Gamingforce Music Exposure Club™

It's been quite some time since I've uploaded any music. Here I am again, though.

Moondog - Moondog



Year: 1969
Label: Columbia
Genre: Modern Classical

Spoiler:

Louis Hardin aka Moondog was born in 1916 in Marysville, Kansas. At 5 he started playing a set of drums made by himself with a cardboard box. Later he got a buffalo skin drum at an indian fair, that he used as a Tom-Tom. His fascination with aboriginal American percussion never ceased. The repetitive beat became a distinctive sound that accompanied his compositions until the end of his life. At 16 he was injured in an unexplained dynamite accident and lost his sight, thus turning to an inner world of sounds and unique imaginary visions. After learning the principles of music in several schools for blind young men across central America he started teaching himself the skills of ear training and composition, becoming then a self taught man and artist.

He was never bitter about being blind. In late 50's he appeared in New York city as an eccentric figure, a man with a long beard, dressed as a Viking, claiming for the return to our ancestral roots, against the fake “values” of our modern world.

He transformed himself into something different from the rest of us. Into Moondog the poet, Moondog the pagan, Moondog the composer, Moondog the man in 6th Avenue who challenges society in a playful, rich way.

Although he had recorded a few works during the 50’s it was during the 60’s when he got to be known and admired by his peers and by a new generation that understood his anti-stablishment position much better.

By late 60’s he was a cult figure, probably not a world-famous one but known and celebrated by the likes of Janis Joplin (who covered one of his “rounds”) or James William Guercio (producer of the band Chicago, who “discovered him in 1969 and the guy who produced the album I am posting today)

About Moondog’s work allmusic.com says:

“His music, constructed of direct musical gestures and built mostly from pure modal themes expanded by sophisticated counterpuntal techniques, would now receive the avant-garde label of"minimal or pattern music but this sound has characterized his music since the late 1940's, and is thus a precursor of this postmodern compositional style. In New York, Moondog began to meet legendary jazz performer-composers, such as Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, and to incorporate jazz inflections as well as humorous philosophical couplets and environmental sounds into his recorded compositions”

In 1974 Moondog left for Germany where he spent the last decades of the century producing a solid body of extraordinary compositions, edited in several marvellous albums, unfortunately not easy to be found today. (I’ll post some in the future if asked).

Among his many fans we can count people as diverse as Phillip Glass, Charles Mingus, Peter Hammill, Elvis Costello, Wim Mertens and the members of the great folk ensemble Pentangle.

In 1989 Moondog returned briefly to America for a tribute in which Glass himself asked him to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, which he did in a rather unusual way: by sitting at one side with the musicians and beating a tympani.

He want back to Europe after that and recorded two albums in Peter Hammill’s studio in Bath, England: “Sax Pax for a Sax” and “Big Band” both extraordinary exercises in modernity.
It is said that his last years were very happy. He died, peacefully in Germany while listening to Camille Saint-Saens, in 1999.

His music is the soundtrack of a nicer, better, happier world.

Tracks:
1. Theme
2. Stamping Ground
3. Symphonique No. 3 (Ode to Venus)
4. Symphonique No. 6 (Good for Goodie)
5. Cuplet
6. Minisym No. 1
7. Lament, No. 1
8. Witch of Endor
9. Symphonique No. 1 (Portrait of a Monarch)

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Ken Vandermark and Tim Daisy - August Music



Year: 2007
Label: self-released, no label
Genre: Jazz

You know this is serious stuff because I never write my own reviews.

This is the best new jazz record I've heard in quite some time. The whole record is duets featuring percussionist Tim Daisy and tenor saxophonist Ken Vandermark, recorded live. I uploaded an album in the last thread by Vandermark's group the Vandermark 5 in the last MEC thread, which seemed to get a good response. Anyway, Ken Vandermark gets an amazing tone out of his instruments (he plays most woodwinds), and the combination his playing and Daisy's intricate rhythms are absolutely spectacular. If you like jazz at all, you need to get into Ken Vandermark in a big way.


Tracks:
1. Study for Mural
2. Half the Population
3. Hover
4. Red Box
5. Boiled and Fumed
6. 2000 Hours

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Eric B. & Rakim - Paid In Full



Year: 1987
Label: 4th And Broadway
Genre: Rap

One of the most influential rap albums of all time, Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full only continues to grow in stature as the record that ushered in hip-hop's modern era. The stripped-down production might seem a little bare to modern ears, but Rakim's technique on the mic still sounds utterly contemporary, even state-of-the-art -- and that from a record released in 1987, just one year after Run-D.M.C. hit the mainstream. Rakim basically invents modern lyrical technique over the course of Paid in Full, with his complex internal rhymes, literate imagery, velvet-smooth flow, and unpredictable, off-the-beat rhythms. The key cuts here are some of the most legendary rap singles ever released, starting with the duo's debut sides, "Eric B. Is President" and "My Melody." "I Know You Got Soul" single-handedly kicked off hip-hop's infatuation with James Brown samples, and Eric B. & Rakim topped it with the similarly inclined "I Ain't No Joke," a stunning display of lyrical virtuosity. The title cut, meanwhile, planted the seeds of hip-hop's material obsessions over a monumental beat. There are also three DJ showcases for Eric B., who like Rakim was among the technical leaders in his field. If sampling is the sincerest form of admiration in hip-hop, Paid in Full is positively worshipped. Just to name a few: Rakim's tossed-off "pump up the volume," from "I Know You Got Soul," became the basis for M/A/R/R/S' groundbreaking dance track; Eminem, a devoted Rakim student, lifted lines from "As the Rhyme Goes On" for the chorus of his own "The Way I Am"; and the percussion track of "Paid in Full" has been sampled so many times it's almost impossible to believe it had a point of origin. Paid in Full is essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in the basic musical foundations of hip-hop -- this is the form in its purest essence.

Tracks:
1. I Ain't No Joke
2. Eric B. Is on the Cut
3. My Melody - Eric B. & Rakim, Rakim
4. I Know You Got Soul
5. Move the Crowd
6. Paid in Full
7. As the Rhyme Goes On
8. Chinese Arithmetic
9. Eric B. Is President
10. Extended Beat
11. As the Rhyme Goes On [Radio Mix]
12. Paid in Full [Mini Madness- The Coldcut Remix]

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Charles Gayle - Repent



Year: 1992
Label: Knitting Factory
Genre: Jazz

There is absolutely no one playing tenor (or any other saxophone) coming close to making the kind of music created by Charles Gayle. While it's reminiscent of Albert Ayler's energetic, twisting 1960s free dates, Gayle's saxophone acrobatics and stamina are astonishing. This two-song CD was recorded live and features one number that runs 23 minutes; it's the short tune. "Jesus Christ and Scripture," the second piece, proceeds for over 50 minutes, much of that featuring Gayle's honks, bleats, turnarounds, moans, and anguished cries on tenor. After listening closely to this disc, its lack of repetition and gimmickry is commendable. It's certainly not for all (or even most tastes), but those who listen fairly and intently to Charles Gayle will be rewarded.

1. Repent
2. Jesus Christ And Scripture

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C.O.B. - Moyshe McStiff And The Tartan Lancers Of The Sacred Heart



Year: 1972
Label: Polydor
Genre: British Folk

C.O.B.'s second album was, like its first, a mighty rare and little-heard item, though its rep has risen slightly since then due to its reissue on CD (though that itself is hard to find). It's not much different than the debut, either, and can't fail to remind seasoned British folk-rock listeners of a more normal Incredible String Band, though the connection's legitimate since C.O.B.'s Clive Palmer was a founding member of the ISB. There's a plaintive, almost hymn-like feel to this muted British folk-rock, which is much folkier than rocky. There's also a tinge of acid-folk in the use of some relatively exotic instrumentation for a folk-rock record, including balalaika, dulcitar, tabla, banjo, and harmonium-like organ. "Eleven Willows" gets a little closer to Pentangle-Bert Jansch territory, and Genevieve Baker's nicely haunting background singing on that track makes one wish she'd been given a more prominent role in the band's vocals.

Tracks:
1. Sheba's Return/Lion of Judah
2. Let It Be You
3. Solomon's Song
4. Eleven Willows
5. I Told Her
6. Oh Bright Eyed One
7. Chain of Love
8. Pretty Kerry
9. Martha and Mary
10. Heart Dancer

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The Shapes - Songs For Sensible People



Year: 1998
Label: Overground
Genre: Punk

Spoiler:

One of the most gleefully idiosyncratic bands to emerge from Britain's punk scene, the Shapes released a mere single and EP during their brief career. However, that was more than enough to capture the group's uniquely crazed pop-punk sound and place them firmly in the punk hall of fame. The brainchild of singer Seymour Bybuss and bassist Brian Helicopter, the Shapes began life in Leamington Spa, in 1977, as a duo miming goofily along to golden oldies. Apparently, this was entertaining enough to amuse the pair for the next year, although at some point they did add a few more now long-forgotten members to the group. It was in this amorphous shape that Radio One DJ John Peel first saw the Shapes perform at a party in neighboring Stratford-upon-Avon. He walked away distinctly under-impressed.

By 1978, Bybuss and Helicopter had finally begun taking the band more seriously and recruited guitarists Tim Jee and Steve Richards and drummer Dave Gee into the Shapes ultimate form.

In February 1979, the new look group entered the studio to record their debut Part of the Furniture EP. The title was a bit of a joke, of course, playing off the fact that Furniture was released on the group's own Sofa label. A frenetic burst of poppy punk lunacy, the four-song EP made fans out of all but the most cynical scenesters. The highlight was definitely "Batman in the Launderette," an inspired piece of idiocy that was farcically infectious.

A repentant John Peel was converted to the Shapes' cause and his constant airplay helped push the record to number two on the indies singles chart. He also invited the group along to perform on his show, which they did on April 10, 1979. The Shapes were also sharpening their skills on both the media and the stage, where they opened for a host of upcoming groups. Equally memorable as their frenetic live shows were their bouts with the press, whom often photographed the band sprouting large, geometrically shaped boxes over their heads (this is how they appeared on the cover of their posthumous album). The actual interviews were equally surreal, and even at the time, it became difficult to separate the fact from the fiction of the band's history. There's no doubt, however, that soon after the release of Furniture, the Shapes were contacted by the Belfast label Good Vibrations, with whom Sofa struck a distribution deal. The upshot was the prescient "Airline Disaster" single, which was aptly dubbed a double B-side. The plaintive ballad about fear of flying was backed by the roaring noise of "Blast Off." Unfortunately, this time around, no one seemed to get the joke, and the single crashed and burned ignominiously; legend has it that it was the poorest selling release of 1980. The Shapes took this badly, as they were counting financially upon another hit.

