Great Success!

Had a blast last nite. Thanks to everyone for showing up and cutting a rug, and the collaborators from both blogs for bringing the goods.

Charanjit Singh - Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat

this is the reissue of the original 1982 album chopped into individual tracks thanks to Bombay-Connection. an electronic gem.

taken directly from The Wooliest Mammoth.

"In 1982, Bollywood session musician Charanjit Singh imported the latest synthesizer equipment into India, to modernize the sound of Bollywood scores. After studio hours however, Singh went to work on his own experiment using the new equipment, (Roland TR-808, Roland TB-303 ((the synth responsible some 5 years later for creating the sound of acid house)) and a Roland Jupiter-8 keyboard) which was to record traditional Indian ragas using the latest in musical innovation. The result is an amazingly fluid minimal record that sounds far ahead of it's time. It just so happens that in this recording Singh made the first house and acid house recordings ever. Three and five years respectively ahead of their appearance in the west. All the elements are there: hypnotic beat, mesmerizing melodies, danceability."


RAGA TIME!

Davey Graham & Shirley Collins - Folk Roots, New Routes

Extremely influential in the English folk scene & the predecessor to The Pentangle. The masterful Davey Graham showcases his innovative jazz-folk stylings with Shirley Collins celtic crooning. A gem.



here.

Radiohead - Hail To The Thief: Glastonbury 2003

full concert in HD!!
incredible performance.

Sam Cooke - Live At The Harlem Club, 1963

The epitome of CLASSIC. Energetic and fun in a way only Cooke is capable of.

Don't fight it (feel it)

Johnny Dowd - Wrong Side of Memphis

Dark tales spun by Death's troubadour from the land where the Power's in the Blood.

"An anomaly in contemporary rock right from the start, Johnny Dowd, a 49-year old moving company owner, debuted in 1997 (in Europe in 1998) with this sparse (most of the songs feature only Dowd himself) and often morbid collection of country noir. More closely related to Nick Cave, Sixteen Horsepower, and Tom Waits than to Uncle Tupelo, Steve Earle, or The Jayhawks, Dowd’s twisted tales of murder, obsessive dedication, and other sinful behavior can be truly disturbing. The music is a fitting match for his lyrics: “Murder” sets the awkward tone with a hypnotic country-blues rhythm accompanied by Dowd’s distorted slur, as he reports a murder (“there’s been a murder here today, the weapon was a knife, the woman wore a wedding ring, I don’t think she was his wife”). “Ft. Worth, Texas” is the story of a convict on death row reflecting on his sinful life. The protagonist “shot and killed (his) girlfriend, then (he) sat and watched her die”. There’s no time for repentance (“there’s still too many people I hate”), although his only company is the ghosts in his head. The minimally executed and bluesy “One Way”, which contains several biblical references (a thorny crown, a sword in the side, the burden of the cross), is followed by “Sick Like a Dog”, one of the album’s scariest songs by virtue of its hypnotic percussion, eerie synths, and Dowd’s croaking voice informing us that “Momma Death ain’t got no respect”.

Songs like “Average Guy” and “Wages of Sin” are other ventures into the neo-gothic religion-obsessed worlds of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood or A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Nick Cave’s The Ass Saw The Angel, where mentally scarred outcasts try to live with their obsessions (often women, liquor, and their own sinful past).“Ballad of Frank and Jesse James,” in which the murderer of Jesse James asks to be buried next to his victim, reminds me of Lou Reed’s calmer work, with a guitar tone that’s a ringer for VU’s “Jesus”.
In “John Deere Yeller” a man expresses his lifelong commitment to a girl, whom he describes in a set of comparisons that could be a proof of his love, but sound rather peculiar (“Cotton candy sweet are the taste of her lips, like Brigitte Bardot are the shape of her hips, her mind is as blue as the Texas sky, gonna love that girl ‘til the day I die”) and ultimately obsessive ("Gonna love that girl 'til the day I die" sounds wicked, coming from Dowd's mouth). This is made even worse by Dowd’s almost drunken slur. “Thanksgiving Day” is another album highlight whose central line “Be content with your life, it may not get any better”, combined with the repetitive finger-picking and shards of electric guitar, provides an eerie and utterly original atmosphere. In “Heavenly Feast,” Kim Sherwood-Caso is introduced as (co-)vocalist. While she would play a prominent role on Dowd’s later albums, her role is limited here to three songs. Notwithstanding that fact, she does make an impression, as her clear and icy voice is the exact opposite of Dowd’s broken voice, and it’s particularly weird to hear that girlish voice (combined with the gently paced music) utter phrases such as “hung me in a courtyard, they let me hang up there a while” (“First There Was”). “I Don’t Exist” might as well have been written by Ennio Morricone, as Kim Sherwood-Caso’s soprano, and Dowd’s melancholy melodica and classic guitar strumming reminds of the composer’s classic Western-work.

