Harvester-Hemat (1970)

"Perhaps you read about or bought the Terry Riley-influenced Parson Sound double cd we've raved so much about? Well, Harvester (after releasing another LP under the full name of International Harvester -- reviewed elsewhere on our site) was a future development of the Parson Sound band. And after Harvester, they became the semi-legendary Trad Gras Och Stenar (Trees, Grass and Stones). Though we think the absolute best stuff we've heard from these guys dates from their Parson Sound incarnation, this disc is pretty darn cool too. Hemat ("Homeward") has been described by someone in the know as "mastodon waltz-drone / acid soaked free jam psychedelia." Which is not only a pretty accurate description, but also a cool phrase to quote. The disc starts with a lovely mellow hippy-folk tune that matches the dreamy landscape painting on the album's cover. Then with track two things get heavier and more Parson Sound-like. The mastodon waltz has begun, as flutes trill and Swedish freaks chant. The disc progresses into ethnic-tinged free rock/jazz ("Nepal Boogie") and even an unrecognizably drugged-out downer version of "Everybody (Needs Somebody to Love)". Loose and stoned this disc most certainly is, forty-one minutes of almost-lost music drifting through the haze of time to trip you out today. Recommended -- and get International Harvester and all the other related albums too!"-aQ

I don't know about you, but I cannot get enough of this early Swedish psych, especially from the Parson Sound family tree. This one drones and saunters all over the damn place and there's something about the way they do it that gives it an absolutely mystical quality. Highly recommended.

Nepal Boogie

Mayo Thompson-Corky's Debt to His Father (1969)

"Although this, to put it mildly, is not a record for mainstream tastes, it nevertheless may be more palatable to pop ears than any of Thompson's numerous Red Krayola records. With a folkier bent than his group projects, Thompson projects himself as a lovable oddball of sorts, stringing together free-associative, non-sequitur lyrics against chord progressions and time signatures that, as is his wont, refuse to adhere to accepted norms. Much of it's rather catchy (if not hummable), though, with a whimsical sense of fun that makes it impossible to dismiss as pretentious artsiness."

Whoa. Folksy, off-kilter, quirky psychedelic blues. Take Red Krayola's awkwardness, Beefheart's weirdness, a real love for John Fahey with some very Jack Bruce-like vocals and you get this incredible concoction. Not to be missed.

Venus in the morning

This Heat-Deceit (1981)

" Judged by its cover alone, Deceit (1981) is the great prophetic record of the era – the front depicts a scream beneath a mask that is a collage of: Mushroom-Cloud between-the-eyes; JFK & Khruschev shaking hands; Stars & Stripes across the tongue; Ron & Nancy on the forehead. These are the images still familiar in 2008. The lyric-sheet is scattered with the same clippings, and some more helpful captions. Much of this is identical to the collage ingredients for OK Computer (1997) and its singles: what to do in the event of a bomb, or when the siren sounds; where tactical nukes are deployed, worldwide; those oddly dehumanizing line-drawings of how to prepare your fall-out shelter. Deceit came out in 1981, though – a couple of years before Star Wars (the Strategic Defense Initiative); before Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein; before the first massacre of the Kurds. Ten years later, GW1; ten years further on, 9/11; then the War for Oil, then the Credit Crunch; and only this week can we see real hope of a decline in Republican war-mongering and financial mismanagement (the legacy of Milton Friedman, via Reagan & Thatcher). You know most of this; the point is, to get a sense of history… but also a sense of "prophecy" as a meaningful term in the context of avant-garde music.

