lyrics, epic ras drum tracks, weird/beautiful harmonies and some chant-style voices that you would hear on any This Heat record. this is some serious stuff. its a rare listen at first but it sucks you in.

is it because i acted badly to you, you acted badly to me and i acted badly to you? or viceversa?

Broadcast - Tender Buttons

in loving memory of Trish Keenan, vocalist of Broadcast, who died this morning after struggling with pneumonia for 2 weeks. rest in peace.

stop looking for answers in everyones face.

Qa`a - Chi`en

a couple of months ago we got an email from some dude saying "I see you got some this heat in this blog. check out this band, its got some this heat influence with some krautness". its a band from Barcelona and it definitely has some of those this heat soundscapes and a couple of grooves that remind me of can.

especially the one called speakerbox.

Arto Lindsay - Invoke

"Arto Lindsay has made a lifelong habit of crossing both geographical and musical borders. Born in the United States and raised in Brazil during the heyday of that country's pointedly eclectic Tropicália movement of the 1960s, the multi-faceted songwriter/producer/vocalist/guitarist has forged an international reputation as an artist whose work is as seductive as it is challenging. From his late ‘70s recordings of abrasive “no wave” through his acclaimed series of solo albums beginning in the late ‘90s, Lindsay has bonded rhythms and melodies from diverse cultures and genres in provocative new ways, crafting inimitable soundscapes whose impact can range from fragile pop pleasure to sheer sonic assault."



"Seemingly far from the chaotic no wave of DNA, Arto Lindsay continues his explorations into the subtleties of Brazilian pop music. Throughout Invoke, avant-gardisms bubble just below the surface in strange loops and weird drumbeats, occasionally finding their way to the top (such as on "In the City That Reads"). Lindsay fuses the ideas of the art pop of David Byrne with the haunting samples of Soul Coughing's Mark de Gli Antoni. The result is a magical, atmospheric disc that is ambient in its effect with enough surface-level tension to keep the listener engaged. It is undoubtedly mood music. The only problem might be in finding the proper situation in which to listen to the disc. It's a bit too mellow for party listening and perhaps a bit too bright for late-night contemplation. It might be best suited for dusk on a summer evening, letting it provide the transition into darkness."

I feel like the embodiment of a Lindsay song.

Jim O'Rourke - The Ground Below Above Our Heads

Jim being droney & weird.

Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (2007)

Yet another amazing 2007 release.

"This is an essential document by one of America's most original and inventive unaccompanied guitarists
working today. "While My Guitar Violently Bleeds" is a splendid three piece gem in which the good Sir
branches out & nods to points west, east & otherworldly. Classic spaghetti western tinged spidery fretwork
("Zurvan"), Fushitsusha style feedback drenched psych decay ("Smashana") and a brilliant lengthy raga
epic ("Mahavidya") round out the proceedings by the Sun City Girls master musician."

"Bishop creates abstract and dissonant fingerstyle webs that evoke those famous LSD experiments with spiders and he stretches
out in long raga-influenced improvisations that accelerate into flatpicked furies." -Acoustic Guitar

i'm so smart now

Baikal - Baikal (2007)

One of the best releases of 2007. Two heavy jams by what is essentially Bardo Pond.

"Baikal is a new burner from Bardo Pond brothers John & Michael Gibbons along with fellow Bardo Pond members Clint Takeda and Jason Kourkonis. This time they ventured down the route of heavy free-improvisation and a Last Exit style hard rock approach coupled with a hard psych bend. With two tracks each weighing in at over 30 minutes in length it’s clear that Baikal is a deep voyage underseas with yet another Bardo Pond sideproject featuring Bardo brothers John & Michael Gibbons as your tour guide."

pal de babies

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969)

beeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnssssssssssss!!!!

The Nels Cline Singers

It's been a while mah boys!! I've been busy as fuck but soon enough I'll be posting music on a more regular basis.

If you don't know who Nels Cline is, then here's some info. REALLY amazing guitarist and musician who's also got a thing for Fender Jazzmasters. He's the lead guitarist of the band Wilco, plus he's known for collaborating with a lot of people and has got a solo project of his own. His 2009 release "Coward" is really good! The Nels Cline Singers are a free jazz trio led by Nels Cline, following his work in the Nels Cline Trio. Despite it's name, there's no singing in the actual music. :) I encourage my fellow bloggers (I'm looking at you Ozstriker!) to post some more of his stuff. I'll try and upload more of his music later this week. Hopefully, I'll also post some Banyan which also features Nels Cline and the Minutemen's Mike Watt.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nels Cline (born in Los Angeles in 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He began to play guitar at age 12 when his twin brother, Alex Cline took up the drums. Cline is not classically trained. This gives him a unique avant-garde style that many other jazz guitarists fail to match, due to their probable conventional training. He is noted for his apt use of effects pedals and looping devices, which enhances his style and gives his approach to guitar and music a distinct sound.

