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Pacebreaker - Mormon Lullabyes
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Butte - Rubber Legs / Cop Clairvoyant
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Jim Shepard - The Voices Of Men
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The Flying Luttenbachers / No Safety - Modulation Decay Split
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Various Artists - UHF/Channel 14
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Trumans Water - Godspeed The Static
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Various Artists - Lives
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Human Flesh - Life In Reverse
Label : Ladd-Frith
Country : US
Year : ?
Format : C45
Trying something a little different here, giving a voice to this oft voiceless blog here. Alain Neffe is a minimal synth/wave/core/post- musician most popular for his Bene Gesserit and Pseudo Code. Among his other various nicely named projects was Human Flesh. This is a tape of the so-named project of which I own. Released in various incarnations both on the cultural cassette powerhouse that is/was Ladd
The music itself is quite nice, if you like minimal synthetics like I do.
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Various Artists - For Proper Stylus Care
Label : Jalopy Grotto - JG006
Country : US
Year : 1996
Format : LP
A little present before Christmas I suppose: a compilation of relatively obscure Portland bands. Just what you wanted under the ol' tree. This is a bit too conventional for my and this blogs taste, but there is some good stuff here. I especially like the tracks by Rollerball and Lords of Howling, both bands I've taken a liking to. There are also some pleasant surprises with the more obscure acts such as Matt Schulte and Stertorous. Another cool factor to this is the previously unreleased Chokebore track "Nylon", good 90s noise rawking. It's worth noting that the last track ends in a locked groove, I left it recording for awhile and just trimmed it. Can't leave it running forever! Another element to the package is the illustrations contained with the zine it came with (Starbage). I may scan those when I have time.↧
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Various Artists - Put Down Your Pencil
Label : Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
Year : 1990
Country : US
Format : C60
Lotso familiar names on this tape. A sound art comp featuring the likes of the BCO, Larry Wendt, Croiners, Al Margolis, and Illusion of Safety. A lot to like here, from the industrial rumblings of Big Red Stain to the silly Plunderphonia of the Tape-Beatles and Ed Special. Wendt's track here in particular is very interesting, an arresting spoken piece describing the lucrative venture of toad farming in San Jose (if anyone has any of his old tapes from Frog Peak/Hollow, let me know). All in all, an interesting experimental collection.
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Various Artists - A Consonant Vowel
Label : C.A.G.E. Records
Country : US
Year : 1988
Format : LP
As the year changes, I don't. Another sound art compilation for your ears and, perhaps the intention of the organizers, brain. Like the last post, collage and industrious noise play a prominent role here. This time, it's centered around Ohio-born sound artistry. Seeing as it was released by the "Cincinnati Artist's Group Effort", it makes sense. Ohioans such as John M. Bennett and Charlotte Pressler make an appearance, as well as Cincy groups like Lopez Sophisticates and Contraption #37. Even a Cleveland projects contribute with the Backyard Mechanics for Language (led by Luigi-Bob Drake, who appeared on Put Down Your Pencil). Other than that, artists from different areas also submit their efforts here. These include the late, great Minóy of California and the ephemeral Wisconsin project Qwa Digs Never Parish. I wonder if Charlotte Schmitz is related to K.D. Schmitz. As an aside, making scans for 12'' LP's on a small scanner is a lot harder than it seems. Happy New Year.
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Re-upload Round-up #?
Ecomcon - Analog
One of the first of many things I put on this archive of sorts, a slab of plunderphonia. I do love this kind of stuff, with its liberal abuse of musical samples and plucked sounds from old education film. More on the Tape-Beatles side of the genre, if you like that stuff. Maybe a bit more nonsensical compared to them, maybe Special Ed is a more apt comparison? Anyway, without further trangressions, here you are:
Featuring familiar names in Jack Wright, Sue Ann Harkey, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Chris Cochrane, Doug Henderson, Ikue Mori, Matthew Ostrowski, and George Cartwright, this is something of an underground free improv supergroup of sorts. Structure, terra incognita to many an improviser, has never been this fragmented and loose in terms of a jazz LP. The main premise is this: take the surrealist game of Exquisite Corpses and insert it into a musical format, allowing performers to play as they like and ultimately create a coherent yet "cohesive" piece of art. Similar to the classic private press improv group Iowa Ear Group. Comes with a cool explanation explaining the schematics of it all.