All this makes Wrong Side of Memphis, despite a few minor shortcomings (“Idle Conversation” and “Welcome Jesus” are lightweight collages that merely function as atmospheric mood pieces), one of the most intriguing debuts of the past few years. It's not that Dowd's main themes (love, loss, death) are that remarkable, but the uncanny way in which he presents them, often combining seemingly contradictory instrumentation, makes sure he's out of step. With a lo-fi debut like this, it was hard to predict where he’d go next, but very few people expected him to choose the path he chose for his subsequent albums." Guy Peters

Grit

Tom Zé - Se O Caso E Chorar/Todos Los Olhos

And here I give you a twofer from the most insane practitioner of the original Tropicalia. Amazingly creative sound-searcher with the melodic gift deep within him, no holds barred. In my opinion, superior to Os Mutantes, Veloso et al. If you can guess what's the cover of "Todos..." you get a no-prize :-)

hanging gardens

Cocteau Twins - Treasure

The ethereal classic.

Sandpaper

Chrome Children

Stones Throw & Adult Swim comp featuring MF, Dilla, Madlib & others.

giddit.

Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound

another nicely overdriven bad-ass production from the Shellac of North America band. its all about the attitude.

SPOKE!

Cluster - Zuckerzeit

kraut klassic.

Bachi Da Pietra - Non Io

"Bachi da Pietra (“stone worms”) is a two-man band whose dark and resonating music wraps around tunes of desolate candour and lyrics (in Italian) as dark and imaginative as broken love can be. A relentless drumming hovers over a huge wash of ride cymbals and a deep, plaintive voice, which is able to capture sadness, anger and yearning. The entire album is a visceral emotional journey: the dissonant blues-based songs develop around the steady drone of the singer’s voice, a trance-inducing vocal presence singing of grim meditations on life that are crafted and performed with disarming sincerity. Just like the mysterious and enigmatic characters that orbited their doom-laden, disturbing world, Bachi da Pietra is an unpredictable band that leaves the listeners feeling vulnerable, moved, and sometimes totally spaced out" [Last.FM]



Non Io

Caribou - Swim

caribou did it again with a nicely sounding production but very different from his earlier works. it seems he got pretty influenced by this new electro-club fad and he did his own take on it. its full of his trademark mixture of acoustic and ethnic sounding instruments along with a tribalist percussive feel that gives his music a unique vibe.

hell yeah for cover arts.

Shellac - 1000 Hurts

steve albini is the producer man behind the magic of many albums including Slint`s Tweez, Nirvana`s In Utero, Don Caballero`s American Don and Surfer Rosa by the fucking Pixies just to name a few. he actually estimated that he has worked on like 1,500+ albums by underground artists. anyway, THIS IS HIS BAND (yeah, he actually has a band) and its pretty rough sounding, distorted bass packing, spoken word cursed and overall fucking bad-assly performed. it`s an interesting listen. give it a try.

he kinda looks like a geek though and he drives a PT Cruiser too.

Fucked Up - The Chemistry Of Common Life

this punk-ass hardcore band from Canada shows some mad skills in music making. its a little hard these days to start a punk band and actually stand out from the rest. pushing the limits of its hardcore roots and making some good ol` noisy piss music while having a beautiful cover art for their debut album makes it worth to listen to. their live shows are a bit of a spectacle; things get destroyed and people get hurt. good times. the campo-formio boys are going to love this.

beautiful fucking cover art.

Pearls Before Swine - Balaklava

One of PBS's best (their 2nd album), a perfect introduction to the songwriting and soundcrafting genius of Mr. Tom Rapp and co. True Cosmic American Music.

" A record that virtually defies categorization, Pearls Before Swine's 1968 epic Balaklava is the near-brilliant follow-up to One Nation Underground. Intended as a defiant condemnation of the Vietnam War, it doesn't offer anthemic, fist-pounding protest songs. Instead, Rapp vented his anger through surrealist poetry, irony, and historical reference: Balaklava was the 1854 Crimean War battle that inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson to write his epic The Charge of the Light Brigade; in reality, the "Charge" was a senseless military action that killed scores of British soldiers. Balaklava begins with "Trumpeter Landfrey," an 1880's recording of the actual voice and bugle charge of the man who sounded the charge at Balaklava. It makes the transition into "Translucent Carriages," a mix of acoustic guitars, a basic vocal, and ghostly narration ("Jesus raised the dead...but who will raise the living?"), all the more stunning. "Images of April" continues the mystical feel, combining flutes, cricket chirps, and frog croaks for a nether-worldly effect. Rapp virtually cries "I Saw the World," backed by a powerful string arrangement that makes the song even more impassioned. Like One Nation Underground, Balaklava is somewhat unfocused: "There Was a Man" is a little too Dylan-esque, and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" detracts from Rapp's compositions. Unfortunately, the record closes with "Ring Thing," a morbid piece that refers to Tolkien's famous Lord of the Rings trilogy. Still, this is superb psychedelic music, successfully merging exotic instruments like marimba, clavinet, French horn, and swinehorn with Rapp's unique lisping vocals. But Balaklava isn't just acid-trip background music. It's probably the best example of what Rapp calls "constructive melancholy" (also the name of a recent CD collection of Pearls songs), a combination of the real with the surreal, and it's indispensable to any serious '60s rock collection." Peter Kurtz

Max and Noodles

Foetus - Hole

You've enjoyed Steroid Maximus, now try Mr. Thirwell's main thing, the viciously funny and at the same time quite disturbing roar of FOETUS.