Back in 1979, punk in the sense of scuzzed-up glam or sped-up blues had already exhausted its capacity for subversion. Nonetheless, a door had clearly been opened for the experimentalism of post-punk (in a loose sense), and within that (or overlapping), a kind of proto-industrial music that has little to do with Ministry, NIN, or Front 242. Alongside Lydon's definitive nail-in-the-coffin of the Pistols – Metal Box (1979) – This Heat's debut was the sound of re-invention and refutation, both musical and ideological. Heavier than Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire, the industrial analogies (at the time) require some contextualizing: industrial as a simile (metal on metal), industrial as a reflection of process (customized machines), industrial as an allusion to critiques of the "military industrial complex". The best (or worst) was yet to come, however…

Deceit (1981) is prophetic, for a start, in that it's glossolalic – it's gibberish, it's speaking in tongues, it's too many ideas at once, and if you throw them at the wall, some of them are bound to stick, and look like a warning three decades later, if not like Revelations. Thing is, prophecy often attracts the wrong people, and gets ignored by the rest, when they assume it must refer to some specific event in the future (i.e. Kabbalism), rather than referring to the horror here and now, but visibly imminent to those who can see the historic patterns (…which is one aspect of Gnosticism). Track 5, 'Cenotaph' spells this out: "his-tory / his-tory / repeats itself / repeats itself / Poppy Day – remember poppies are red / and the fields are full of poppies" – it's literally a song about decoding symbols, and not letting the signal become noise; it's not a Fuck You to the jingoism and self-righteousness of the generation who "served" (as Sid, Siouxsie, and others claimed their Nazi regalia was meant to suggest), nor does this song disrespect the dead, but it does demand that we re-consider our values. The most recognizably "punk" track on the album, 'SPQR' (Track 4), identifies another repetition, and how we're taught by rote to repeat the values, and sometimes the mistakes, of our parents – right back to the imperialism and centralized government of 2,000 years ago: "we're all Romans / we know all about straight roads / every road leads home / home to Rome / amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant."

The devastating industrial freak-out, 'Makeshift Swahili' (Track 8), condenses most of these ideas into one song, although you wouldn't know it at first from the Dalek-voice: "…makeshift she sings / in her native German / you try to understand / what she's trying to say / she says 'You're only as good / as the words you understand / and you, you don't understand / the words.' / CHORUS: Tower of Babel!!! / Swaaaaaaahili!!! / It's all Greek to me!" The middle-eight introduces a pretty guitar figure, and a second voice relates a fragment of history that might have been dropped in as a sample, years later: " 'we give you firewater / you give us your land' / 'white-man speak with forked tongues / but it's too late now / to start complaining…'" The sinister drones resume almost immediately, and then the song explodes with an intensity surpassing punk at its most violent – Charles Hayward shrieking "Rhubarb! Rhubarb! Rhubarb!" Granted, this track may not be the most obvious demonstration of the genius of This Heat – Yes, Babel remains the best-known parable of the dangers of imperialism (if not globalization) collapsing under the weight of its ambition; there are also hints that language is power, and literacy was an instrument of subjugation, in the case of the Native Americans, rather than being the gift of enlightenment (see also, Gang of Four's contemporaneous Entertainment!). These allusions operate according to the collage-principles of juxtaposition and partial-tearing to create new meanings – collage being the best known Dadaist strategy – but This Heat also employ sound-poetry and a kind of automatic-speaking akin to channelling and possession (these being associated with Dadaism's loopier, more magic(k)al experiments, pre-WWI). Art-history lesson almost done, it remains to point out that when inter-war Surrealism re-visited Dadaism, it used the slogan "Surrealism in the service of the revolution", and was firmly Marxist in its orientation. If 1970s English Progressive Rock was a debased surrealism in the service of trippiness, This Heat brought the revolutionary spirit back.

What of the rest of the album? It's a complex beast, whose intra-textualities are as numerous as the inter-textualities. The use of loops, drones, found-sounds, and unusual percussion (girders, dummy-heads) was so elaborate that you have to look to The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' for a precursor, and as far ahead as Aphex Twin when describing the more danceable and abrasive tracks. A guitarist as evil – but subtle – as Charles Bullen wouldn't be found until Dave Pajo (of Slint), and if you want a comparison for the first album, only Liars have come close, with Drum's not Dead (2006). Personally, I can hear the ghost of Nico channelled into This Heat's weird mix of fucked-up lullabies (Track 1: 'Sleep'), and drone-based proto-industrial nightmares. The drawing of parallels between the End of Rome & the Cold War Era is also very Nico, and the phrase "the sound of explosions" on 'A New Kind of Water' (Track 10) feels like a reference to Eno's "bomb-noises" for Nico's The End. (Eno also recorded Manzanera's pre-Roxy band, Quiet Sun, who included one Charles Hayward, later of This Heat. Rhubarb Rhubarb.)