Cline is known for his improvisational work and for the diversity of his musical projects. He has played with jazz musicians Charlie Haden, Gregg Bendian, Wadada Leo Smith, Tim Berne, Vinny Golia and the late bassist Eric von Essen, a longtime musical companion in the L.A. jazz group Quartet Music.

Cline has also performed and recorded with punk rock hero Mike Watt in his touring bands The Crew of the Flying Saucer and The Black Gang, as well as with members of Sonic Youth and country music legend Willie Nelson, and in the jazz/punk/improv band Banyan with Watt and ex-Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins. He frequently participates in jazz projects with his twin brother, Alex, however their first actual duo together was in Culver City, California, during their 50th birthday show.

Nels’s first appearance on an album was on Vinny Golia’s 1978 record, Openhearted, and his first work as a bandleader was 1988’s Angelica. In the late 1980s, Cline formed the Nels Cline Trio, which featured his guitar playing complemented by Mark London Sims at bass and Michael Preussner at drums. The trio released several 7 inch demos and one album, before replacing Sims with Bob Mair at bass. This new trio released three albums before splitting up, featuring some of Cline’s most melodic works, before he ventured into a freer and more minimalist territory in the decade to come. Shortly before the end of the trio, Nels recorded two albums, In-Store, and Pillow Wand, with Sonic Youth frontman and guitarist, Thurston Moore. In 1999, Cline paired up with jazz drummer Gregg Bendian to record a modern rendition of John Coltrane’s 1967 album, Interstellar Space. On Interstellar Space Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane, Bendian and Cline boldly interpret Coltrane’s already obscure piece using their musical backgrounds and talents, and create an album whose music is written by Coltrane, but whose sound is distinctly associated with musicians who perform it. Cline’s current outfit is the improv/free jazz ensemble The Nels Cline Singers, with which he has recorded two albums, Instumentals and The Giant Pin, his most recent work as a leader. The Nels Cline Singers are currently signed with Cryptogramophone Records.

Cline has performed on over 100 albums in the jazz, pop, rock, country, and experimental music genres. He continues to expand his audience as a member of the Grammy-winning rock band Wilco, which he joined in early 2004. He was later featured in the cover story of Guitar Player Magazine for his newfound collaboration with the band."



RIGHT OUHSAAHDE MAH DO-OH!

The legend lives on: Jah Wobble in "Betrayal"

Jah Wobble is a founding member of the infamous Public Image Limited, characterized by playing dub-heavy bass on their first two albums. After creative differences he went on to release this, his debut album "Betrayal". He received heavy backlash from Lydon and company for using material from Second Edition/Metalbox. But even so this is a great record with a slightly different approach from PIL, fun and a tad sillier at times. Check out the rendition of Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill".



Pineapple

NON - Easy Listening for Iron Youth

NON is Boyd Rice: pioneer, instigator, prankster, misanthrope, esoterica authority, and all around jolly fellow. He wrote for The Modern Drunkard for chrissakes.

"Boyd Rice's tongue is firmly within cheek (then again, when isn't it?) with this compilation of his work from the 1980s -- among other personages, the album is dedicated to Vlad the Impaler (pictured on the front cover feasting among his victims), Charles Manson, and "the Hero of Green River." Easy Listening for Iron Youth has one big disadvantage for the newcomer -- namely, no information at all as to where the compositions came from originally. Credits for his various collaborators (including Coil, Tony Wakeford, and Rose McDowall) are mentioned, happily, but otherwise the interested newcomer will have to start scrounging websites to find out more. That problem aside, the compilation is a well-sequenced peek into Rice's mind, covering both his musical and thematic extremes, from swirling, ear-piercing classical loops to murky crypto-religious invocations and subtle variations on seemingly straightforward rhythms. An emphasis on sound qua sound predominates for all the details of the presentation; such songs as the minimal beat and repeating notes of "Rise," the distorted howling of "Carnis Vale," and the fascinating mechanical drone/squall Coil-co-write "Predator/Prey" revel in the possibilities. Moments like what sounds like a Nazi rally audience on "Conflagration" and the distorted horns and recitations on "Scorched Earth" aren't going to please anyone who looks first and foremost at Non as the spirit of Hitler come to life (ignoring the fact that, for instance, Rice notably leaves that name off his dedication list). It's the wryest and blackest of humor at points, the more so because the music itself is straightforwardly serious and unsettling. Perhaps the creepiest moment: "Eternal Ice," which reworks the melody of the Christmas carol standard "Silent Night" into a distinctly less Christian setting, yet all while retaining a chilling, central calm." - Ned Raggett