"WHAT DO we want to hear of pop?

A sense of danger, a danger to the senses, passion (bruised and abused), humour, sexuality. They’re all here, if not as smoothly blended as some might like – a pot pourri rather than a puree. If there’s some less palateable additions – horror, murder, death and disease – it adds to the fatal attraction. One swig from this will send you head over heels off lover’s leap. ’Hole’ is somewhere between a terminally sick joke and a masterpiece.

Masterpiece? There’s been enough unwarranted hyperbole splattered on the bathroom tiles of 1984, but in the middle of the confusion, two LPs have arisen that genuinely aspire to classic status. Nick Cave’s lovesick ‘From Her To Eternity’ (inevitably) was the first; and now rasping, coughing and grunting over its head comes the conflict-charred ‘Hole’.

It’s not the job of Foetus to be the resurrection of modern music (he makes it clear enough that crucifixion’s his addiction) but his flaring human torch act is a brilliant light in this gloom.

But just what is this Foetus? The maverick spirit that’s manifest itself through Foetus over Frisco, Philip And His Foetus Vibration and You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath. There are indeed many faces of Foetus and throughout ‘Hole’, his masks are many and lurid; from (Iggy) Pop parody to torured dictator. He can be an adept joker, a terrifying atrocity exhibitionist, wretch and retcher; but never a waste of time.

The Foetushow twists and turns the cliches of everyday conversation and the familiar shapes of rock, soul and pop and fashions out of them a new and unique form – by turns funny and horrific, often both at once. Humour to Foetus is a weapon – and what use is a weapon unless it’s off it’s offensive?

Throughout, there’s scarce a chance for a Foetus to gasp a breath: ‘Clothes Heist’, with its bizarre juxtaposition of found voices and its blend of the relative cacophonies of Einsturzende Neubauten and James Brown, lurches straight into the Iggy parody ‘Lust For Death’. Mounted on a testy snatch of an organ melody, Foetus spouts forth on the myth of the Pop: “Libido in Limbo – Legs Akimbo/Never even read a word of Rimbaud/The walls of my stomach think they’re Jericho/I’m about to meet my MEXICO/Make mine a double TEXACO.”

The barb of the parody is that Pop’s mantle of literate figure of self-destruction could rest so easily on the f lesh of Foetus. He sunk in the commotion not the myth – in railing Iggy, he’s excising a part of himself.

From the heights of satire we’re dropped without warning into the landmined terrain of ‘I’ll Meet You in Poland Baby’. The ease of the transition from something as superficial as the ‘Rock and Roll edge’ myth to the chillingly realistic evocation of the horror of World World War II is shocking enough in itself. But even without such cold ironies of juxtaposition, ‘Poland’ is possibly the most flesh-crawling sound put to record.

Presented as a lover’s tiff between Hitler and Stalin, accompanied by the sound of falling bombs and cheering rallies, it recognises the fact that nothing is more pornographic than sentimentality and nothing more terrifying than the banality of evil. At its climax it slips out as easily, back into the mode of more overt humour in ‘Hot Horse’, with Foetus playing the slobbering hillbilly, hunting for a human headscarf.

The game of flippant humour versus tendchant horror is continued on the second side.

In the analogy: pop music in the ’80s is a tattered circus shooting-stall, the gaudy, peeling paint no longer attractive. Along the target line run a series of plastic heads, each one more or less the same as the other and for the most part beyond the range of anyone with the guts to try and shoot at them.

As for Foetus – he’s a whole different rolllercoaster. ’Hole’ will leave you exhilarated, slightly shaken and maybe just a little nauseous. But more than ready to go through it all again." Don Watson

Link removed by request.

Yuca Tapes.

Surveying humid interzones between free improv, merengue, musique concrete, dub, cracked Manati sidewalks, warm Keystones, L & M cigarettes, 1st generation antipsychotics, Echoplexes, Grand Puma Masters, Mr. Pincho and the Miguel Cotto Republic, Yuca Tapes is devoted to releasing junkyard cultural artifacts from the depths of the Rican Parcelas and Barrios where people stage cockfights in their lawns for their own amusement and still celebrate Candelaria Day. Our first release in digital form is this borischizo effort by Mu., aka Nomar Diaz the pride of Sector Quemados and the Maria Cadilla High School. Also a compilation of jam tapes from defunct marquesina Can-obsessed psychonauts Flow Notion, Arecibo represent. Capéalo. More to come oh soon soon...