Opening track 'Sleep' tells us we're all unconscious, lulled by commercials (hence "softness is a thing called Comfort"), and these operate on us like Pavlov's dogs (CHORUS: "stimulus and response"). 'Triumph' might be suggesting a parallel between Neighbourhood Watch (imported from the US in 1982 – a landmark in the history of surveillance), and the early years of Nazism, when Riefenstahl assembled her filmic montage Triumph of the Will. 'SPQR' is sung in the first person plural and refers to the supposedly democratic electorate as "unconscious collective" – Cold War propaganda and sci-fi alike often fantasized the enemy as an insectile hive-mind, but this song isn't about an external enemy: the enemy is now internal. 'Independence' (Track 9) is, quite literally, the Declaration of Independence. Ask yourself, as a UK-citizen, have you ever read it? Do you know what it says? Could you imagine trying to implement its ideals now? Doesn't its endorsement of revolution sound – well, "un-American" (as the Patriot Act defines "American")? The climax is post-punk masterpiece and personal favourite, 'A New Kind of Water', which layers un-synchronized drums, bass, and a chiming guitar line – a distant siren that hasn't yet been recognized as a warning signal. As the parts cycle, and change in volume, the notes interact differently. The initial chorus vocals are those of impotent, infantilized consumers ("we were told to expect more / and now that we've got more / we want more"). After that, the vocal delivery is soulless and hollow – Winston Smith at the end of 1984 – we have hope, it says: 'a cure for cancer / we've got men on the job.' Urgency increases… the drums begin to pound… you realize the apocalypse is here and you wish you were in Neverland ("fly away Peter / hideaway Paul…"). The title of the final track is written in Japanese characters, transliterated into Romaji ('Hi Baku Shyo'), and then translated into English ('Suffer Bomb Disease'). There are no words in this murky, marshy soundscape – maybe this is the world in which only cockroaches have survived. Maybe English-speakers are only tolerated as slaves of the victorious "Yellow Peril" (hence the Romaji-script). Then again, maybe the bomb has already dropped, and we became insects without realizing it."

So this is what forward thinking music is all about. The very spirit you can hear flowing in and out of these songs is equaled by only the most groundbreaking and thoughtful bands. What a clusterfuck of noise, chaos, atonal melody, pulsating tribal rythym, chords that cut across your face like freshly sharpened blades, sounds whizzing in and out, abrupt changes, a message as dark as that ominous record cover...this band was in total control of what they were doing and what they wanted this mass of angst to sound like. So unbelievably essential in an industry (and blog) that probably uses that word to much. Though made in a different time, it sounds as fresh and urgent as any band still trying to push the proverbial envelope. You need this.

"The whole speak, 'Little Boy', 'Big Boy' [sic], calling missiles cute little names. The whole period was mad! We had a firm belief that we were going to die and the record was made on those terms.… The whole thing was designed to express this sort of fear, angst, which the group was all about really."-Charles Hayward

The Fall-Hex Enduction Hour (1982)

"or the uninitiated, entering the wonderful and frightening world of the Fall can be an overwhelming experience. Not only does the “band” (which has performed in various incarnations since the late 70’s, but always with the indestructible crux of the perennially trashed Mark E. Smith) have more albums than years of existence under their collective belt, but mucked-up distribution of their records has generated barrelfuls of compilations and odd re-re-re-releases. That said, if you are to delve into three records by the Fall in your mortal life, the recently reissued (cleaned up and expanded) Hex Enduction Hour ought to be one of them. To dispense with the formalities, it’s a good remaster for an album that deserved it, and while none of the second disc’s added goodies are particularly stellar, they nevertheless serve as a little gravy to an already superb record.