Carnis

Aethenor - Deep in the Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light

"Aethenor is the trio of Stephen O’Malley (or SOMA) on guitar, contact mic and electronics, Daniel O’Sullivan on piano and percussion and Vincent De Roguin processing, mixing and playing organ. All three are credited with “room,” whatever that means, and I have an idea. On “Deep in Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light” the trio mines a brooding amalgam of cycling, industrial clatter and improvised/composed pieces, all seamlessly edited together to invoke a dark, meditative deep listening experience. Squealing hinges, droning guitars, rustling chains and bells banging up against concrete and wood add up to a room-saturating nightmare at high volumes that takes cues from sources as disparate as ancient Greek fantasy and modern minimal drone masters like Mirror and irr.app.(ext).

Across four untitled tracks the trio explores a subliminal sound sculpture reminiscent of the grim crawl of Nurse With Wound’s pulsing masterpiece, “Salt Marie Celeste,” (as evinced on the incredible opener “Untitled”—all tracks here are untitled), AMM and Organum’s organic-metallic free-falls, among others. What gets me though is the way the trio combines beautiful minimal drones taken from the early Krautrock drone handbook with striking found sounds (a cawing crow is employed brilliantly on the phenomenal second track) and unorthodox live percussion. And it’s all coated in a surreal glitchy haze to help throw even the most mesmerizing passages at least a little off-balance.

As for the album title, it’s a line from Homer’s “The Iliad,” which is hardly off the beaten path for O’Malley and his typically ancient concerns. The reading of many an epic sea-faring push into the oceanic abyss would likely benefit from an aural injection of this dark mood soup. “Deep in Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light” is one of the finest experimental albums of 2006." - Lee Jackson

Sink

The Residents - Third Reich n' Roll

The Cryptics' impressive demolition of pop music/fascist paraphernalia.

"A delicate balance between a love of Top 40 rock'n'roll and a genuine hatred of the culture which embraced it.' The theme behind Third Reich 'N' Roll, a sound montage/reorganisation of such old favourites as 'Pushin' Too Hard'/'96 Tears'/'Let's Twist Again'/'Hey Jude' (mixed with 'Sympathy for the Devil' vocals)/'Land Of 1,000 Dances'/'Hanky Panky'/'Let There Be Drums', to mention a few. Each new playing reveals a few more. The two sides: 'Swastikas On Parade', and 'Hitler Was A Vegetarian' are the past seen through the distorted prism of the present. Or vice versa. Funny too – and frightening: the point is made (but not belaboured), and can be ignored as you/I hear the sound..." - Jon Savage

Hitler Veggie

Techno Animal - The Brotherhood of the Bomb

Techno Animal were: Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, Final, Ice, etc.) and Kevin Martin (God, The Bug, Ice, EAR, etc.).

"The biggest addition on Brotherhood are a cadre of underground hip hop MCs, from favorites like El-P, Vast Aire, and Antipop Consortium to hyper-obscure rhymesmiths Rubberoom and Sonic Sum. Rapping adds a crucial dimension to the Techno Animal sound (which can be somewhat static), and the group handles the addition well (Martin and Broadrick worked with many of the guests on other projects).

But what Brotherhood really reveals is how far Techno Animal has come in the realm of production. Martin and Broadrick cull the pieces of their compositions from a variety of places, but then layer on the effects processing so the source sounds are completely unrecognizable. The sounds become electronic drones, otherworldly howls, pulverizing static, and then are melded into harsh industrial soundscapes. These soundscapes are incredibly evocative and meticulously designed – it’s almost a wonder that the duo decides to obscure them with overdriven bass and distorted drum loops. Of course, if I want industrial-ambient flows, I can pop in some Future Sound of London. Techno Animal cares little for any desire for delicacy and subtlety, instead trading in the currency of aggression and intensity.

“Cruise Mode 101” cashes in on these quite well. A big, rumbling beat joins with a wobbly bass line so overdriven it sounds on the verge of collapse. Chicago rappers Rubberoom provide high-speed flows that match the production flawlessly (Techno Animal never fails to effectively back up the variety of rapping styles on the album). Drones, squeals, and some effective CD skipping effects (Oval influenced, no doubt) combine to make an incredibly driving song about – well, driving (incidentally, the song is an excellent one for the highway). Martin and Broadrick immediately slow things down for “Glass Prism Enclosure,” a more textured piece, with a shuffling, syncopated beat, dissonant string chords, and abstract rapping from Antipop Consortium.