La terraza boricua

Campo-Formio - AZ`s

now here is a nice new interesting punky ass album full of screaming madness that reeks through your nostrils? recorded in just 5 hours in our hometown of San Juan, comes the second album by a band of friends that sounds like a kick in the face. hell yes.

candyflip = el mas raver

Watch Segundo CD Release Campo-Formio in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

myspace.com/campoformio

Chasm-Filler: Disco Funk Party

Put on your boogie-shoes and join the gang from Chasm-Filler as we bring "the funk, the whole funk and nothing but the funk."

Layin' down the tracks'll be Howard Roark, Sandunga Cat, Raoul Duke, Abelardo Diaz Algaro & guests.

Thursday, May 27
9:30 til tha break'a dawn.
Cafe-103, Rio Piedras

The Durutti Column - Another Setting

More Vini Reilly greatness.

Sandunga Reflections

The Golden Palominos - Dead Inside

Grumpy Oldman aka Pops request. Not what you expect from a GP album, this was quite a detour for Fier's project, very dark and brooding. And also only Fier, Laswell and Knox Chandler (Psychdelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees) play. Poetry by Nicole Blackman.

Vacilon

The Golden Palominos - S/T

Anton Fier's "revolving-door band", in their first stellar effort, comprised of such masters as Bill Laswell, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn & Fred Frith. This shit is absolutely essential.



geet.

Steroid Maximus - Ectopia

Jim Thirwell of Foetus/Clint Ruin/Manorexia/Venture Bros./etc. fame, in one of his main projects, exploring hard-nosed big band arrangements and spy film soundtracks to malevolent ends.

"Another twelve outbursts from this alter-ego of JG Thirlwell, aka Foetus. It may be safe to say that nobody else can so successfully create a symphonic or big band song via samplers and programming. Having been a Foetus fan for longer than I'd care to admit, I've found it interesting to trace his progress and the divergence of personalities in his various projects. In the days of "Nail", misanthropic lyrics, heaviness, and orchestral abandon mixed together. Later, Thirlwell seemed to decide that Foetus was the place for loud guitars and rock star excessiveness, while Steroid Maximus was his forum for instrumental expression. Nowadays, he's also got his Manorexia project for more experimental and electronic work, and with Ectopia, Steroid Maximus continues to delve further into methods of modernizing the big band, symphonic, and jazz genres.

"The Trembler" opens things here with a deceptively calm atmosphere. Echoing, distant drums begin to pick up the beat, then horns and woodwinds give things a feel akin to a 70’s cop show, all suspenseful and cool. "Seventy Cops" begins quite differently, with a synth-bass pulse and synthesizer tone over tribal percussion. Chanting voices enter, then the horns, and finally the drums kick in more heavily, turning the song into a fast-driving piece of energy.

This album is all about drama and setting a mood. I'd bet a fair amount that Thirlwell's a film noir fan, as there's quite a bit of that feel spread throughout this music. The frequent use of horn breaks and percussion, mixed with fat synth lines, immediately places me in that "someone's double-crossing me" frame of mind.

"L'Espion que a Pleure" is based around a spy-movie horn break with strong drums and delicate percussion, together with a goofy, cool synth line. The pounding piano may make you drive well over the speed limit if you drop this in your car. Somewhat unique here, "Chain Reaction" is a heavier electronic hip-hop/big band conglomeration, if you can imagine such a thing. Excellent synth bass over powerful drums leads into horn and keyboard imaginings. Another odd bird on the album is "Wm," a strange, quiet piece filled with buzzings, distant minimal drums, and eerie sounds. A repeated electronic tone wavers through like a warning as the song progresses.

"Bad Day in Greenpoint" is a slower, ominous piece with operatic vocals, clanking percussion, and doom-laden strings. It would be a fine soundtrack to a really good horror film, while "Pusher Jones" is clearly an exploitation flick soundtrack, some guy selling drugs to kids outside a high school. It sounds just like that. You know what I mean. Suddenly halfway through we hit the chase, as the guy runs through the back alleys with the cops right behind him.

"Chaiste" picks up the pace again with fast drums and a thick synth progression. When the drums kick in even heavier, it's like a boot to the head, and things really take off. Then "Enzymes" concludes the album on a quieter, mysterious note. Couldn't tell you what the title might mean, but the delicate woodwind-like sounds and xylophone over a gently insistent rhythm provides a cloudy, rainy-day feel. Perhaps this is musical accompaniment to a chemical reaction.

For someone like me who cherishes instrumental music, and what it can say without words, Ectopia is like a long-awaited prize. I admired Thirlwell's prior Steroid Maximus releases, but with this one he's combined all of the big band bombast of those with a wider sound palette and a perfect feel for dynamics. Each song is structured just so, and the album perfectly balances quiet moods with outbursts of energy. As much as I love the Foetus releases, and was impressed by the recent Manorexia album, this is certainly one of Thirlwell's finest achievements." Mason Jones

Link removed by request.