The group ended their career on-stage soon after as ridiculously as they began. At the start of their gig at London's Marquee, Bybuss attempted to make a grand entrance by leaping onto the stage. Unfortunately, he misjudged his jump and landed smack in the middle of a stunned audience, who immediately crowd-surfed him out of the band room and onto Wardour Street. From there, he just kept on going and that was the end of the show, and the Shapes themselves, or so the story goes. However, the band's music continued to live on. In 1998, the Overground label released the Songs for Sensible People album, which compiled together the group's EP, single, and a clutch of previously unreleased songs.

Tracks:
1. Interview
2. Kids' Stuff
3. Wot's For Lunch Mum? (Not Beans Again!) (Demo)
4. Leamington (Demo)
5. College Girls (Demo)
6. Wot's For Lunch Mum? (Not Beans Again!)
7. College Girls
8. (I Saw) Batman (In The Launderette)
9. Chatterbox
10. Bedtime Stories
11. Alien Love
12. Airline Disaster
13. Business Calls
14. Leamington
15. Let's Go To Planet Skaro
16. My House Is A Satellite
17. Jennifer The Conifer
18. Blast Off!
19. Interview

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The Sadies - New Seasons



Year: 2007
Label: Yep Rock
Genre: Psychedelic Country Rock

It's almost disorienting to imagine that a band as good as the Sadies can still find room to improve each time they go into the studio, but Canada's greatest contribution to Americana since Blue Rodeo have been consistently topping themselves with each new album, and their sixth, New Seasons, is another triumph. It should come as no surprise that the Sadies are in superb instrumental form here and demonstrating an effortless mastery of a range of different sounds and styles; "What's Left Behind" is a superb evocation of the late-period Byrds with guitar work that would make Clarence White envious, "The Trial" is a deeply atmospheric Southern gothic tale with just the right degree of ominous atmosphere, "A Simple Aspiration" could pass for a lost Paisley Underground classic with its subtly psychedelic guitar figures, "The Land Between" is simply gorgeous folk-rock, and the opening bluegrass breakdown makes you wish these guys had let listeners hear more than 48 seconds of it. But for a band that used to prefer playing instrumentals over approaching the vocal mike, brothers Dallas Good and Travis Good have learned to sing nearly as well as they play guitar, and their harmonies add another layer of beauty and mystery to their music. The group's songwriting continues to impress, with the heartbroken "Sunset to Dawn" and "The Trial" sounding uncannily like lost country classics and the two-part "The Last Inquisition" showing they know how to write a good scary guitar figure for themselves. While ex-Jayhawk Gary Louris helped produce New Seasons, precious little of his influence is audible here; the Sadies have created a powerful and evocative sound on their previous albums, and with New Seasons they've given that sound its ideal definition.

This record reminds me a lot of Workingman's Dead era Grateful Dead.

Tracks:
1. Introduction
2. First Inquisition, Pt. 4
3. What's Left Behind
4. Sunset to Dawn
5. Yours to Discover
6. Anna Leigh
7. Trial
8. My Heart of Wood
9. Simple Aspiration
10. Wolf Tones
11. Never Again
12. Land Between
13. Last Inquisition, Pt. 5

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The Cravats - The Land Of The Giants



Year: 2006 (Recorded 1979-1982)
Label: Overground
Genre: Jazz/Punk

I cannot find a review for this, and I really do not trust myself to do a proper review. One thing I can say for sure though, this is absolutely wild stuff. The Cravats are the favorite band of Steve Albini, Jello Biafra, Henry Rollins, and John Peel. That says a lot. Give this a listen or miss out on great art.

Tracks:

Disc: 1
1. Off the Beach
2. Terminus
3. There Is No International Rescue
4. I Am the Dreg
5. Daddy's Shoes
6. Working Down Underground
7. Ice-Cubists
8. Rub Me Out
9. Who's in Here with Me
10. Land of the Giants
11. Shroud of New York (Chapter 1)
12. Station
13. Execute His Will

Disc: 2
1. Still
2. Triplex Zone
3. You're Driving Me
4. XMP
5. Fireman
6. All on Standby
7. In Your Eyes
8. And the Sun Shone
9. Precinct
10. Shroud of New York (Chapter 2)
11. Hole
12. When Will We Fall
13. Ceasing to Be
14. End
15. Seance
16. Still [Live]
17. In Your Eyes [Live]
18. Tears on My Machine [Live]
19. I Hate the Universe [Live]

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Swans - Cop + Young God



Year: 1984
Label: K.422
Genre: No Wave

If there's music in hell, this is what it sounds like. It's conceivable that some band, somewhere, is making music heavier, darker and just generally less fun than this, but if you find one, ask who one of their greatest influences is and they'll probably refer you to the Swans. Consisting of a four-piece lineup -- Mosimann on drums, Westberg on guitar, Harry Crosby on bass, and naturally Gira on vocals -- on their second full album Swans add even more vicious crunch to their basic approach, resulting in quite possibly one of the darkest recordings ever done. Gira's words come across a little more forcefully and cleanly than before, and the existential horror shows that he details, almost always phrased in confessional/accusatory "I - you" terms, make up in sheer power what they lack in any kind of subtlety. For example, typical lyrics, from the snarling "Your Property" state: "I give you money -- you're superior. I don't exist. You control me." Matching his at-times unearthly moans and cries perfectly, the pounding music mostly consists of one slow, descending chord progression or a repetitive series of one or two notes after another, extending the power of loud feedback and amped drums to indescribably forceful effect. The opening grind alone on "Why Hide," as Westberg stretches out his strings behind Mosimann and Crosby's pummeling, is crushing enough before Gira delivers a harrowing vocal. The most legendary track from the album is the title cut; as a vicious anti-boys-in-blue rant finds its equal only in N.W.A.'s "Fuck Da Police." With such thoroughly bilious Gira lines as "Nobody rapes you like a cop in jail" providing the mental pictures, a slow, steady punch of music gets slowly but surely more aggressive and destructive as the song unfolds to its raging conclusion. Jim Thirlwell, aka Foetus, helps contribute to the apocalyptic noise on the release, but you somehow figure that Swans would have reached this state quite well on their own regardless. Ugly, compelling, and overpowering, Cop remains the pinnacle of Swans' brutal early days.

Tracks:
1. Half Life
2. Job
3. Why Hide
4. Clay Man
5. Your Property
6. Cop
7. Butcher
8. Thug
9. I Crawled
10. Raping A Slave
11. Young God
12. This Is Mine

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Putrescence - Fatal White Pustules Upon Septic Organs



Year: 2007
Label: No Escape Records
Genre: Death Metal

This is a local metal band who just finished their first European tour. This is their third full-length album, and I have to say, it's my favorite metal album of 2007. It rips your spine out. On one of the live tracks on this, the lead singer jokes about shitting himself. One time when I saw these guys live, he actually did shit himself about halfway through the set, and he finished the show. Their music is fucking brutal.

Tracks:
1. Stench Of Vomit Vomit Of Stench 1:29
2. Kill Yourself Shit Your Pants 1:45
3. Face Unfastened And Rendered Into Emulsion By Claw Hammer 3:39
4. Faster Blunt Trauma Kill Kill
5. Blowtorched To Conceal Identity
6. Compulsive Defecation Into The Larynxes Of The Recently Mutilated
7. Head Crushed By Partially Severed Extremities Seeping With Viral Infection
8. Grotesque Instance Of Obscene Protoplasmic Devastation
9. Total Fucking Absence Of Brain Matter
10. The Black Out Drunk Psychotic Voices Inside My Head
11. Green Hell
12. Drilling Through Timpanic Membrane With A Corkskrew (Live)
13. 245 Trioxin (Live)
14. Dawn Of The Necrofecalizer (Live)
15. Self Strangulation In A Locked Refrigerator (Live)

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I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Sukima Switch - Natsukumo Noise
Label: BMG Fun House
Release: 2004
Genre: J-Pop



*GASP!* J-Pop, in our GF Music Exposure thread I guess you didn't expect something like this posted here.

But really, Sukima Switch is just not like any other generic pop crap out there (sorry all you mainstream pop likers). There's something about this J-Pop duo of Takuya Ohashi (Guitar/Vocals/Harmonica) and Shintaro Tokita (Piano/Keyboard/Other instruments) I just can't help but like. I feel good listening to their music It's pop alright, but their songs are very well arranged/produced and they manage to come out with a very original sound in my opinion. I can't think of any other band that sounds like them. The singer has a great and original voice and the piano is a great spice to their sound (great piano player). They also use a lot of different instruments on their tracks like brass/woodwinds/strings and others so it is a great touch to their sound. You could say they lend a bit from jazz sometimes, but it still doesn't sound like jazz. Dah, well most music I post is really hard to describe so, once again, just go listen to it and give some comments on it later If you guys like it I can post more.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

I was speaking idiomatically.

Girl Talk - Night Ripper
Label: Illegal Art
Year: 2006
Genre: Mashup, Dance, Experimental

Track - Title
1. Once Again
2. That's My DJ
3. Hold Up
4. Too Deep
5. Smash Your Head
6. Minute by Minute
7. Ask About Me
8. Summer Smoke
9. Friday Night
10. Hand Clap
11. Give and Go
12. Bounce That
13. Warm It Up
14. Double Pump
15. Overtime
16. Peak Out

The element of surprise is gone from the mash-up. Hollertronix and 2 Many DJs mastered the technique, made it a staple of their sets, and next, everyone on the block was mix-matching hip-hop to electro and indie rock. The idea that two songs blender-ized can recombine to create something wholly new is thrilling in theory, but the execution is usually sloppy or samey, either simply aligning two similar beat structures or pairing up two completely disparate tracks for the slapstick novelty of a jokey title.

Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) absolutely detonates the notions of mash-up on his third album, the violently joyous Night Ripper. Rather than squeeze two songs that sorta make sense together into a small box, Gillis crams six or eight or 14 or 20 songs into frenetic rows, slicing fragments off 1980s pop, Dirty South rap, booty bass, and grunge, among countless other genres. Then he pieces together the voracious music fan's dream: a hulking hyper-mix designed to make you dance, wear out predictable ideas, and defy hopeless record-reviewing.

Night Ripper doesn't stretch the boundaries of mash-ups because there were no boundaries to begin with. As an illegal art form, it's surprising no one came along with an idea like this sooner. Still, it's doubtful they'd have the sturdy, meticulous hand that Gillis flaunts here. The record's pacing is astonishing-- with more than 150 sample sources (all thanked in the liner notes), it ricochets from Top 40 hits to obscure gems and back again like a cool breeze, clocking in at less than 42 minutes. The sampling is pure precision, slotting razor-thin (but highly recognizable) guitar stabs on top of blaring synths on top of anthemic rap couplets and so on, all at breakneck speed.