Originally released in 1982 as their fourth studio album, Hex demonstrates the culmination of “early” Fall: a monolithic beast of ragged grooves piloted through the embittering miasma of English society by the verbose acidity/Joycean all-inclusiveness of Mark E. Smith. By then, the band’s sound had expanded outwards, having graduated to two drummers and allowing the abrasive patchwork of Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon’s guitars to drift further into clattering abstraction, each player pulling their creativity taut from an invisible center. Along with Wire, the Fall serves as one of the earliest and most successful attempts to elevate punk formalism (i.e. the consciously simple, spirited, and non-virtuosic) to the level of more exploratory, experimental music, an approach that we now call “post-punk,” but whereas Wire turned to icy, synth-laden paranoia, the Fall (at this point in their career) folded in the Neanderthalic kitchen sinkism of early Faust and the lovingly crass fusion of Can, peppering them with some of the thudding, demeaned pop-redux that would come to mark their mid-80’s work.

Immediately, “The Classical” sets a tone that characterizes the entirety of the record: dreary, cluttered, and seemingly decaying, but lurching forward with an unflinching certainty—the only flickering torch song in a cavity of deadened automatons. “There is no culture is my brag, your taste for bullshit reveals a lust for a home of office.” Of course, it’s ultimately Smith that gives a name to the beauteous shitstorm, delivering his dense, volatile rants in a trademark nasal snarl with a sing-speak pace that truly lets them cook, unmasking their dissent and pure poetry, erratically crying out “THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!,” only to consent that “I’ve never felt better in my life” in a bleary deadpan, ad infinitum, a comment whose inscrutability verges on chilling.

What’s tremendous, singular, and affecting about Smith is that it’s hard to tell where he actually stands: the heartbreaking scope and sensitivity of his lyrics shows a mind not of suffocating nihilism, but keen detachment, cynicism, and understanding, setting him as much at odds with the spitting reactionaries of punk as with the tidy Thatcherite society that fueled their hatred. If “The Classical” partially mimicked the illusory freedom and faux-revolutionary discontent of youth, “Fortress/Deer Park” takes aim at it, exposing the squatter squalor of a Nazi fortress where, after talking in circles “with four left wing kids,” Smith tiptoes by the toilets to the sound of a urine-stained fanfare: “and Good King Harry was there fucking [BBC’s original ‘Top of the Pops’ DJ] Jimmy Saville.” It’s upon his exit that the sky begins to open up for the gloriously apocalyptic scene of the deer park: when Smith says “I took a walk down West 11, I had to wade through 500 European punks” his voice coursing through a droning organ, a single flame on the verge of being blown out, it exudes chaos on the brink of pure bliss, the sound of Smith entering hell itself. The band reaches its boiling point, a relentless Stooges-like stomp tied together by an endless ribbon of gnashing teeth, Smith drowning in the deluge of noise, twisting amidst the inescapable artists, kids, and subculture hawks swarming like locusts all around, cheating out “the young blackies… in the English system they implicitly trust, see the A&R civil servants, they get a sex thrill out of a sixteenth of Moroccan,” a suffocatingly pathetic tableau of disappointments masquerading as hedonistic idealism, an interminably mounting pile of human trash.