The instrumental tracks often pale in comparison to the tracks with MCs, but contain wonderful intricacies as well. “Hypertension” and “Monoscopic” travel down paths of malevolent dub (similar to Scorn), the latter sounding like a wonderfully fucked Pole track.

But the instrumentals are easily overshadowed by explosive numbers such as “Piranha,” with Toastie Taylor blasting ragga-styled flows over a propulsive beat. The result is violent, almost primal, and one of the most stirring pieces on the album. “We Can Build You” comes across as a bit of a let-down – El-P and Vast Aire provide immaculate stylings as usual, but the track is a slower, come down piece. I would have liked to see the Def Jux crew spit over something a bit more visceral.

“Hell,” The final track makes up for any lack of intensity, featuring the criminally-underrated Dalek. A dark subdued beat and some metallic drones assist Dalek’s monotone rapping. The beat drops off for the breakdown, and Dalek’s rap is dual tracked – he verbally battles himself. The cacophony grows – swirling static, sirens, and atmospherics. The rapping slow burns into a fury, and the beat comes back in with full force, assisted by rollicking waves of bass, pitting Dalek squarely against the storm of noise. The hurricane subsides quickly and suddenly, perfectly ending the album." - G. Mueller

BOMB

Boris - Akuma No Ute (2003)

Boris' Akuma no Uta not only continues on from the heavy rocking of Heavy Rocks but also incorporates some of the other genres the band has played with before. It sort of sets the stage for 2005's Pink. The cover is a tribute to Nick Drake' Bryter Layter.

Easily identifiable by its rather clever, Nick Drake/Bryter Layter-inspired cover art, Boris' Akuma No Uta and label mates in many ways offers a back-to-front cross-section of the Japanese trio's entire career, in all of its many stylistic varieties. Both the nine-minute, molten lava introduction and the closing title track delve in ambient drone tendencies (reminiscent of Earth and label mates Sunn 0)))), while a pair of comparatively brief submissions -- "Ibitsu" and "Furi" -- offer succinct, rudely distorted acid garage psych (think the Stooges, only cruder and heavier, or Spine of God-era Monster Magnet, but more energetic). As for the mid-album piece de resistance, "Naki Kyoku," it takes all of 12 minutes to carry out a gradual crescendo: from its mildly psychedelic, oddly "Freebird"-esque beginnings, through an extended mid-section offsetting equal parts guitar soloing and vocal chanting with fluid bass twiddling over ambient space rock sound effects, before finally arriving at a suitably shuddering sonic earthquake with its feedback-laced finale that's fit to level Tokyo. Standing out negatively amid all of this is the loose and unfocused, mid-paced jam number "Ano Onna No Onryou," which comes off both overlong and uninspired by comparison. Still, five winners out of six attempts is nothing to wrinkle your nose at, making Akuma No Uta almost guaranteed to please both longtime Boris aficionados and newcomers looking to sample a good summary of their talents.
-- Eduardo Rivadavia, allmusic

what happens when the numbers run out nicolas cage?

Merzbow - Live in Prague 3-24-09

Courtesy of our friend Felix, a live set from the undisputed Emperor of Noise, as prolific and ear-obliterating as ever.

Get It

Einstürzende Neubauten - Silence is Sexy

As requested by Jorge, i'll be uploading some EN works from the the late 90's-early 00's. We start with this magnum opus.

Disc 1

Disc 2

John Cale & Terry Riley - Church Of Anthrax [1971]

whuuuuuuut

Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air

You can stick the bloated, gas-ridden Powaqqatsi synths up your gaping anal cavity. Or you can cleanse your ears listening to Magus Riley's magnificence. Yer choice.

"After several graph compositions and early pattern pieces with jazz ensembles in the late '50s and early '60s (see "Concert for Two Pianists and Tape Recorders" and "Ear Piece" in La Monte Young's book An Anthology), Riley invented a whole new music which has since gone under many names (minimal music -- a category often applied to sustained pieces as well -- pattern music, phase music, etc.) which is set forth in its purest form in the famous "In C" (1964) (for saxophone and ensemble, CBS MK 7178). "Rainbow in Curved Air" demonstrates the straightforward pattern technique but also has Riley improvising with the patterns, making gorgeous timbre changes on the synthesizers and organs, and presenting contrasting sections that has become the basic structuring of his works ("Candenza on the Night Plain" and other pieces). Scored for large orchestra with extra percussion and electronics, some of this work's seven movements are: "Star Night," "Blue Lotus," "The Earth Below," and "Island of the Rhumba King." - Blue Gene Tyranny

Poppy