African Head Charge - Off The Beaten Track

One of the main acts of audio-shaman Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound collective, formed around African percussionist and vocalist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. pioneering the use of dub tricknology into ethnic patterns and styles years before the shit was common, and while respecting and undiluting the mainline.

"In the intervening years between the 1986 release of “Off The Beaten Track” and its immediate predecessor 1983’s “Drastic Season”, African Head Charge had been moulded into a live blood-pumping band by its main man Bonjo lyabinghi Noah, who had truly come out of the shadows where percussion usually resides, fuelled by a righteous desire to occupy that front-of-stage position. Also during that time producer Adrian Sherwood had volunteered to be fed through the funk-mangle by Messrs.

(Skip) McDonald, (Doug) Wimbish and (Keith) Le Blanc, had come out the other end more disciplined and focused on what fresh sounds might be possibly created through the blatant use and abuse of state of the art technology, where he had previously generated samples as a “captured sound” by-product of the studio hardware or bled all over the old Studer decks as a result of a thousand razored edits. The result of this “great leap forward” was the fourth actual, but first “modern”, African Head Charge album – “Off The Beaten Track” – which sounded like nothing else around at the time, and whose combination of fat beats and ethnic chants was to provide the template, which many lesser lights were to attempt to emulate over the ensuing years.

Compared to previous efforts the "new" AHC rhythms were less abstract and more direct, with continuous and flowing percussion lines and more managed tempo shifts. The application of loops and samples of increased time duration made all the difference when combined with the more fluid and confident approach of the musicians involved in the build of the tracks. Sherwood shows up once more under his by now redundant guise as "The Prisoner". Skip McDonald makes an early non-funk entry and the reappearance of Jah Wobble makes clear his creative commitment to his old friends at On-U. But most remarkably, and making his debut as a recording artist, is the twentieth centuries most radical scientist - the super-cool Albert Einstein, laying down a sweet rap with the most conscious of lyrics in "Language And Mentality". Of course, Albert was in the studio in spirit only and the exercise, to my knowledge, has never been repeated.

The title “Off The Beaten Track” was not just an example of a great piece of wordplay, but also incredibly apt as the music was not only a departure for On-U Sound, but also a landmark album for what was to become the whole new ethno-beat strand within the commercial category of what we now know as “World Music”. – Steve Barker

Afeitate

PD: Also, re-upped this.

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

The latest from the low flier, this time he brings it with a badass bassist, Thundercat a.k.a. Stephen Bruner. This album shows how much flylo's concept of time has changed in the past few years, with unquantized loops streaming freely over each other, you might get confused at times, but the pocket is ALWAYS there. This reminds me of Zach Hill's (Hella) "hidden pocket" technique, where the beats are not so easy to follow, so pay close attention to where the downbeats are. The impressive thing is that even though some songs are very intricate, they won't let you go.

A mi entender, esto no es un link a cosmogramma.

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Released in 2008, Flylo returned with sweeter tones and even better progressions. He also lets us know how much he likes his synths. This album sets a darker and more melancholic vibe than it's predecessor.

Los Angeles

Flying Lotus - 1983

Debut album from the nephew of the man himself, John Coltrane. Without putting too much weight on the fact that he is so close to musical genius, Flylo has been known to produce some of the more interesting electronic/hiphop oriented music. I don't know if he has any musical training, but he seems to be able to go much further than the standard for producers of this genre. This is what happens when you soak in lots of music from Koji Kondo's Zelda compositions, Bruce Lee movie soundtracks, 70's orchestral works, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Elektroniche Musik, et cetera.

You might have heard some of his stuff while watching Adult Swim (I always asked myself who made those interludes).

1983

The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity?

Hands down, one of the best recordings ever. The maximum expression of The Bad Plus (and I include Tchad Blake). This is one of the albums that keeps me interested in music. Enjoy.

Esto no es un link ni pal carajo

Jon Hassell - Vernal Equinox

Master of trumpet and electronics, disciple of Pandit Pran Nath and creator/developer of the Fourth World approach.