And is there a way out? “Just Step S’Ways” is the closest the Fall gets to a motivational moment, and it’s hardly anything to smile about, as Smith leads the Fall Soul-Wrangler Revue trumpeting the empty rah-rah sentiment to “just step outside this grubby place today,” employing the falsely empowering sentiment of advertisements, the illusion of a life-changing consumerism. We’re left with our fists flaccid in the goddamn air with absolutely nowhere to look, before being piled like waste into the subtle, lopsided discord of “Who Makes the Nazis?,” to which the answer is, basically, everyone, from intellectual half-wits to George Orwell to the BBC. If there’s any moral, it’s a difficult one to swallow: everything we see wrong with the world is a conspiracy of our hates and our loves, every antagonist has its circumstances, its foils, its antecedents—more than anything, it’s a plea for thorough consideration of one’s surroundings, a deep-seated skepticism that perpetually disrupts the spirit yet elevates understanding. Smith laments on the loping infinity of “And This Day” that there’s “just no fucking respite for us here… you even mistrust your own feelings.” Like the cover of the record itself, Hex is a concrete chunk of clanging urban graffiti, a haze of cryptically scrawled half-thoughts preached like glossolalia to form a cross section rife with painful contradictions and holes too deep to fill, a picture whose dizzying intersections of raw, loose ends only serve to elevate its bleak beauty."

An old favorite of mine for certain. It's hard for me to get over those jagged guitars, tight rhythm section and snarled, alienated vocals as the years go by. Many of you probably have this or have heard it but it is an absolute classic and is deserving of a listen at the very least. Highly recommended.

This is the home of the vain

Faust-71 Minutes (1973-75)

"71 Minutes Of... compiles from two unreleased albums' worth of material from Faust. Unfortunately, this is a band that I've never really warmed up to all that much. I am able to muster up some amount of words of praise when writing about their music, but I really have to work to come up with them, like Spencer Tracy reeling in the fish in The Old Man and the Sea. When it comes down to it, there simply is little about the lo-fi aesthetic of this band that doesn't leave me cold.

The first half of the CD centers around two lengthy jams entitled "Munic." The first one, "Munic A," grooves along nicely with a solid metronomic beat and mumbled vocals, though I already get my fix with this sort of thing from Can, and for me they deal a purer product. "Don't Take Roots" is a strange type of psychedelic soul, not of the "Strawberry Letter 23" sort, but more like Malcolm Mooney sitting in with the Velvet Underground (the back-up vocals even have a vintage Cale-Morrisson quality to them). Unfortunately, the lead vocalist sounds like he's in mid-hernia, which essentially ruins the song for me. The chant of "Party 5" is also pretty abrasive and painful to listen to.

There are brief moments that I marginally enjoy, and I tend to stomach better here when they are playing acoustically, like the distant piano and deep rumbling drums of "Meer," or the gentle acoustic guitar and violin in "Psalter." As typified on other tracks, like "Baby" or "Party 8," much of the rest, frankly speaking, sounds unfocused at best and amateurish at worst. After a while, it grows tiresome, sounds simply like guys puttering around in their garage at some point during the early 70s, and just because it's a garage somewhere in Germany doesn't make the result all that more exciting to listen to. And, as I've already indicated, the vocals really suck; it's a big drawback for me.

I react to Faust in exactly the same way I do to the music of Henry Cow, despite the differences between the two bands. Of course, they're not exactly from different worlds, with both championing a sense of experimentation and improvisation, and Chris Cutler is obviously a fan, this being carried on his ReR label. But for me, Faust's music has a similar arid intellectualism to it: experimentalism that dances around the bases rather than makes a solid dive into home plate. Adventurous, sure, but I still get no lasting pleasure in listening to it. The good news if you are a Faust fan, of course, is that if you are into the other early albums, you should love this one just about as much."

This has been non-stop listening for me the past month or so. From that "Munic/Yesterday" trance to the fucked out off kilter groove of "Don't Take Roots," "J'ai Mal Aux Dents" funk into "Chromatic" drone, this is a bad ass collection of material. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious recommended.

Don't Take Roots

Cannibal Ox-The Cold Vein (2001)

"I’m young, and relatively new to the music-junkie scene, so I never had the opportunity to experience a revolutionary album until it had already been recognized, co-opted, and enshrined in the musical canon. This didn’t bother me in the least: I could still buy, listen to, and enjoy these albums at my leisure, and since they were new to me, I could still be surprised and excited. However, I was missing something as an eternal history student. I was missing the exhilaration that hits when you put on something brand new and know that it will change everything. You know the album will affect what you hear for years to come, and you can only guess at the ways its influence will be incorporated. It’s an emotional experience, one of the most exciting for any music listener. Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein hit me in this way.