Part of the fun of listening is trying to figure out the source of each fragment used on these tracks. Familiar as they may be, you'll never place every sample. But at the risk of getting sucked into Gillis' name-game vortex, an example speaks to the power. "Smash Your Head" glides into the siren keyboards of Lil Wayne's "Fireman" less than a minute in, then abruptly shifts into the crushingly dense riffs of Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice" while Young Jeezy spits the familiar flames of "Soul Survivor", before it all tumbles into a Pharcyde-Elton John-Biggie somersault. On "Minute by Minute", Gillis even slots Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" up next to Juelz Santana's "There It Go (The Whisper Song)". There are no ties, other than the miracle of chopping and looping.

Due to its overwhelming number of unlicensed sources, Night Ripper is practically begging for court drama. In the event of litigation, Gillis' label has armed themselves with a Fair Use argument, citing artists' rights to liberally sample in the creation of new works. Whether that'll hold any water in a courtroom remains to be seen, but for listeners it's an afterthought. Some may dock him points for lack of originality, but Gillis' schizophrenic attitude toward pop music is so novel it's impossible to stay mad at. Time will tell whether it's still fresh in 12 months, when the very recent samples (M.I.A., Gwen Stefani, Webbie) lose their chic appeal next to Smokey Robinson, the Pixies, and Public Enemy-- but for 2006, Night Ripper is the soundtrack of the summer.

-Sean Fennessey, July 17, 2006

Listen: This album is fun. That's really all you need to know. I've seen him perform live, and the place was just wild. Check this out.

Download Here

And another one:



Silver Jews - American Water
Label: Drag City
Year: 1998
Genre: Indie Rock

Track - Title
1. Random Rules
2. Smith & Jones Forever
3. Night Society
4. Federal Dust
5. People
6. Blue Arrangements
7. We Are Real
8. Send In The Clouds
9. Like Like The The The Death
10. Buckingham Rabbit
11. Honk If You're Lonely
12. The Wild Kindness


After a dozen enjoyable listens, I popped American Water into the car stereo this weekend while cruising the hills of San Francisco and waited for a weak track. Forty- eight minutes and three record stores later I drove home convinced that D.C. Berman has crafted this autumn's most incredible record: twelve portraits of the American landscape that simultaneously beg to be played at every hour of the day, and reclaim the word "poetry" as part of the musical vocabulary. You heard it here first, folks. The Silver Jews have evolved from a Pavement side project into a full- fledged contender for the American indie throne.

American Water reunites Berman with Pavement frontman Steve Malkmus. It's not surprisingly then that most of the songs sound like they would have been just as at home on the last Pavement album, Brighten The Corners. The big difference? Someone must have convinced Malkmus he was Tommy Verlaine, because he delivers some of the most focused, inspired guitar work he's ever done. And then there's the addition of ex- Royal Trux bassist Michael Fellows, whose bluesy approach and punchy bass lines add immeasurably to the album's pastoral, timeless flavor. A muted horn solo here and some added textures there keep the arrangements fresh. It's obvious that a lot of thought went into this record, and every move pays off.

From the opening song, "Random Rules," you know the Silver Jews are onto something big, something which, in Berman's words, should be "hospitalized for approaching perfection." The first half covers considerable territory, from the midnight execution epic "Smith and Jones Forever" to the journey from Malibu to South Dakota in "Federal Dust." In the lilting pop ditty "People" Berman reels off in his laid- back twang one of many strokes of lyrical genius:

People ask people to watch their scotch.
People send people up to the moon.
When they return, well there isn't much.
People be careful not to crest too soon.

On the album's second half, the Silver Jews expand their magna cum Pavement sound to include honky tonk ("Honk If You're Lonely" is sure to become a college radio classic) and a few Dylan-esque takes on the rambling blues ("We Are Real," "Like Like The The The Death"). As the titles suggest, it's not always clear what the heck Berman is singing about. But in the pauses, and in the obtuse phrasing of questions like, "Is the problem that we can't see, or is it that the problem is beautiful to me?": somehow you know what he means.

Just how good is this album? A few years back I bought Silver Jews CDs to pass the time between Pavement releases. Now things may be the other way around. So all hail the Chosen People. It's time to take off your clothes and skinny dip in the American Water.

-Zach Hammerman


Download Here

Enjoy~

Most amazing jew boots

bruford.jpg



Bill Bruford's Earthworks feat. Tim Garland - Random Acts of Happiness
Label: Summerfold
Year: 2004
Genre: Fusion Jazz


Track list
1. My Heart Declares A Holiday
2. White Knuckle Wedding
3. Turn And Return
4. Tramontana
5. Bajo Del Sol
6. Seems Like A Lifetime Ago (Part One)
7. Modern Folk
8. With Friends Like These
9. Speaking With Wooden Tongues
10. One Of A Kind-Part One
11. One Of A Kind-Part Two

Personnel: Tim Garland (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone)
Steve Hamilton (piano)
Mark Hodgson (bass guitar)
Bill Bruford (drums, log drum)



What can I say about Bill Bruford? Well, to progressive rock fans, he's the guy who drummed on most of the best Yes albums and then went on to play with a little band called King Crimson for the better part of its existence. Some may also remember those of his solo albums released in the late seventies.

Well, this recording is a far cry from most of those undertakings. First of all, you'll note the lack of any electric instruments. And then maybe you'll notice the fact that this is a rather pure jazz recording. Jazz?!?!? Ok, so maybe there's a bit of prog. in there...

Though that may be surprising to one who didn't really follow Bruford too closely besides noting the fact that he appeared often in accounts of and in cd liners of 70s brit prog., he himself had always considered himself a jazz drummer, and that's why he started playing drums. Thus, jazz is a big part of what his group Earthworks is about.

As for this album, the presence of Tim Garland on the sax/flute/Bass Clarinet obviously does a lot to make the jazz element even stronger, as half of the songs are his compositions, and the other half Bruford's. There's definetly a lot of showcase on both of these guys and the two other guys do a great job supporting them and of occasionally showing their prowess also.

A great listen for fans of Bruford, percussions in general and accoustic jazz. An interesting listen for fans of progressive rock.




A Random Act of Happiness

FELIPE NO

Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Label: Victory
Release: 2007
Genre: Progressive Hardcore



1. Foam Born, Pt. A: The Backtrack
2. Foam Born, Pt. B: The Decade of Statues
3. Informal Gluttony
4. Sun of Nothing
5. Ants of the Sky
6. Prequel to the Sequel
7. Viridian
8. White Walls

This is one of the best releases of the year, if you ask me. BTBAM is like some sort of unholy combination of two of my favorite bands (Dream Theater and Cave In, both their old and new stuff). Unlike most bands that try to break boundaries, these guys pull it off with ease, creating a truly beautiful, epic hardcore album. Everything is seamless... Well, it should be. When I bought this on iTunes, each song had a 2 second piece of silence afterwards which clearly shouldn't be there. I went into my audio editing program and removed all that dead space pretty flawlessly, so this is the album as it should be - 64 minutes of ass-kicking, heart-stopping progressive hardcore music. This is as good as it gets, people. Don't pass this up.

GET IT HERE!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Gallows - Orchestra of Wolves

Label: Epitaph
Year: 2007
Genre: Hardcore Punk Metal

Track list
There is a tagging error on track 16.
The title is "Staring at the Rude Bois", and the composers are: Paul Fox, Malcolm Owen, Dave Ruffy, and Paul Jennings.

01. Kill the Rhythm
02. Come Friendly Bombs
03. Abandon Ship
04. In the Belly of a Shark
05. Six Years
06. Rolling with the Punches
07. Last Fight for the Living Dead
08. Just Because You Sleep Next to Me Doesn't Mean Your Safe
09. Will Someone Shoot That Fucking Snake
10. Stay Cold
11. I Promise This Won't Hurt
12. Orchestra of Wolves
13. Sick of Staying Sick
14. Black Heart Queen
15. Nervous Breakdown ("Black Flag" cover)
16. Staring at the Rude Bois ("The Ruts" cover)

"Gallows? What's that?", you may ask, and you may not. But its a good introduction, and segues well to a description of the band. Gallows is a British hardcore punk band that recently entered the US market with their first LP "Orchestra of Wolves."

If the title doesn't tell you enough about their sound, it's basically really heavy hardcore punk. Real punk, not like some others... NOTE: Do not attempt to decipher the lyrics unaided. This will only lead to confusion.

Also, on the CD, track 15 and 16 are separated by about 11 minutes of silence. I edited this out so you could listen to them properly. Also, in case you couldn't tell, this is the US version, with the bonus tracks. If anyone has the 2-CD UK Special Edition, and is willing to upload, please PM me. I'm definitely interested.

Enjoy!

Spoiler:

Kill the Rhythm!

How ya doing, buddy?

Artist: Ayreon
Album: 01011001
Genre: Progressive metal / rock opera
Label: InsideOut
Year: 2008



DISC ONE: Y

1. Age of Shadows [10:47]
2. Comatose [4:26]
3. Liquid Eternity [8:10]
4. Connect the Dots [4:13]
5. Beneath the Waves [8:26]
6. Newborn Race [7:49]
7. Ride the Comet [3:29]
8. Web of Lies [2:50]


DISC 2: EARTH

1. The Fifth Extinction [10:29]
2. Waking Dreams [6:31]
3. The Truth Is In Here [5:12]
4. Unnatural Selection [7:15]
5. River of Time [4:24]
6. E=MC² [5:50]
7. The Sixth Extinction [12:18]

Candidate for the best album of 2008 already? Quite possibly. Arjen Anthony Lucassen has done it again. It's easily his most ambitious project yet, featuring an an all-star cast of seventeen singers, two guest guitarists, three keyboardists, a flute, a violin and a cello. 01011001 returns to the science fiction themes of older Ayreon albums, and has plenty of lyrical throwbacks to them all - the stories are all interconnected, you see. We must resolve this Human Equation...

I'd hate to reveal too much about the story (so much of the fun is in figuring it out for yourself), but it revolves around a group of emotionless aliens from a planet named Y, and their work to do stuff with humanity. There are a few songs separate from the main story which still tie in with the general theme of the thing (Connect The Dots, Web of Lies, The Truth Is In Here, E=MC²).

This album's absolutely genius. I've never known anybody else to be able to write songs which integrate words like "demonstrable" and "extremophiles" so beautifully. The music itself is delightfully bipolar. There are dark, brooding passages right next to some of the most uplifting music of Arjen's career. It's not quite as musically varied as The Human Equation, but damn, does it come close.