"Recorded in 1976 at the York University Electronic Media Studios in Toronto, Ontario, Vernal Equinox is Jon Hassell's first recording as a solo artist and sets the stage for his then-emerging career as a trumpeter, composer and musical visionary. "Toucan Ocean" opens the album with two gently swaying chords and delicate layers of percussion that provide a cushion upon which Hassell unfurls long, winding melodic shapes. His trumpet is sent through echo and an envelope filter, producing a stereo auto-wah-wah effect. "Viva Shona" features accompaniment by mbira, subtle polyrhythmic layers of percussion, and the distant calling of birds. Again filtered through echo, Hassell's gliding trumpet lines sound remarkably vocal. "Hex" features a bubbling, filtered electric bass part with a denser web of percussion. From his horn, Hassell elicits moans and sighs that are at first unaffected and later filtered. "Blues Nile" is a long, blue moan. Hassell's breathy, multi-tracked trumpet lines call and respond to one another, weaving a web of deep calm over an ever-present drone. This track clearly points the way to his later work with Brian Eno, in particular, their "Charm Over Burundi Sky." On the title track, Hassell's "kirana" trumpet style is in full bloom as he dialogs with the percussion. Hassell's most elegant melodicism blossoms forth here, and his unaffected horn often sounds disarmingly flute-like. The influences of his study of raga with Pandit Pran Nath are clearly discernible in the curvaceous melodic lines and overall sense of meditative calm within harmonic stasis. Throughout the album, percussionists {$Naná Vasconcelos} and David Rosenboom add subtle, supple grooves and colors. "Caracas Night September 11, 1975" is a beautiful field recording featuring Hassell's plaintive trumpet commentary, subtle percussion interjections, and the sound of caracas humming and buzzing in the background. The first several tracks of Vernal Equinox bear the imprint of '70s-period Miles Davis, in particular the quiet ambience of "He Loved Him Madly" and parallel passages from Agharta. The envelope filter on Hassell's horn similarly draws a reference to Davis' use of the wah-wah pedal from that time. Nonetheless, in 1976, Vernal Equinox was remarkably unique and ahead of its time, and sowed the seeds of Hassell's influential Fourth World aesthetic, which he would continue to develop and refine. Decades after its release, Vernal Equinox still provides an enchanting and entirely contemporary listening experience." - Mark Kirschenmann

Keystone v9

Nick Cave And the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against The Pricks

More from Saint Nick, this time it's their amazing covers album, tackling everything from Alex Harvey to Gene Pitney in salacious Bad Seed style. Want more Nick? Do a search and ye shall find.

motherfuck MGMT

.O. Rang - Fields And Waves

Talk Talk's rhythm section deep into Fourth World Electronics, eastern-tinged massive dub soundscapes, gamelan colours and techno-mystical rhythms. Fucking 90s ruled below the surface bwoy. Features Bark Psychosis's Graham Sutton on holo-guitar.

"Bassist Paul Webb and drummer Lee Harris were bandmates for a decade in the influential British band Talk Talk. A year after the band's final release -- 1992's critically acclaimed Laughing Stock -- Harris and Webb built a studio that they dubbed The Slug. Once the studio was up and running, the duo allowed all sorts of musicians to come in and improvise with them, using the resulting music as source material with which to create the music heard on 'O'Rang's albums. The band's recorded debut was the EP Spoor (1994) followed by two full lengths, Herd of Instinct (1995) and Fields & Waves (1996). The recordings were originally released on Echo Records and later picked up and reissued (except for the EP) in 1997 by Chicago's Hit It! Recordings, followed a year later by the new Remixes. 'O'Rang features Webb and Harris on a variety of instruments, incorporating dub rhythms, various percussion, and thickly layered atmospherics to create a rock music that has been highly praised by U.K. publications such as The Wire, The Times of London, and Melody Maker." - J. Lane

motherfuck crystal castles

5ive - Telestic Difracture

RIFF.

"5IVE - Like a swirling vortex spinning towards infinity in the far reaches of outer space, the bilateral commission known as 5IVE is perpetually stretching the outer limits of the hearing threshold, proving the sonic postulation that one may not be able to hear, but can definitely feel those sub-harmonic registers below 20Hz. Through a veritable fleet of vintage speaker cabinets and a drum kit that packs enough wallop to fell a herd of elephant, 5IVE's
Ben Carr (guitars, amps) and Charlie Harrold (skins) have achieved the kind of instrumental post-Kyuss density that sweeps across the continental divide with a sense of inherent purpose and analog fidelity, exposing "stoner rock" as trite and ordinary once and for all. Eschewing binary code for the warmth and tone of the two-inch reel, this Boston duo have published their first jeremiad via Tortuga Recordings (initial pressing on vinyl only) with subsequent transmissions (and rumored appearance from Milligram vocalist Jonah Jenkins) to follow later this year. Surrounded by an ocean of garish mixed metaphors and run-on sentences, 5IVE have turned out the backdrop for a seething fever dream, the soundtrack for the arrival of the four horsemen. Repent or burn. (Tortuga Recordings) - J. Bennett

Consorte

Gastr Del Sol- Crookt, Crackt, Or Fly

Fractured, cracked excursions into americana psychosis.