Story Of Failure - Negative Fulfillment On The "83" Spitting Circuit
Johnstown's biggest hit since the flood, Story Of Failure is nice, ripping Fall-esque post-punkery. A nice working class flair to it, too. Side-note, this may be due for a re-rip from me, I think I left the line-in a bit too loud causing it to be a bit shrill. Still, it's good stuff.
V/A - Acousticide
All kinds of stuff going on here: noise, improv, ambient, collage... All rather overlapping styles, but it's still cool to see variety in documents such as these. Lotta focus on the Colorado scene with figures such as Jeph Jerman, Blowhole, and Lab Rat on display. There is also appearances from cassette culture regulars blackhumour and Kapotte Muziek. A real gem is the Sun City Girls rarity, about ten minutes of improv goodness.
Smersh - 3 Bangs
Cassette culture's best pop combo, Smersh released tons upon tons of popsongs in various formats through countless venues. This is a nice little slab of vinyl containing some great would-be hits in another world. Less harsh, more synthpoppy than what I've usually heard from this group. Still great, though.
Tim Perkis - Five Solo Violin Improvisations
An unholy racket. An apt description of this 7 inch from Lucky Garage, a label which I had taken quite an interest in. This interest is fed by the fact that my favorite record shop had a bunch of their releases in the used 45 section of the store, so I've listened to a good chunk of their catalog. Perkis, I believe, was a part of the electronic music group known as The Hub and League of Automatic Music Composers, both early electro-music pioneers of sorts. This is quite a departure, resembling more of Polly Bradfield than Morton Subotnick.
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The Judas Iscariot - Skeptics, Mystics and Blind Idolaters...
Label : Denied A Custom - CUSTOM #2
Country : Japan
Year : 1997
Format : 7 inch
I've kept this one hidden away from the blog for quite a while, thinking it wouldn't really fit the mold. It's a bit too hard/grindcore for my tastes, unlike their previous (and better, in my view) EP "Harrison Bergeron Bound?". Flashes of what I like from that release can be heard in the penultimate track "wheres the cheese and mission?". From the packaging and band name, this takes on a theological theme of sorts. Speaking of the packaging, it is pretty elaborate, if not varied. Letters, a little picturebook, and some catalogs in this little 7 inch EP. It even includes a little biography for the band, in Japanese:
OCR'd:
音楽、ミュージカル、オペラなどなどの宝庫で知られるニューヨーク。 まん いずざばすたーどに対抗するバンドはやはり存在した...ギターレス ストレートフォワードスラッシュジャズと言えば、JUDAS ISCARIOT。 15人分のギターをー人のベースプレーヤーであるJeff がまかなうバンド、 JUDAS ISCARIOT。7inch に12曲も詰め込んでしまったつわもの3人組。 偶像崇拝物 (宗教・UFOなど) すべてを否定するために付けられたタイト ルが, この Skeptics, Mystics and Blind Idolaters...。スローな曲に飽きさしまった、バンド編成にギターはいらないと思う人、ぜひ御ー聴を!最初から 飛ばして行きます、JUDAS ISCARIOT。イエスは、。最後のユダを待ってい た。ニューヨークのJUDAS ISCARIOT (ユダイスカリオテ) をよろしく。
Using machine translation, it says somethin' about New York (TJI's home state) being thee home of operas and some such stuff. It's probably not very accurate, daga. Also included in the packaging was this typed letter signed by the label honcho themself, Yoshiyuki Takahashi (no relation to the mangaka of the same name, I assume). It seems like a heartfelt response to a letter from the previous owner, but for all I know it could have been included in every mail-ordered record sent to the states.
In addition to these snippets are some other scraps of printed matter:
Perhaps the coolest thing is little novelette, rife with topographic illustration and esoteric texts:
(Note the idiosyncratic capitalization, is that a cipher?)