So, yeah - I'm going to have to give it a few more spins before I can be sure if I like this more than previous Ayreon works, but until I really get to know it, I'm still stuck in the "shitballs, this album is awesome" phase. In fact, I implore everybody to buy this thing when it comes out. Please. Pretty please. Piracy is wrong.

The cast is as follows:

Vocalists:
Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian)
Daniel Gildenlöw (Pain of Salvation)
Thomas Englund (Evergrey)
Jonas Renkse (Katatonia)
Jorn Lande (ex-Masterplan)
Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering)
Steve Lee (Gotthard)
Bob Catley (Magnum)
Floor Jansen (After Forever)
Magali Luyten (Virus IV)
Simone Simons (Epica)
Phideaux Xavier
Wudstik
Marjan Welman (Elister)
Liselotte Hegt (Dial)
Arjen Anthony Lucassen
Ty Tabor (King's X)

Instruments:
Guitar:
Lori Linstruth (Stream of Passion)
Michael Romeo (Symphony X)

Keyboards:
Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater)
Thomas Bodin (The Flower Kings)
Joost van den Broek (After Forever)

Drums:
Ed Warby (Gorefest)

Other instruments:
Flutes - Jeroen Goossens (Flairck)
Violin - Ben Mathot (Dis)
Cello - David Faber

Download Link: Disc One
Download Link: Disc Two

Warning: Some of the songs are improperly tagged; I didn't fix them before uploading. :\/

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, Christmas time's a comin', so here's some Christmas music

Christmas With The Brady Bunch



Track List:
1. First Noel, The
2. Away In A Manger
3. Little Drummer Boy, The
4. O Come All Ye Faithful
5. O Holy Night
6. Silent Night
7. Jingle Bells
8. Frosty The Snowman
9. Silver Bells
10. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
11. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
12. We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Review:

Quote:

Here's essentially how this whole thing came about. The year was 1970, and the Brady Bunch was a successful television program. Wanting to capitalize on this success, a producer decided a Christmas album would be a great way to do so. So he heard all six of the Brady bunch kids into a studio without much notice, and ordered them to sing a list of songs. The thing is, though, none of them really sang before. Also, Greg Brady was currently going through the wonders of puberty, so he of course was the perfect candidate to sing "O Holy Night."

The Brady kids went on to produce several other albums with some success. However, this one is bad. It's really, REALLY bad. Greg Brady's voice mangles O Holy Night to the point where it'll make your ears bleed at higher volumes. The girls mangle dang near everything they sing, and while the background music is ok, it does not cover up the vocals at all.

Thankfully, the whole recording is only 21 minutes long, but after a listen through, you'll have even more of a reason to hate commercial Christmas music.

DOWNLOAD LINKY (256 kbps CBR)

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

After you give the above a good listen through, here's something you can wash the taste out of your brains with:
Various Artists - Fantasies: Trance Opera



Track List:
1. Theme From Rain Man
2. Ebben/La Wally
3. Libiamo/Brindisi
4. Time To Say Goodbye
5. Un Bel Di Vedremo
6. La Donna E Mobile
7. Conquest Of Paradise
8. Chariot Of The Sun
9. Habanera
10. Miss Sarajevo
11. Scene Et Legende De La Fille Du Paria
12. Sous Le Dome Epais Le Jasmin
13. Pomp & Circumstance Opus 39. No.1 D-Major

Review:

Quote:

This CD is just what the title says: trance remixes of opera pieces with a hint of europop. It walks the line between cheesy (track 13) and awesome (track 5 and 8), but it's overall quite good.

DOWNLOAD LINKY (FLAC)

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Label: Kompakt
Year: 2007
Genre: Minimalist Techno

Track - Title
1. Over the Ice
2. A Paw in My Face
3. Good Things End
4. The Little Heart Beats So Fast
5. Everyday
6. Silent
7. The Deal
8. Sun & Ice
9. Mobilia
10. From Here We Go Sublime

Review


After centuries of music consumption, we're still obsessed with the crescendo. From all that classical music we learned in school to modern soundtrack fodder to the banal quiet/loud/quiet dynamics of groups like Explosions in the Sky, people still seek the thrill that comes when music reaches its stirring Big Moment. Blame remote controls or the death of vinyl, but 30-odd years after Brian Eno invented ambient music, most people are wary about "turning off" to any music that doesn't actively seek to engage them. Deep listening remains mostly theoretical in the age of mp3s.

Minimal techno isn't exactly built for the iPod age, so what's a post-disco producer to do when he wants the restraint but also the explosion? If most 21st century pop music could be whittled down to a ringtone without losing any of its effect, a dance producer who actually manages to hook the ear for six or seven minutes after that opening jolt-- while still rejecting, you know, narrative or harmonic development-- is doing something special.

Axel Willner, founder and sole member of the Field, is hardly the first to split the difference, but his formally simple yet functionally overwhelming music captures not only those big ecstatic peaks but also the initial ringtone-esque bursts like the two sides of the same coin they are, and basically just repeats them until he decides to stop tape. Willner's records under his Field alias (his other guises include Cordouan, Lars Blek, and Porte) do away with the build-up almost entirely while still milking the climax like a chemist running real-time tests to see just how long he's got until the drug's effect wears off.

That kind of pared-down sound-sculpting is everywhere in continental European electronic music these days, but rarely is it as instantly enveloping or as comforting as the Field's debut, From Here We Go Sublime. The album recalls Kaito, another artist on the German label with one great idea, likewise pushing wistfulness and simplicity to the brink. Favoring a dreamy minimalism of just a few sounds waltzing around each other, Willner smears, chops, and processes slivers of musical information-- the tips of a vocal, a note and a half of an instrumental-- in a delicate computer-assisted retrieval process. But unlike other maestros of hiccup and twang, Willner favors uncomplicated, revolving compositions rather than a loom-like mesh. It's a bare bones compositional gambit that could wind up utterly irritating, but with the ears of a hip-hop cratedigger and the hands of a surgeon is bliss. Gliding like zero-gravity skaters, opener "Over the Ice" spins, twirls, and pivots on just a shivering vocalized "e"-- split across two octaves-- and an undulating "i."

But if Sublime initially sounds set for the dancefloor and not the couch, it's strictly down to Willner favoring quick tempos and rhythms, like the concussive "uh!" and the bumping acid bassline on "The Little Heart Beats So Fast". Despite its nods to house and techno, Sublime is really an extension of the best ambient electronics of the last decade or so, especially Gas, a project of Wolfgang Voigt, who as co-owner of Kompakt Records is now releasing the Field's music. (Not for nothing did Willner's sublime "Kappsta" appear on Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2007 even as it could easily fit here.) Folks may also call the Field trance, because there's an often anthemic bigness to Willner's little sounds, a certain shameless bombastic quality to the way he deploys his loops and builds his arpeggios. And like both bog-standard dancefloor trance and ethereal Gas records such as Pop, Field tracks sound loud, even when played soft.

People may also call it trance because of Willner's elementary drum tracks, often just a deflated machine thump flecked with hi-hat hiss. Compared to peers like Perlon, Kompakt may not be particularly known for its adventurous drum programming but Willner's purposefully entry-level beats shift much of the percussive burden onto his melodies. And while Willner may be building his arpeggios out of baby love sighs snatched from the mouths of the Temptations (on "Things Keep Falling Down", sadly not included here) or strummed guitar loops nicked from nuggets of yacht rock instead of preset synth pads or Ableton plug-ins, his spirit animals are the likes of Sasha, Digweed, and Tiesto, guiding him on how to put his sounds together for maximum spine-tingly impact. There's a reason those guys sold so many records to a whole generation of folks looking for, well, the sublime. And like all those 2xCD 1990s trance mixes, an hour of Willner's vibrations may have you drooling for an off-beat or a key change or, hell, a build-up to crescendo.

But forget pop musical concerns for a second-- Willner's triumph on Sublime remains how he manages to isolate and repeat his little moments, transmuting them through the basic dance music building blocks of juxtaposition and repetition into something bigger, wringing pleasure out of the always potentially dull aforementioned "sound sculpting": The metallic schlurp of the drums and background hum of robot cicadas on "Mobilia"; the fingertip flutters of the textural stuttering all over Sublime; the hot and heavy pressurized soaking of "Sun and Ice"; the disembodied zombie doowop filched from the Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" that echoes through the title track like Kraftwerk daydreaming they're a soul duo, before the voices finally unspool into a timestretched blur as the record fades out-- one of the most shiver-inducing moments you'll hear all year. Often the best part of Willner's tracks are those final few seconds, as on "A Paw in My Face", the guitar sample finally escapes its loop with a joyous twang of freedom (only to reveal its source as Lionel Richie's bloodless lite-FM staple "Hello"). If Willner doesn't hit at least some of your pleasure centers, well, forget your ears-- your nerve endings might actually be dead. Even three months in, it's a safe bet that From Here We Go Sublime will wind up 2007's most luxuriant record.

-Jess Harvell, March 26, 2007


Never thought I'd see the day when I came to say it, but hey, this is pretty damned good.

This content has been hidden by the poster

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

St. Vincent - Marry Me
Label: Beggars Banquet Records, 2007
Genre: Indie Pop



1. Now, Now – 4:25
2. Jesus Saves, I Spend – 3:56
3. Your Lips Are Red – 4:41
4. Marry Me – 4:41
5. Paris Is Burning – 4:20
6. All My Stars Aligned – 3:47
7. The Apocalypse Song – 3:47
8. We Put a Pearl in the Ground – 1:10
9. Landmines – 5:07
10. Human Racing – 3:48
11. What Me Worry? – 3:56

Spoiler:

"The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it."

-Saint Vincent de Paul (b. 1581 - d. 1660)

Maybe that explains it. Maybe that quote from the real Saint Vincent, namesake of multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark's nom du rock, explains why, rather than step right into the spotlight, Clark instead chose to spend so much of her time as an oft-befrocked member of both Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree's flock.

One might have assumed that, hey, maybe she was just more comfortable as a group utility player, but like most assumptions it's simply not borne out by the imposing reality of her various talents. As her St. Vincent debut immediately asserts, Clark's more than ready to be out front. In fact, it's amazing she didn't step into the spotlight sooner, considering the countless ideas swirling about Marry Me, an art-rock album at times redolent of prime Kate Bush and Lodger-era David Bowie.

Maybe "humility" isn't the first word that springs to mind when you read the liners crediting Clark with "voices, guitars, bass, piano, organ, Moog, synthesizers, clavieta, xylophone, vibraphone, dulcimer, drum programming, triangle, percussion." Triangle? Is that really something to boast about? Then again, with its brilliant production flourishes and impeccably left-field arrangements, false modesty does not behoove the disc.