The first thing every critic wants to do is compare The Cold Vein to the Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. It’s easy to see why. Both groups hail from New York. Both blend revolutionary (the word ‘innovative’ doesn’t go far enough) lo-fi production with dark, pessimistic rhymes. Both bring their own lexicon to dense flows. And Cannibal Ox’s stunning debut must remind many of Wu-Tang’s similar strike from nowhere. But the most important similarity is each group’s uncompromising originality, a quality that ranges from refreshing to downright stunning.

Not to disparage Can Ox’s gifted MCs Vast Aire and Vordul Megilah, but the production is what really sets The Cold Vein apart from the pack. El-P (of the influential indie hip hop crew Company Flow) masterminds the entire project with gritty, evocative beats whose lo-fi crackle almost obscures the lush texture of the music. El-P keeps the instrument fragments – pieces of piano melodies and horn licks – of his Company Flow work, but constructs layers of analog synths and fuzzy atmospheric textures around the percussion. The entire album sounds like it was recorded in a basement on a four-track (even the vocals have a metallic echo) creating music that perfectly matches the theme and feeling of the rhymes. And the feelings wrapped up in The Cold Vein are complex – Vast and Vordul alternate between depression, aggression, and anger. These emotions stem from their surroundings in the bleak ghettos of the Big Apple. “New York is evil at its core” spits Vast on the opener, “Iron Galaxy,” amid burbling synth arpeggios, chiming background textures, and scratchy horn samples.

“Atom” delves further into El-P’s street-side psychedelia, using dirty analog buzzes and aggressive turntable scratching to obscure sonorous horns and guitars. The instruments never fully emerge from the cacophony, but nevertheless shine through hopefully, much like Can Ox’s tortured MCs.

“B-Boy Alpha” is a storming tour-de-force, hurling synth squelches and electric guitar solos against haunting piano twinkling (a nod to RZA perhaps). Vast and Vordul storm the mic, constructing elaborate rhymes around how they escaped the violence of the streets through their music. This contrasts sharply with the next track, the sparse, spacey “Raspberry Fields,” which features stuttering drum kicks and synths that whine like tiny dive-bombing planes.

Vast easily tackles the album’s centerpiece, “The F-Word.” It’s an unrequited love song, a definite rarity in street hip hop, but Vast pulls it off with deft wordplay. “She was in a love triangle / But it’s not like my feelings weren’t there / To make it a square,” he recalls. The ‘f’ in “f-word” stands for “friend”: Vast holds the much-maligned position of “just-friend” with the object of his affection. Later, he laments “I was supposed to be the friend / But I’m getting fried in the end.” This couplet sees Cannibal Ox’s poetry at its most complex – combining the words ‘fried’ and ‘end’ make the word ‘friend.’ Moments like these show not only the skill of Can Ox’s MCs, but the potential for hip hop lyrics to work on as many levels as the finest English poetry.

If The Cold Vein has one weakness, it is in its length: at 75 minutes, it can be exhausting. However, more often than not, it’s simply enthralling, and an epic like this calls for not one, but two album closers. First, “Pigeon,” an uncompromising piece of ghetto-verite, assisted by El-P’s epic production. The flows roll by effortlessly, detailing the ghetto almost cinematically. Vordul comes in with a particularly disturbing verse: “Cats who pop flows shot heavy through the nostril / Brain sizzle grab the pistol and get hostile / He caught you alone fuse blown / Unemployed screaming ‘That's why I robbed you!’” However, the album’s bonus track provides a needed epilogue to The Cold Vein’s intensity. Vordul and Vast construct another atypical lyrical stew, involving the metaphor of the pigeon as the disenchanted ghetto-dweller from the previous track. Against the refrain of “Scream phoenix,” they extort their fellow pigeons to elevate themselves through art. The goal never comes across as preachy – merely helpful advice from a couple of “street peasants” who managed not only to advance themselves, but advance music in the process."