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Alan Bishop - Radio Moderna
Label : Alterity 101 - Alterity 2
Country : US
Year : 2013
Format : C44
In the annals of the Sun City Girls canon™, improvisation via devices such as the radio is not uncommon. Here, the humble contraption takes center stage thanks to the thumb-twiddling and spontaneous interjections of the Uncle Jim. Talk shows on the AM spectrum to mainstream hits on the FM spectra are not safe from the brothers Bishop. This reminds me of my early experimentations in noise-musicks, an abused boombox cassette deck was not safe in my hands. Anyway, don't expect the beautiful appropriation of traditional musics of the world of 330,003 Crossdressers or the (sheer) hellish carny miasma of Dante's Disneyland Inferno, but more along the lines of Carnival Folklore Radio. Still, the more Uncle Jim, the sleazier, cat.
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Jaki Jakizawa - Can You Feel The Juices?
Label : Milvia Son Records - MS006
Country : US
Year : 2011
Format : LP
Gross, or a synonym thereof, is often used when describing this album. It's easy to see why, just look at the greasy mug on the cover and the title of the A-side. Or the goddamned title: it's a very unsettling question. Yes, this album is pretty gross, as in disgusting, grotesque, or any other sense of the word before the co-opting of the term by network dwelling sycophants. But the music itself is not as deplorable as the packaging makes it out to be. The top flip side "Period Blood" would bring to mind some goregrind style juvenilia, but it really is, as Music for Maniacs describes it, "like Giorgio Moroder goes free jazz". The bottom side of the slab is the kicker here: "Eros in Neon". A kraut-synth juggernaught, beautifully developing a simple line throughout it's ~16 minute runtime. Reminds me of lucid produce and such as that.
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Unwanted Christmas Presents - Unwanted Christmas Presents
Label : Electrocution Records - ELE 33007
Country : US
Year : 1993
Format : LP
I dislike unwanted Christmas presents. Obviously these guys did, too. This WV-bred weirdo punk would fit right in the catalog of Siltbreeze if not for the untimely demise of vocalist/howler/barker Keith Dunleavy, who makes his voice heard throughout this racket of eighties coaltown dementia. The screeching of the frontman is backed by the metallic improvisation of guitarist/various object player Joe Nathan (no relation to the reliever I presume). This is mainly composed of fragments strewn throughout the nineteen eighties via live performance and garage 4-track debauchery.
Exhibit A: this cool poster outlines the whole process of this little compilation, with some nice drawings to boot. This is the stuff I crave, garage-punk noise trash with a little lore behind it.
Note that the first track had some residue and/or a scratch on it, so there are some annoying clicks. Luckily, a better version can be found here, along with some other cool things about this obscure little outfit. Also, an interesting interview with Nathan was in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll awhile back, it can be found on page 88 here.
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Candiru / Fat Hacker - Split
Label : Red Stream Inc. - RSR-0103
Year : 1993
Country : US
Format : 7 inch
I've posted a lot of Industrial musics on this blog, but I've never really divulged in the rock or metallic side of the "genre". Barring some exceptions depending on your definition of Industrial rock/metal, of course. I don't really care for this kind of stuff, preferring the more noisy and abstract sound. This release itself is no real outlier in this calamity. Enjoy, some Harrisburg bred Industrial rawk split with some NY style racket.
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Rudimentary Peni – "Echoes Of Anguish" (Outer Himalayan Records – BOOBOO6) 1997
Mark E. Smith once said that Punk Rock was just 'badly played Heavy Metal'; well this version of Punk Rock is well played Heavy Metal, that doesn't sacrifice intelligence for power, both of which it has in spades.
Tracklist:
A1 The Flame Of Insanity
A2 In Memory Of Pain
A3 Dissolution
A4 Only Death
A5 Womb So Scorned
A6 Time Passing
B1 Echo
B2 Voice
B3 Stone
B4 Trial By Separation
B5 From The Heart
B6 Your Secret Life
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Non-linear equations defining borderline cosmic chaos
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Zombijiem svētki uz Daugavas krastos
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