In the case of music like this, the devil to conquer is preciousness and indulgence. No doubt, in lesser hands Clark's quirks and eccentricities would mark the St. Vincent project a no-go from the start. But at every turn Marry Me takes the more challenging route of twisting already twisted structures and unusual instrumentation to make them sound perfectly natural and, most importantly, easy to listen to as she overdubs her thrillingly sui generis vision into vibrant life.

Clark's hardly alone in the endeavor. Not to be out-Spreed, Marry Me features, among other helpers, a chorus (used mostly as melodic and rhythmic counterpoint), Bowie pianist Mike Garson, and Polyphonic Spree/Man Or Astro-Man? drummer Brian Teasley, a wiz at picking the right beats for all the perfectly wrong places. But from the frenetic first half of the disc, where the ideas are coming fast and furious and Clark lets her inner prog run wild, to the mellow second, Marry Me is clearly the product of one person's fertile-- and clearly very well organized-- subconscious.

"Now, Now" dances around a tricky little guitar pattern and Clark's sweet vocal melodies-- her big-girl voice a welcome respite from indie rock's lame habit of faux naivety-- as bass and drums push and pull the song taut then loose again. The grace of the track suddenly gives way to explosive guitar, the previous precision dissolved into distorted passion. "Jesus Saves, I Spend" bounds along in 6/8, with the chorus and sped-up vocals countering Clark's own coo. "Your Lips Are Red" mutates from throb to tribal freakout, a croaking, scraping guitar and sinewy lead hinting at the chaos that never quite comes. "Apocalypse Song" features a polyrhythmic voice, drum and handclap breakdown that vies with strings and more skronking noise.

The war-is-not-over "Paris is Burning" is a woozy Weimar-esque waltz filled out by phased effects, a martial groove and sneaking, cynical lines like the Shakespeare allusion "Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear." Elsewhere Clark slips in a few other memorable lyrics as well. In "Your Lips Are Red" she complains, "Your skin so fair it's not fair." In the title track, Clark gets off the lasciviously blasphemous come-on "we'll do what Mary and Joseph did...without the kid."

The slower vibe of the last few tracks isn't as immediate as what came before it, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. "Landmines" is like "Subterranean Homesick Alien" redone as a torch song. "All the Stars Aligned" plods along like a pleasant Beatles outtake, at least until Clark's mini-orchestra briefly (and curiously) quotes John Barry's "James Bond Theme". "Human Racing" begins as a gentle bossa nova before blossoming into a hypnotic pulse for its fade-out. The jazzy final song, "What Me Worry?" is as traditional as the disc gets, except for the fact that Clark picked it to end an album that spends most of its previous minutes exploring the unconventional.

"Love is just a bloodmatch to see who endures lash after lash with panache," Clark sings, without coming across nearly as precociously as she could have. "Have I fooled you, dear? The time is coming near when I'll give you my hand and I'll say, 'It's been grand, but...I'm out of here.'" And then she's gone.

Oh, and the final sound you hear before you inevitably press play and listen to the whole beguiling thing again? A triangle. Guess those lessons paid off after all.

-Joshua Klein, July 27, 2007

Marry Me

I was speaking idiomatically.

Hayseed Dixie - Let There Be Rockgrass
Year: 2004
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Genre: Country/Bluegrass inspired by rock



1. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (AC/DC)
2. Fat Bottom Girls (Queen)
3. Whole Lotta Rosie (AC/DC)
4. You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC)
5. Ace of Spades (Motörhead)
6. Detroit Rock City (Kiss)
7. Corn Liquor
8. Feel Like Making Love (Bad Company)
9. Walk This Way (Aerosmith)
10. Touch too Much (AC/DC)
11. Centerfold (J-Geils)
12. I'm Keeping Your Poop
13. Highway to Hell (AC/DC)
14. Will the Circle be Unbroken

Spoiler:

Hayseed Dixie is a country/bluegrass band that got together to cover AC/DC songs for fun. They eventually got around to cover other well known rock bands such as Kiss, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith.
There is a lot of fast paced Banjo shredding, with mandolin, and the fiddle in place of electric guitars.

Corn Liquor <3

Download

Dave Martone - A Demons Dream
Year: 2002
Label: Lion Music
Genre: Instrumental



1. Big Church
2. Do Da
3. What the Hell
4. Country Maniac
5. Demon Fetal Harvest
6. Got Da Blues
7. Attack of the Celery Crunchers
8. Tone of Darkness
9. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
10. Code Red
11. Panemenco
12. A Demons Dream

Spoiler:

(source)

A Demon's Dream represents the number one guitarist from Canada, David Martone, releasing his best album to date. Matt Williams, the head of Liquid Note Records writes, "The CD is a feast of memorable tunes and stylistic flourishes cemented together with a superb production (produced, engineered and mixed by Dave, himself a former music engineer). One of the year's best instrumental guitar albums, A Demon's Dream contains everything from metal and country to blues, ethnic and techno." Again a celebration of musical diversity, A Demon's Dream features top notch modern production techniques fused with some of the most daring guitar playing ever heard. A true classic!

Download

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The Best of Gong
Label: Charly
Compilation release: 2000
Genre: Space Rock/Progressive Rock

gong cover.jpg

CD 1 (55:56)
1. Mystic sister (1:542. Magick brother (4:01)
3. Mister Long Shanks/O Mother I am your fantasy (5:57)
4. Dynamite/I am your animal (4:32)
5. Wet cheese delirium (0:32)
6. Tropical fish/Selene (7:39)
7. Radio gnome invisible (5:33)
8. Flying teapot (11:49)
9. Pot head pixies (3:03)
10. Zero the hero and the witch's spell (9:38)
11. Castle in the clouds (1:13)

CD 2 (67:40)
1. Flute salad (2:45)
2. Oily way (3:00)
3. Outer temple (1:09)
4. Inner temple (3:21)
5. I niver gild before (5:36)
6. Eat the phone book coda (3:09)
7. Magik mother invocation (1:10)
8. Master builder (7:18)
9. The isle of everywhere (10:24)
10. You never blow your trip forever (11:13)
11. New age transformation try/No more sages (12:07)
12. Jungle windo(w) (6:23)

Total Time 123:36

Collective Personnel:

- Daevid Allen / vocals, guitars, bass
- Didier Malherbe / saxes, flute, vocals
- Gilli Smyth / vocals, space whispers
- Tim Blake / synthesizers, keyboards, vocals
- Steve Hillage / guitars, vocals
- Rachid Houari / drums
- Christian Tritsch / guitars, bass
- Mike Howlett / bass, vocals
- Pierre Moerlen / drums, percussion, vocals
- Dieter Gewissler / contrabass
- Tasmin Smyth / voices
- Pip Pyle / drums
- Eddy Louiss / organ & piano
- Constantin Simonovitch / phased piano
- Francis Bacon / synthesizers, pianos, bass
- Mireille Bauer / percussion
- Benoît Moerlen / percussion
- Bill Laswell / bass
- Bill Bacon / drums
- Fred Maher / drums
- Gary Windo / Tenor saxophone
- Prof. Sharpstrings P.A. (Steffy) / guitar & lips
- Keith Missile Bass / bass guitar & Tree trunk
- Kif Kif Le Batteur / drummery & asides besides
- Gavin Da Blitz / synthesizah & pinball flip


Welcome to the planet Gong!!!

In starting I'd like to say that I'm very rarely a fan of compilations, but this one was put together with such mastery that I had to make an exception. This album was what got me into Gong in the first place, and I still find it's as good a listen as many of the actual albums.

Gong has been a very international band ever since it's first form, which developped when Australia born guitarist/lyricist Daevid Allen got denied re-entry into the U.K. after his then fledgling band The Soft Machine went to play a few shows in France. It has since then spawned many spin-off bands each with it's individual personnality. (Planet Gong, Mother Gong, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet, etc,etc.)

This compilation, however, is mostly comprised of songs from the root Gong bad of the late sixties and seventies. This means that you get to hear the original Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy's title songs (Flying Teapot, Radio Gnome Invisible and Pot-Head Pixies), which reveal a good part of Allen's Gong mythology, which is nothing less than a complete (and very particular) spiritual view of the universe.

Another very interesting aspect of this recording is the variety of musician's that have participated on one track or another, which gives each track a very fresh sound while still holding enough continuity for it to be recognized as a true part of the band's output.

My personal favorite tracks are the Eat the Phone Book Coda which showcases the jazzier side of the band, Dynamite: I am your animal, an intensely groovy tune that's truly showcases some of the band's crazier moments and I niver glid before, which gives a good idea of Daevid Allen's Gong mythology.

This album will probably appeal to fans of Fusion Jazz, Progressive/space Rock and fans of psychedelic rock(cf. early Pink Floyd albums). It may also appeal to fans of electronic music to a certain extent and fans of Weirdness (yes, with a capital W ) will almost certainly dig this.

The Oily Way

FELIPE NO

Ladies and gentlemen... a bit of musical potpourri to enliven the senses on this evening/morn:

Squarepusher - Feed me Weird Things



Year: 3 June 1996
Label: Rephlex Records
Genre: Drum and bass/ Fusion/ Nu-jazz

This album is ground-breaking, ear pleasing and just a damn work of art.

"Squarepusher Theme" – 6:20
"Tundra" – 7:55
"The Swifty" – 5:20
"Dimotane Co." – 4:54
"Smedley's Melody" – 2:33
"Windscale 2" – 6:35
"North Circular" – 6:08
"Goodnight Jade" – 2:45
"Theme from Ernest Borgnine" – 7:55
"U.F.O.'s Over Leytonstone" – 6:39
"Kodack" – 7:14
"Future Gibbon" – 2:18

Squarepusher is freaking awesome, FTW. Genre breaking music, especially in regards to this particular album. The "Squarepusher Theme" is sure to get the hair on the back of the neck to stand straight up. Squarepusher is all about finding a good groove, utilizing break beat, drum and bass and mixing it with jazzy undertones to bring it all home. Check him out.

Feed Me Weird Things

Ravel - performed by: St. Martin in the Fields

[Couldn't find image of Album Cover, for now.]

What you will find are some of the better recordings on behalf of Maurice Ravel's grandest orchestral works, including 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' (in orchestral color), the 'infamous' 'String Quartet' and 'Introduction and Allegro for Harp and Orchestra'.
These versions, of the versions that I've heard, are the definitive performances and St. Martin in the Fields nails every solo, every measure, every nuance of Ravel's music with great gusto and passion. Every measure of the music pays great reverence to Ravel's sense of dynamic expression and contrast.
Ravel is perhaps my favorite composer and the orchestra plays his music as it was meant to be played.