One of the best Hip-Hop albums ever, bar none. Probably the finest Hip-Hop production job ever. It's really hard to talk about an album that pretty much redefines what "rap" is capable of doing. Those are some creepy fucking beats! Jesus. If you haven't had the pleasure/horror, than by all means. Grabs its.

Ox out the cage

Brian Eno-Here Come the Warm Jets (1973)

"One of popular music's most endearing oddballs, Brian Eno's divergent output can nevertheless be tied together by his fascination with creating and manipulating sound textures. A self-described "non-musician" and renowned producer for some of the biggest and most respected names in the business (Talking Heads, David Bowie, U2), Eno has had a massively influential career. His own work has perhaps become most identified with his minimalistic ambient experiments, but Eno did release four albums of quirky pop music in the middle of the 1970s. He rarely returned to the format after 1977's Before and After Science, but these four fascinating albums reveal a major talent for the style are quite a legacy in their own right. Over the years, I have gone back and forth with each of these albums in terms of which I think is the best. I've settled on Another Green World as the pick of the bunch, but I think that the other three aren't far behind and have few qualitative differences between them. Eno's songs are often incredibly simple, yet his talent for arrangment and great gift for melodic deployment ensures that they're never simplistic. His flair for the unorthodox keeps the songs from being predictable. These are albums that I have played over and over for many years and still enjoy hearing.

Fresh from his split with Roxy Music, Eno recorded Here Come The Warm Jets in the fall of 1973. It is the first of Eno's many solo albums and it is the only one of his records that has much in common with the music by his former band — due in no small part, I'm sure, to participation by Eno's former bandmates (minus Bryan Ferry) on several of the album's cuts. Among the other musicians are King Crimson's Robert Fripp and John Wetton, who appear on two of the album's weirder tracks. Eno isn't credited with playing much on this album; apparently, he functioned mostly as a writer, producer and singer. A word on Eno's voice — it's one of the most distinct in popular music and I think it is a shame that he didn't make more albums that featured his vocals. Flat and somewhat robotic, yet capable of projecting warmth; dry and distanced but nevertheless expressive, Eno's voice is the perfect complement to music that itself is a negotiation between the artificial and the organic. As for the actual songwriting, Eno's lyrics tend toward the bizarre and daft, although the straightforward, socially relevant "Cindy Tells Me" indicates that this is more of a creative decision than an artistic limitation.

Warm Jets is eclectic and unlike much else that existed in popular music at the time, but you can hear its roots in some of the early Roxy Music songs. "Needles In The Camera's Eye" and "The Paw-Paw Negro Blowtorch" have a propulsive, glam-like veneer that I would surmise germinated in Roxy's "Remake/Remodel" and "Virginia Plain." More sinister and strange, "Baby's On Fire" (which features one of Robert Fripp's best guitar solos), "Driving Me Backwards" and "Blank Frank" contain elements that Eno first exhibited on his creepfest "The Bogus Man," from the 1972 Roxy album For Your Pleasure, though these are all much more visceral.

The other songs can be seen as genre experiments, but nothing is that simple when you're dealing with Eno. "Cindy Tells Me" is kind of a doo-wop pastiche but it's also an irreverant swipe at feminism and has what I think is the album's most memorable melody — which is saying something, because this record is full of them. "On Some Faraway Beach" starts with a simple piano melody and then gradually swells up to a glorious wall-of-sound climax — complete with amplified, echoey drums — worthy of the most dramatic Phil Spector productions. "Dead Finks Don't Talk" and "Some Of Them Are Old" come close to being too self-consciously arch for my tastes and they probably would be if they were by any other artist (though I honestly can't think of any other artist who would have written them) but "Finks" is redeemed by the crazy chorus and warped second verse, and "Some of Then Are Old" has a totally unexpected slide guitar solo inserted into the middle which almost sounds like a ukelele. It's impossible for me to dislike something so effectively audacious on the basis of principle.