"At this point, Gastr del Sol was pretty much just David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke, though John McEntire was still around here and there on a couple of songs. There are a few other guests at points -- percussion from Steve Butters and clarinet from Gene Coleman, both on the lengthy, mysterious "Work From Smoke" -- but otherwise this was just the partnership going at it. Acoustic guitars were all the rage for the duo and that's what a listener will hear a lot of over Crookt's eight-song length. Other instruments and approaches do surface -- "Every Five Miles" adds electric guitar to the predominantly unplugged approach, while "Is That a Rifle When It Rains?" is actually a full-on rocker, with McEntire hitting the skins -- but generally electricity was only used for the microphones. Some numbers are near fragments, like the opening "Wedding in the Park," while others extend to over ten minutes. Anyone expecting, say, the fluid genre hopping of John Fahey or the more abrupt but still uncategorizable leaps of the Sun City Girls will find Crookt a different experience. Generally, there are abrupt, quick chord runs or soft, repetitive figures, often with plenty of pauses, over which Grubbs and O'Rourke do or don't quietly sing, as the mood takes them. One of the shorter numbers is among the most intriguing -- "Paranthetically," with only Grubbs and his piano over a minute and 20 seconds. Conversational in tone, it's an interesting if too brief approach. "The Wrong Soundings" ends the album on a nicely ragged note, starting with one of the calmer guitar leads on the album before moving into a seemingly random cutup of everything from full electric riffing to low-volume percussion hits and back. Indie obsessives who favor the Thrill Jockey stable will be pleased to hear "The C in Cake," the name of which indeed was the inspiration for McEntire's The Sea and Cake." - Ned Raggett

Pelabichos en bicicleta

Roy Harper - Folkjokeopus.

Many thanks to my friend Dax for hooking me up with the Harper discography. Here's an offering from this masterful mongrel which contains such beautiful songs such as the wailing "she's the one" and a tribute to one of the best TV series of all-time: The Prisoner (sorry Lost), a 17 minute diddy called "McGoohan's Blues"

hopes ya like't.

The Necks.

"The Necks are one of the great cult bands of Australia. Chris Abrahams (piano), Tony Buck (drums), and Lloyd Swanton (bass) conjure a chemistry together that defies description in orthodox terms. Featuring lengthy pieces which slowly unravel in the most mesmerising fashion, frequently underpinned by an insistent deep groove, the fifteen albums by The Necks stand up to re-listening time and time again.

The deceptive simplicity of their music throws forth new charms on each hearing. Not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, the music of The Necks is possibly unique in the world today." [www.thenecks.com]

In other words, The Necks are the shit. Get this, you should've by now.


















Links removed by guilt trip:
"Do you guys know that actually, with a band that operates at this level, up-loading and sharing all this music does great damage to the possibilities in the future for the band to record and make new albums. Maybe it's becoming a boring subject, but with income from our records being severely dented by this stuff, it does make it really hard.
Glad you like the music. How about supporting us and buying some music from www.thenecks.com
Cheers, TONY (The Necks)"

Please support the artists that are worth supporting.

The Fall - Early Singles

Pandokustan request.

Beria

Liquid Liquid - s/t

Continuing our explorations into Unquestioned Rhythm, here's the mythical Liquid Liquid. Just listen to "Optimo" or "Cavern" and hear the birth of a thousand musics.

"The angular, bass-propelled funk grooves of Liquid Liquid laid the groundwork for post-rock bands like Tortoise and Ui more than a decade before the fact -- stripped of all excess and artifice, their hypnotically dub-like sound offered a starkly minimalist counterpoint to the prevailingly lush production of the concurrent disco movement, in the process impacting the development of everything from hip-hop to drum'n'bass. This superbly packaged, 18-track retrospective collects the sum of Liquid Liquid's official output, recorded between 1981 and 1983, and all things considered, it's remarkable just how prescient and modern the group's music really was. Although only the standout, "Cavern" (the basis for the Grandmaster Flash rap classic "White Lines"), is even remotely familiar in any strict sense, the remaining material, with its thickly fluid basslines and circular rhythms, will undoubtedly strike a chord of recognition in anyone versed in the sonic motifs of post-rock and electronica. Ui's Sasha Frere-Jones is thanked on the sleeve, but in truth he's the one owing the debt -- for all intents and purposes, post-rock (and a whole lot more) starts here. "- J. Ankeny

katyusha

James Brown - Nastiest Meditational Funk

These three albums by Soul brother No.1 contain some of the most mind-numbing, skull-crushing grooves ever recorded. The Godfather strips his blasphemous funk until only the skeleton is left, but motherfucker those bones are made of lustrous fuckin' adamantium. For freaks of trigeminal-nerve shattering repetition like yours truly, this trilogy represents some of the purest examples of Unquestioned Rhythm. Fitting too, on Easter Sunday. Let's see what St. Julian has to say about "The Payback":

"And so, as we close The Payback down and wonder where all the time went, we consider had we not better just put it back on again and stare at the Moon for another hour. Obviously, I have a belief that real deep exploration of this period of James’ groove could bring finely tuned shamanic results. Of course the huge use of James Brown samples in modern music is evidence enough of our current need for this timeless rhythm. But, like the motorik Neu! groove which propelled much of the Krautrock-inspired late mid-90s music, the groove of The Payback, once-discovered or re-located, is there for us all to use not in a dance setting but as one of the accepted propellants of the modern urban meditation music."