Year: ?
Label: Sony
Genre: Classical ('impressionism')

'Le Tombeau de Couperin' (Ravel's tribute to good friends lost during World War I. Also inspired many of Stephen Sondheim's later works...especially 'A Little Night Music')

1. Prelude’ 3:13
2. Forlane’ 5:44
3. Menuet’ 4:49
4. Rigaudon’.

'String Quartet in F '- (Ravel's definitive string work which failed to bring him the 'Prix de Rome' and caused great scandal because of it. It is commonly known as one of the most beautiful and evocative string works available.)

1. Allegro Moderato - Tres Doux’. 8:22 -'String Quartet in F'
2. Assez Vif - Tres Rythme’. 6:20
3. Tres Lent’ 8:57
4. Vif Et Agite’ 5:02

'Vas Nobles es Sentimentals' - Ravel's experimental and rather defining piano works. Intriguing, simple and utterly beautiful. A bit dissonant but spoken with utmost beauty and sensitivity.

1. Modere - Tres Franc’ 1:36
2. Assez Lent’.
3. Modere’. 1:31
4. Assez Anime’.
5. Presque Lent’. 1:23
6. Vif’.
7. Moins Vif’ 3:05
8. Epilogue - Lent’.4:40

‘Introduction And Allegro For Flute, Clarinet, Harp And String Quartet'’.– 10:45

The music is harmonically playful and bitter sweet. Ravel is a master of the orchestra and utilizes it to great effect to give the music a sense of depth and quiet strength. As I mentioned before, these recordings play Ravel's music as it was meant to be heard.

Ravel - By Martin in St. Field

Toru Takemitsu - Between Tides



Toru is an often over-looked composer but still very significant. His piano works and approach to harmony have been commended by Igor Stravinsky himself. Toru grew up appreciating the impressionistic composers (such as Debussy and Ravel) and his music largely reflects a reverence for big luscious chords and imaginative music, in all. He was additionally, besides being a composer, an inventor, a writer of books and a chef!

I believe his most profound reach can be realized within the realm of music composition.

1) Romance 4:08

2) Distance De Fee 7:39

3) Hika 4:26

4) Pno Pieces For Children: Breeze 0:54

5) Pno Pieces For Children: Clouds 1:35

6) Rain Tree Sketch, SJ1010 3:59

7) From Far Beyond Chrysanthemums And November Fog, 7:01

8) Orion, SJ1019 12:06

9) Litany-In Memory Of Michael Vyner: I. Adagio 5:09

10) Litany-In Memory Of Michael Vyner: II. Lento Misterioso 5:27

11) Rain Tree Sketch II: 3:43

12) Between Tides

Year: 2001
Label: Grama
Genre: classical/ neo-classical

Between Tides- Toru Takemitsu


Venetian Snares - Chocolate Wheelchair Album



Year: 2003
Label: Planet Mu
Genre: Breakcore/ IDM ('Intelligent' Dance Music)

...Aaron Funk. Heard of him much? I can guarantee that you've never heard anything quite like Venetian Snares. This can be either good or bad, depending upon your viewpoint. Not everyone will be able to digest Venetian Snares music, but for those who try, will find something quite challenging in both attention to detail, productive scope and progressive compositional sensibilities. Venetian Snares is brilliant in the ways of percussion and rhythm. Additionally, Venetian Snares is a master of sound. Observe.

1)"Abomination Street" – 4:22
2)"Too Young" – 3:02
3)"Langside" – 3:34
4)"Einstein-Rosen Bridge" – 3:36
5)"Einstein-Rosen Bridge Dub*
6)"Hand Throw" – 5:03
7)"Epidermis" – 4:42
8)"Ghetto Body Buddy" – 4:46
9)"Sky Painted On Car" – 5:15
10)"Marty's Tardis" – 9:17
11)"Herbie Goes Ballistic" – 5:13

I realise the original album has 10 tracks only. *However, I've included the Dub mix of Einstein-Rosen Bridge for this particular upload. I hope that's alright!

Venetian Snares - Chocolate Wheelchair album

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Artist: Suga Shikao
Album: 4FLUSHER
Genre: Rock/Pop/Funk/Soul/Electro hybrid, Japanese
Year: 2000



It has been a while since I last posted an album because I had some trouble with the FTP, but now that it's fixed I've come again to share great music with you all. Have you waited for me?

I figured when I had started posting some Japanese music (Sukima Switch) I could continue showing you all other great Japanese music that you may not have heard.

Starting off with Suga Shikao, he is someone you don't hear much about even though I think that really you should, cause his music is stylish, groovy and a fresh breeze if I'd say it in my words. He mixes genres here and there and every song is very well made/produced with lots of small details that make the songs so much better. As with many artists there are songs that you like and don't like, surprisingly I haven't found this to be the case with Suga Shikao, every song I've heard with him I've liked more or less. His voice is great and he uses it in his very own original style. I added one of my favorite albums of his. Enjoy!

Download Suga Shikao - 4FLUSHER

Artist: Acidman
Album: And World
Genre: Alternative Rock/Punk, Experimental, Japanese
Year: 2005



Acidman, is one hell of a band consisting of the three members Ooki Nobou (Guitar/Vocals), Sato Masatoshi (Bass/Main Composer) and Urayama Ichigo (Drums). Having both crazy and calm tracks, both vocal and instrumental tracks, all which are composed in their very own original style mainly by the bassist Sato Masatoshi. Ooki Nobou has a real original and unique voice which really complements the music. And as usual, you just have to listen to actually get a feel of what it is like. If you do listen to it you might be in for a little surprise

Download Acidman - And World

How ya doing, buddy?

Mike Birbiglia - My Secret Public Journal Live
(2007, Stand-up Comedy)



Track List:
1. Celebrity Golf
2. Joe Bags
3. Landfill Pretzels
4. Orange Asian Tigers
5. Like Fun!
6. Catholic School Sunglasses
7. Old Mill Pond Story, The
8. Porno For Parents
9. Jack & Irma`s Magic Phones
10. Sleepy Karl
11. You Can`t Shoot the Shooter
12. Pachoo!
13. Roger Clemens Hates Me
14. Put It On Paper

Review:

Quote:

A rare example of a comedian who doesn't have to work blue or make up wild situations to be funny. Everything he uses in his routine has happened to him, and it's hilarious. He even tells the stories in a relaxed way, which usually involves suck but not in this case.

DOWNLOAD LINKY

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Moloko - Do You Like My Tight Sweater?
(1997, Electrofunk)



Track List:
1. Fun For Me
2. Tight Sweater
3. Day For Night
4. I Can't Help Myself
5. Circus
6. Lotus Eaters
7. On My Horsey
8. Dominoid
9. Party Weirdo
10. Tubeliar
11. Ho Humm
12. Butterfly
13. Dirty Monkey
14. Killa Bunnies
15. Boo
16. Where Is The What If The What Is In Why?
17. Who Shot The Go Go Dancer?

Review (from here):

Quote:

Welcome to the world of creepshow funk, music filled with buttery veins of bass and gloomy back-murals of fun house soul. You'd never guess (if you didn't already know) that the spooky rhythms of this quirky album were slapped and crafted by a white European couple. In fact, the title -- "Do You Like My Tight Sweater?" -- is supposedly the pick-up line Murphy used when she first met Brydon at a party in Sheffield.

That's the sort of fun you're dealing with here, and the songs are also thrumming with the dark, risky trebles of uncertain affection, too, in keeping with the fact that it was recorded at the start of their romantic and professional unions. Although the songs are infused with the same gleeful experimentation and shadowy flirtations that those kinds of beginnings suggest, there is none of the hesitation and uncertainty you might expect. This might be their debut album, but it sounds like the seasoned work of a couple of people who've already been around the block a few times.

The lyrics are mostly senseless. The rhyme schemes are fluffed and tweaked to hang like dark curtains around a dark, chewy center. The very first track, "Fun For Me," is fun for everyone, an in-your-face inside joke that everyone can get. "Lotus Eaters" features prominently a wickedly creepy industrial backdrop, tickled with strange phantom screams and a repetitive synth-twisted whining voice that sounds like it would be annoying and is anything but. "Party Weirdo" is a spiritually trippy track that sounds exactly like a name like "Party Weirdo" would suggest it sounds. "Ho Humm" makes excellent use of deep undercurrents of sexy (kinda sweaty) soul; and if you listen carefully, those spine-tingling electro-screams are still present.

This album is a great and new kind of funky (okay, well, "new" to those who've never heard them before) that is both vibrant and vicious, fun and frightening, catchy and creepy-crawly. It's not for everyone -- the album thrives on melodies and tones that are as electronic as they are soul-funky -- but I dare say it IS for most. "Do You Like My Tight Sweater?" Well, Moloko, it's hard not to.

DOWNLOAD LINKY

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hold Your Colour - Pendulum
Genre, Label, Year: Drum and Bass, Breakbeat Kaos, 2005


Track Listing
01. Prelude
02. Slam
03. Plastic World
04. Fasten Your Seatbelt
05. Through The Loop
06. Sounds of Life
07. Girl in the Fire
08. Tarantula
09. Out Here
10. Hold Your Colour
11. The Terminal
12. Streamline
13. Another Planet
14. Still Grey

Download

A fantastic album that covers more styles than just Drum and Bass. Ambient, fun, music you could probably blow your car up with, it's got it all. Definitely worth a listen to.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Otyg - sagovindar's boning ( 1999. Swedish Folk Metal )



track listing

1: Trollslottet
2: Vilievandring
3: Galderbesjungen
4: När Älvadrottningen Kröns
5: Bäckahästen
6: Årstider
7: Mossfrun Kölnar
8: Vättar Och Jättar
9: Holy Diver (Dio Cover )
10: Lövjerskan
11: Varulvsnatt
12: Gygralock

Download link

Otyg - sagovindar's boning

Japanische Kampfhörspiele - Nostradamus In Echtzeit ( 2001, German Grind )



track listing

1. Dresscode
2. Keiner kann für irgendwas was
3. Raining Blood ( Slayer Cover )
4. Ich habe keinen Körper
5. Die Kündigung
6. Kieferorthopädie 2001
7. Schallschutz
8. Nostradamus in Echtzeit
9. Lass den, der ist nett
10. Jazz
11. Polizei, SA, SS

Download Link

Japanische Kampfhörspiele

Montifera - Vastiia Tenebrd montifera ( 2004, French Black metal )



Track listing

1. Fbrahgments
2. Le Revenant
3. A Last breath before extinction
4. Epilogue d'une existence de cyrssthal
5. Ciel brouillé
6. Abstrbve Negabvtiyon rebssurectyion
7. Aux confins des tenebrss
8. Fruit of a tragic end ( Celestia cover, hahahahaha )

Download Link

Montifera- Vastiia Tenebrd Mortifera

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Boom Boom Satellites - EXPOSED
Label: Sony Japan
Release: 2007
Genre: j-rock / electronica

TRACKLIST:
01 Upside Down
02 What Goes Round Comes Around
03 Morning After
04 Shut Up And Explode
05 Bring It On Down
06 Intergalactic
07 Six Forty Five
08 Fiends
09 Entering Orbit
10 Easy Action
11 Cluster
12 Get Back In My House

REVIEW (source):
Sixth full-length album from Boom Boom Satelites celebrates the band's tenth anniversary with their best new original work to date. Includes the internationally known songs "Easy Action," "What Goes Round Comes Round" and more for 12 tracks total.

DOWNLOAD LINK

~~~~~^~~~~~

Fat Jon - Hundred Eight Stars
Release: 2007
Label: Libyus Music
Genre: hip hop / electronic

TRACKLIST:
01 Adhara
02 Tara
03 Chara
04 Naos
05 Kuma
06 Atria
07 Cursa
08 Altais
09 Maia
10 Diadem
11 Sirrah (feat. Mr. Dibbs)
12 Nashira
13 Vela
14 Mira
15 Turais
16 Rana
17 Pleione
18 Sarin (feat. Mr. Dibbs)

REVIEW (source):
Fat Jon (of Five Deez) has been releasing wonderfully unique instrumental hip-hop albums. Japan appreciates his music. Released on Libyus Records (of Japan), "Hundred Eight Stars" by Fat Jon is another excellent instrumental hip-hop album. This one actually compiles many instrumentals that were previously released on vinyl. Such songs include "Outreach 5" (an instrumental version from Mr. Dibbs), an instrumental version of "Great Live Caper (remix)" by J-Live, "Time Is Night" from the "Sexual For Elizabeth" single and others. For this album, all of the tracks have been remastered and renamed after stars. Stand out cuts include "Altais", "Nashira", "Chara", and "Diadem". Fat Jon the Ample Soul Physician and Libyus Records make an excellent team.

DOWNLOAD LINK

I was speaking idiomatically.

Månegarm - Vargstenen ( 2007, Folk/Black Metal )



Track listing

1. Uppvaknande
2. Ur Själslig Död
3. En Fallen Fader
4. Den Gamle Talar
5. Genom Världar Nio
6. Visioner på isen
7. Vargbrodern talar
8. I Underjorden
9. Nio Dagar, Nio nätter
10. Vargstenen
11. Vedergällningens tid
12. Eld


Download link

Månegarm's Vargstenen is one of the best metal albums of 07


Isengard - Vinterskugge ( 1994, Tolkien infused Folk\Black metal )



Track listing

1. Vinterskugge
2. Gjennom Skogen Til Blåfjellene
3. Ut I Vannets Dyp Hvor Morket Hviler
4. Dommedagssalme
5. In the halls and chambers of stardust - The Crystallic Heavens Open
6. Fanden Lokker Til Stupet ( Nytrad )
7. Naglfar
8. Thy Gruesome Death
9. Deathcult
10. Rise From below
11. Dark Lord Of Gorgoroth
12. Trollwandering ( Outro )
13. The Fog ( Early 1991 )
14. Storm of Evil
15. Bergtrollets Gravferd
16. Our Lord will come

Download link

Isengard's Vinterskugge

Viikate - Unholan Urut ( 2005, Finnish Popish Alt-metal )



Track listing

1. Unholan Urut
2. Pohjoista Viljaa
3. Nämä Herrasmiehet
4. Ajakaa!
5. Tie
6. Vesi Jota Pelkäät
7. Autunaat
8. Käki
9. He Eivät Hengitä


Download link

Viikate's Unholan Urut is suprisingly an awesome album for being pop metal

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Commix - Call To Mind
(Metalheadz, 2007, Drum & Bass)



1. Be True
2. Burn Out (Fade Away)
3. How You Gonna Feel - feat. Steve Spacek
4. Emily's Smile
5. Call to Mind
6. Change - feat. The Nextmen
7. Satellite Type 2
8. Belleview
9. Japanese Electronics
10. Spectacle
11. Strictly / Satellite Song [Underground Resistance Remix]

Catagorising music isn't easy, especially when most 'new' music is just mashed and rehashed 'old' music (which isn't always a bad thing). But, I reckon that trying to shoe-horn a group or album into a particular genre can work to the band's detriment sometimes. So if I tell you that Commix are classed as (and deem themselves as) Drum & Bass, does that turn you off? It shouldn't.

Commix are George Levings & Guy Brewer, and Call To Mind is their debut album, offering a subtle fusion of the purest Techno, the deepest Philly Soul, and pounding Drum & Bass rhythms. Commix display a crispiness of production and high-impact simplicity with deep, lush atmospheres and strong organic touches.

The eleven killer tracks (twelve if you include the 'hidden' one at the end) which are very well composed and produced, and present a fine balance of instrumentals and vocal-sampled numbers, are nothing but an enthralling listen.

GET IT


Cameo - A Gentle Introduction
(Unreleased, 2008, Drum & Bass)



Die Feat. Ben Westbeach - Get Closer (Lovers Mix)
>>>Fresh - All That Jazz
Jenna G feat. Chase & Status - In Love
Chris SU - Solaris VIP
Chase & Status - Believe
Blame - Inside Heart
Calibre - Drop It Down
D Bridge - True Romance
Calibre - Like It Is
Chase & Status - Love's Theme
Influx UK - It's Love
High Contrast - If We Ever
Commix - Be True
Chase & Status - Hurt You
>>>Bad Company - Planet Dust
Sub Focus - Airplane
High Contrast - Days Go By
Roni Size - Friends
High Contrast - Lovesick
Lenny Fontana - Spread Love (Nu Tone Remix)
Shy FX - Plastic Soul
Shy FX - Feelings (Incognito Remix)
Shy FX - Feelings
J Majik Vs Hatiras - Spaced Invader
Baron - Drive In, Drive By
>>>Zinc - Ska Remix
Zinc - Japache
Konflict - Messiah (Spor Remix)
Xample - Lowdown
Dillinja - Take Me All The Way
Commix - Satellite Type 2
Commix - Electric
Sub Focus - Flamenco
Moving Fusion - The Beginning
Prodigy - Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)

(>>> indicates tease)

I recorded this mix whilst DJing at a friend's party for New Years Eve. The room consisted mainly of people who either didn't know anything about Drum & Bass, or people who had heard a bit of Pendulum, and knew some of the words to 'Shake Your Body'.

I felt they needed to be educated a little.

This mix is a journey through some of the many different styles which encompass the Drum & Bass spectrum. From liquid funk to soulful chillout; techy rollers to rowdy jump-up, I've tried to include a little bit of everything.

Very easily accessible for those who aren't overly enamoured with the genre, or those who aren't sure and just a bit curious, with hopefully enough depth for those of you who deem yourselves connoisseurs.

Enjoy.

GET IT

FELIPE NO

DJ Nozawa - Memory of the Future
Release: 2007
Label: Mori Production Japan
Genre: broken beat / nu jazz

TRACKLIST
01 Memory Of The Future (feat. Shing02) Album Mix
02 To Breathe
03 靉　Ai
04 I Like It
05 楸　Autumn Oak
06 Children Of Light
07 Asking Why Extended Album Mix
08 藍 Ao
09 Asking Why Extended JazzGuitar Club Mix
10 Royal Milk Slow Stream
11 Piapercus

REVIEW
This album is kinda on par with Nujabes does. Notice I said "kinda". A majority of these songs remind me of stuff that would be played in a jazz-type club. It's some nice coolout music.

DOWNLOAD LINK

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals
Label: We Are Free, 2007
Genre: Indie



1. Sunrise - 4:07
2. Wait for the Summer - 4:53
3. 2080 - 5:23
4. Germs - 3:13
5. Ah, Weir - 1:21
6. No Need to Worry - 5:27
7. Forgiveness - 3:40
8. Wait for the Wintertime - 4:52
9. Worms - 4:07
10. Waves - 4:57
11. Red Cave - 4:59


This was a bit more obscure when I bought it. =p

Spoiler:

"Brooklyn's Yeasayer are the latest entry to this group of Byrne disciples, and one of the better bands to put a new spin on his polyrhythmic convulsing. The band gained recognition earlier this year for their fantastic first single "2080", possibly because of its sonic similarities to Midlake's buzzed-about 2006 single "Roscoe". Both share a woozy, woodsy ambience, but where "Roscoe", set in 1891, was nostalgic for a rustic world, Yeasayer gazes ahead-- and not optimistically. "I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in," Chris Keating sings, continuing, "I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into." After two preternaturally smooth choruses, the band lives up to its name. All new age elements temporarily vanish, and the group breaks through into communalism. The sudden, fervent "yeah yeah!" pulls from the same crowded Anglo-ethnic trough as the Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, and Danielson, and establishes the band's own link between the ritualistic and the futuristic.

-Eric Harvey, October 25, 2007

All Hour Cymbals

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Label: Vagrant Records
Year: 2006
Genre: Rock, Post-Punk

Track - Title
1. Stuck Between Stations
2. Chips Ahoy!
3. Hot Soft Light
4. Same Kooks
5. First Night
6. Party Pit
7. You Can Make Him Like You
8. Massive Nights
9. Citrus
10. Chillout Tent
11. Southtown Girls

Record Review

When Pitchfork finally received a full-art copy of Boys and Girls in America, it came with a Hold Steady coaster, a wink at the received logic that Craig Finn and his cohorts are members of "America's #1 bar band." That's an ill-fitting tag for a couple of reasons; first, because the vast majority of the bars in the U.S. feature DJs and jukeboxes not bands-- let alone ones as unique and powerful as the Hold Steady.

Second, and more importantly: Although the characters in the Hold Steady's beery tales are big drinkers, you can't imagine many of them bellied up to a bar. That sort of drinking-- introspective, sometimes done alone, indoors-- is the antithesis of the imbibing in Hold Steady songs. These characters are drinking at apartment parties, at festivals, in fields, in cars. In "Stuck Between Stations", the protagonist and his friends "drink from [a] purse"; "Massive Night" has the boys "feeling good about their liquor run"; and in "Party Pit" the female character is "gonna walk around and drink some more." They're not reflective or nostalgic, and when frequent Finn heroine Holly is contemplating the past, it's with regret she can no longer get as high as she used to.

So it's no wonder that critical darlings the Hold Steady aren't exactly indie rock heroes. Marginalized to that world almost by default-- radio and video are, for the most part, unkind to new rock bands not targeted at high-schoolers-- the Hold Steady craft classic rock-indebted music that would sound better sandwiched between Born to Run and Back in Black than Illinois and Tigermilk. In other words, the more likely you are to use music as a social lubricant than as a social balm, the more likely you are to enjoy the Hold Steady.

And if you dislike this band, you wouldn't be alone. After years of making detail-heavy music with both Lifter Puller and now the Hold Steady, Craig Finn enjoyed a critical breakthrough last year with the divisive Separation Sunday-- a loosely conceptual album based around a trio of characters named Charlemagne, Gideon, and Holly-- which wowed critics with its back-alley poetry and willingness to reach the cheap seats, but left many listeners cold over Finn's gruff sing-speak vocals and his band's tendency towards licks rather than grooves.

On Boys and Girls, some things have changed that will make the band more palatable to doubters yet could disappoint Separation Sunday fans: Finn sings more than speaks, and his lyrics have a big-picture approach, allowing listeners to fill details of their own lives into the songs rather than be required to commit fully to those of his characters. Putting less emphasis on lyrical detail than in the past, Finn claims in opener "Stuck Between Stations", a paean to poet and suicide-victim John Berryman, that "words won't save your life"; later, on "First Night", he writes that "words alone can never save us." It's the difference between working more in character, creating a low-rent version of street and suburban life, and creating songs that, as Pitchfork's Stephen Deusner observed, "Finn's characters might want to listen to."