Three albums in one file.

I don't know karate but i know krayzeee

Boredoms - Super Ae

In this one Boredoms open your third eye and drive across it like a multicolored U-Boat with Kundalini Torpedoes.

"That’s why listening to Super Æ is such an incredibly fulfilling experience. Everything is placed right where it should be; the spurts of noise, the swells of distortion, even Eye’s wails are dead on every time. The Boredoms have always been proficient with their timing, but it was in a different way on their earlier records. It was about banging a drum in the right place to create maximum entertainment for the listener. Or letting go a monstrous riff after an extended silence for just the right sense of humorous contrast. With Super Æ, it’s something far grander; it’s about forming a masterpiece through unexpected turns, colossal dynamics, and masterful song development.

“Super You” opens the album with a barrier of feedback that screeches unbearably. About a minute into the song, the guitars launch in, beginning the album and predicting its magnitude with their tremendous force. Things build up for a few minutes as the feedback that commenced the track is manipulated and interposed in small portions over the guitars, but the song really hits its stride when, reaching the climax near the seven-minute mark, the noise drops out and a Can-influenced groove sets in. And here the album really begins. Here, we’re introduced to the new Boredoms. The more focused, more meticulous, more ambitious Boredoms.

“Super Are” is the album’s best example of their more focused song development, despite covering more territory than any other band could hope to comprehend. The laid-back, heavily Kraut Rock-influenced keyboards that open the track give way to tribal drums and chanting after a few minutes, and from there, two guitar chords dominate over Eye’s moans. It’s about five minutes in that we see why The Boredoms are just about the greatest band in the world, though, as the drums kick in and Eye lets loose the most fearsome howl imaginable before the song turns to chaos. It’s all done with such incredible precision, while at the same time inviting, no, demanding listeners to participate in fierce, out of control head banging, that it just seems unnatural.

“Super Going” may be the album’s highlight, defining why I love the Boredoms better than any other song of theirs. Despite its twelve-and-a-half-minute length, the song (or at least, the first two parts of the song) is constructed around only two chords. Played far apart, these two chords accompany Eye’s unintelligible vocals and a long, rotating list of sound effects. The song diminishes about a third of the way through, before reappearing at a much faster tempo and a much higher volume. From here, it continues in the same manner until about two-thirds of the way through the song, in one of the album’s defining moments. The drums pause and skip for a couple seconds, and something completely different emerges. The two chords are abandoned, and the Boredoms rock out to a new tune. After the eight-and-a-half minutes of sublime repetition, the Boredoms hit you with something altogether unexpected at just the right moment. It’s the most blissful thing imaginable.

“Super Coming” and “Super Are You” are the most traditional Boredoms tracks on the album. The former wells up in anticipation for a couple minutes, then attacks with the album’s most powerful, most unearthly onslaught of guitars. The band contributes inimitable vocals here; wild, caveman-like chanting that affirms the primordial, yet transcendental nature of the song. That the Boredoms keep this up for almost ten minutes seems nearly impossible, but sure enough, they do. Surprisingly, a calm, even relaxing outro finishes the song before it transitions into the sharp bleeps that commence “Super Are You”. The only song to feature the randomness of their earliest releases, the first few minutes of “Super Are You” recall their Pop Tatari material through vibrant keyboards, playful harmonics, chirping sound effects, unusual percussion, and most of all, vigorous screaming. When an extended vocal sample enters, however, the song takes a decidedly different turn, becoming very spacious and quite subdued. For the rest of the song’s duration, swirling keyboards gradually die and the vocal sample becomes increasingly lethargic.

“Super Shine” is what the Boredoms are building up to throughout the album. The chugging guitar riff and disturbingly high single note that intimidate the listeners at first give way to a simple melody, one that soon becomes the album’s peak. As the band donates backup chanting to a squealing guitar, the song rises to an unconquerable enormousness. The band takes several different approaches to the same melody throughout the song’s near 13-minute length, and each one carries the album even higher, even further away from any sense of reality. As the chanting hits the climax, the album reaches its full glory, and a sense of satiating completion overcomes the listener. Thankfully, we are given a beautiful respite with “Super Good”, the album’s closer (or epilogue, as I see it), and the song’s dreaminess allows us to meditate over the splendor that we have just witnessed.

It is a splendor that is unique to Super Æ, an album that succeeds in its amazing ambition more than any album since The Beatles. It’s almost pointless to say that Super Æ is a wonderful progression from the Boredoms’ previous releases, or an incredible achievement, or even a masterpiece; the album is as inspiring as art gets. The Boredoms did more than perfect their sound with Super Æ, they did more than create an entirely new sound with their old one, they did more than create a monumental album. They created a timeless piece of music. " - Kareem Stefan

Stalin organ