One way in which Finn does this is by ratcheting up the force and power of the music, layering guitar and trebly keys and multiple hooks on top of one another like a mid-1970s E Street Band or an E-boosted Happy Mondays. It's rock'n'roll before it was ashamed to do either, and unlike on past efforts, lyrics can sometimes be summed up by lines that approximate the effect of a chorus, even if they're presented more like a thesis statement: "I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere," "When they kiss they spit white noise," the aforementioned "Gonna walk around and drink some more."

The lack of specificity also means Finn is acknowledging the universality of his themes, which-- although he's still mostly writing about the Twin Cities-- reflect the experiences of kids across the country. Whereas Finn's spiritual predecessors, Bruce Springsteen and Jack Kerouac (whose On the Road lends the album its title), romanticized the open road and the possibility of escape, his characters travel not to start again or get away but as a diversion, as on "Chillout Tent", in which a pair of kids so desperate for something big to happen in their otherwise humdrum lives-- he on his "first day off in forever, man" and she on a break from her studies-- awkwardly try to squeeze as much decadence as possible into a single afternoon.

Finn is less a 21st century Springsteen than he is an American Jarvis Cocker; he's the poet laureate for the U.S.'s have-nots in much the same way the Pulp singer was for the UK's common people in the 1990s. Unlike Cocker, however, Finn doesn't write angrily, perhaps a telling indication that the stereotypically British self-loathing is equitable to the "colossal expectations" and lack of discipline of the boys and girls in America. Just as one wouldn't imagine Cocker writing escapist fantasies such as "Chillout Tent", nor would Finn pen something as bitter as "I Spy".

In a sense, however, this album, thematically, is as self-aware as Cocker's work at his height of fame-- the ambitious, zeitgeist-grabbing Different Class and hangover album This Is Hardcore. But rather than moan about too many nights on the tiles, Finn channels his diminishing energy into characters older and younger than himself: His epitaph for Berryman ("he was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected") and Holly's laments over stoner burnout in "First Night" could both be read as autobiographical.

They could also be seen as a lament for the type of music Finn's making, the straightforward arena rock that, these days, often settles for critical acclaim and respect rather than connecting with lots and lots of people. For all of Finn's holding his lyrics at arm's length here, he remains one of the best writers in rock, demonstrating grit and spunk and wit and intelligence in each track. Unlike many of those who've translated big, arena-ready guitars into arena-sized audiences, Finn doesn't resort to confidently sung platitudes like "It's a beautiful day!", "Look at the stars/ See how they shine for you," or "I'm not OK." He not only has a commanding, rousing voice but he also says something worth hearing, displaying gifts for both scope and depth that are all too rare in contemporary rock-- indie or mainstream.

-Scott Plagenhoef, October 02, 2006

Download Here

And just to switch things up, for the hell of it:



M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Label: Gooom
Year: 2003
Genre: Electronic

Track - Title
1. Birds
2. Unrecorded
3. Run into Flowers
4. In Church
5. America
6. On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain
7. Noise
8. Be Wild
9. Cyborg
10. 0078h
11. Gone
12. Beauties Can Die

Record Review

Sometimes I think it can't be a matter of simple coincidence that sound, when rendered visually, appears as ever-changing green fluctuations stretched over an infinite black void. The power of music to seemingly construct, alter and distort space can be staggering. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, the second album from French electronic duo M83, nicely epitomizes this: The sound is absolutely huge, its relentless attention to detail eclipsed only by the stunning emotional power it conveys. For fifty-seven glorious minutes, its impossibly intricate tapestry of buzzing techno synthesizers, distorted electric guitars, cheesy drum machines, and subdued vocals generate a sense of bodily movement through a landscape of beauty, disappointment, glory, and decrepitude. Dead Cities not only envelops you, but also affords you room to explore its vast expanse.

One remarkable attribute of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is how vastly M83's sound palette differs from the ones most often used to create music possessing this much beauty and depth. Countless musicians have humanized electronic sounds by generating tones that feel warm or organic, but M83 have undertaken a different challenge: to convey beauty through the familiar, filtered buzz of the kind of cheap synthesizers usually found in techno and dance tracks. Paradoxically, the sounds that have constituted some of the most vapid, hedonistic, and forgettable music of our time have now returned to make us cry.

M83 open Dead Cities with one of their most striking misappropriations of trite instrumentation. In "Birds", a tinny sample of chirping birds is combined with swells of synth strings and a computerized voice repeating, "Sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are growing, clouds are looming and I am flying." The computerized voice is run through an odd, wavering melodic filter that affords it just the right degree of harmonic dissonance with the accompanying synths, and it takes on a decidedly unsettling feel, repeating its mantra-like invocation of the unsteady world you're about to enter.

Once inside, you're exposed to a landscape of seemingly infinite depth and complexity. Rather than just ending, sounds and songs disappear off into the horizon, continually bringing a promise of something familiar but unforeseen to follow. "Unrecorded", the first full-fledged song on Dead Cities, makes clear the reason M83 have drawn so many My Bloody Valentine comparisons. Building upon a foundation of fuzzed-out guitar, rich bass, synth strings, and a drum machine that sounds surprisingly like the acoustic drums of Loveless, the duo layers burbling techno synthesizers into complex rhythmic intersections as the song's vast backdrop slowly fades away. Just as My Bloody Valentine refashioned distorted electric guitars as instruments capable of divine and volatile sound, M83 recast harsh sawtooth waves as voices of reflection and regret. On "Run into Flowers", almost-real strings and whispered vocals are juxtaposed with overdriven drum machine clicks, as an insistent 4/4 beat evokes lush, green fields as easily as abandoned factories and polluted rivers.

This kind of contrast factors heavily into "In Church", as a clear pipe organ and an angelic, reverb-laden chorus are assaulted by blasts of white noise. Finally, a wrenching, synthesized melody enters, providing a profoundly moving counterpoint to the sterile beauty that preceded it. By the time you get to "0078h", it's impossible to tell whether the heavily altered vocals are of human or computerized origin; it's also completely ceased to matter. Oftentimes, the most organic sounds on Dead Cities are the most formless, and the most glaringly synthetic sounds the most emotional.

Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts ends fittingly with the 14-minute epic "Beauties Can Die", which recalls at first the melodic, pastoral electronica of Múm's Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK. This peaceful opening is soon overtaken by a sound that gradually transforms from a low, earthquake-like rumble into a blast of synthesized static. Synthesizers and harmony vocals are layered and layered until the sound is so explosively, beautifully gigantic that you won't mind it's damaging your hearing. More earthquake rumbles follow, each ushering in even more layers of ungodly gorgeous sound and evoking a stomach-turning combination of fear and excitement. At the crash of a synthesized cymbal, the song descends into submerged ambience, and ultimately into a long silence, before resurfacing with distorted radar blips and shrieks of howling noise.

As "Beauties Can Die" fades, you're left with the feeling that you've just returned from a journey-- that the images passing through your mind for the last hour couldn't possibly have been the result of mere imagination. An album like this extends far beyond your speakers, guiding you through an impossibly rich, detailed world of sound while also giving you room to explore it yourself; you don't listen to Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, you inhabit it.

-Matt LeMay, May 12, 2003

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Solefald - In Harmonia Universali ( 2003, Folk Metal )



Track Listing:

1. Nutrisco Et Extinguo
2. Mont Blanc Providence Crow
3. Christiania (Edvard Munch Commemoration)
4. Epictetus & Irreversibility
5. Dionysify The Night of Spring
6. Red Music Diabolos ( Instrument )
7. Buy My Sperm
8. Fraternité De La Grande Lumiére
9. The Liberation of Destiny
10. Sonnenuntergang Im Weltraum

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Solefald - Black for Death: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 2 ( 2006, Folk metal )



Track Listing:

1.Red For Fire & Black For Death
2. Queen In The Bay Of Smoke
3. Silver Dwarf
4. Underworld ( Instrumental )
5. Necrodyssey
6. Allfathers
7. Lokasenna ( Part 2 )
8. Loki Trickster God
9. Spoken To The End Of All ( Poem )
10. Dark Wave Dying ( Instrumental )
11. Lokasenna ( Part 3 )
12. Sagateller



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This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Artist: Machinae Supremacy
Album: Overworld
Genre: Power metal / electronic / VGM-inspired
Label: Spinefarm
Year: 2008



1. Overworld [04:21]
2. Need for Steve [04:11]
3. Edge and Pearl [04:00]
4. Radio Future [04:40]
5. Skin [05:24]
6. Truth of Tomorrow [04:35]
7. Dark City [05:56]
8. Conveyer [03:51]
9. Gimme More (SID) [03:25]
10. Violator [03:04]
11. Sid Icarus [03:58]
12. Stand [04:47]

Machinae have done it again. VGM buffs here will know these guys for working Terra's theme into the song "Flagcarrier", as well as their three epic 8-bit medleys (the Sidology songs). Hey look here's their third album!

Their 2004 debut, Deus Ex Machinae had some pretty dry production and lots of bleeps and bloops from their Sidstation. Redeemer, their 2006 offering, was a total contrast - much more guitar, lots of solos, breakdowns - it went to eleven.

Overworld is a hybrid of the two, with a whole crate of atmosphere broken open for good measure. It's varied - some songs sound poppy and catchy, some are epic, some are borderline ballads. I'm not sure if I like this as much as I do Redeemer, but it still rocks pretty hard.

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