I guess this album had a tough time finding an audience back in 1974. A flummoxed Rolling Stone reviewer declared Warm Jets to be "annoying, because it doesn't do anything," and hoped Eno would "attempt to structure his work rather than throw together the first ten things that come to mind" the next time he made an album. It must be that the many years of exposure to whimsy, irony and postmodernity in popular music have conditioned those of us who grew up in the '80s, because all I hear when I play Warm Jets is a creative batch of really good songs."

This is a pop record ( a weird one) and though it's before Eno got super weird, it's still hinting at what was to come. "Blank Frank" is fucking scary for a poppy song. Just insane. "Needle in the Camel's Eye" is straight fun. Try to not bop your head to it. I think his vocals are so out there and so damn good across the board. I love this record. Indulge.

Enolution

Leviathan-Verrater (2002)

"Those of you who live in San Francisco may have seen or even bought some of the many self released cassettes by the mysterious one man black metal band called Leviathan. Or some of you may have seen Andee or Allan sporting their Leviathan shirts, or you may have even seen Wrest, the man behind Leviathan lurking around AQ...regardless, Leviathan is the latest and certainly one of the greatest of the Bay Area black metal bands (Ludicra, Sangre Amado, Crebain, Draugar and the godlike Weakling [both also on tUMULt], etc...) who seem to exist in some sort of vacuum here while elsewhere, band after unoriginal band keep getting signed to huge labels and hyped to death even though most of them suck.
For this release Andee and Wrest went through the 13 full length Leviathan cassettes/cd-r's (as of the release of Verrater that number had leapt to 15!) Leviathan had recorded since 1998 to compile a good overview. But they couldn't whittle it down enough so one disc became two, with the first disc being the newer stuff, and disc two being the older, raw-er material.
Verrater is pure, primitive, cult, home recorded evil. Two discs, twenty two tracks, one hundred and forty three minutes of buzzing, howling, pummelling, black metal. Think Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, that sort of thing, but with all sorts of weird twists and sonic surprises. Yes, Leviathan is grimmer than grim metal that the frost & forest lords of Norway should bow down to, but it's also pure expression unfettered by genre restraints, although informed and inspired by them. Like Weakling, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Ludicra, Potentiam, Enslaved, and some other AQ-championed black metal acts, this is not just one for fans of black metal only! It's dark, weird, noisy, disturbing art embodying one man's vision that should be heard by anyone into avantgarde, experimental, psychically and physically powerful rock music. From blasting howling fury to moody ambient blackness to off kilter weirdness to droning riffery to soul crushing heaviness. What's truly remarkable is that one man, playing all the instruments himself, and recording at home, can evoke such strong emotions and invoke such musical demons. Original, evil, hateful, misanthropic, bizarre and truly black metal. "

This man is utterly terrifying. I question his actual status as a man. Very rarely has music transported me to such dark landscapes and hellish conditions. It sounds like a bunch of horseshit but it's not. This is truly otherworldly music and not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, I can't help but give it my highest recommendation possible because Wrest is undeniably a evil genius. Get schooled.

The whole of deceit

Popol Vuh-In Den Gärten Pharaos (1971)

"Popol Vuh’s second release is notable for a number of reasons. Firstly, for its rather ingenious in its use of fledgling synthesizer technology. While following along the lines of other German pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Fricke essentially constructs a completely unique expressive vocabulary with the instruments. While Tangerine Dream albums like Zeit and Alpha Centauri were journeys to the furthest reaches of space, where human contact was not only impossible but unwanted, Fricke’s vision has to be considered far more "spiritual", for lack of a better word. The sounds of running water and consistently morphing bongo rhythms behind the title track create a three dimensional soundscape of serene bliss. Fricke’s Moog and synthesizer lines shimmer here, and while minimal and restrained in note selection, he manages to engage the listener in a direct dialogue that is simply tantalizing. Secondly, this is really the only place in the Popol Vuh catalog you’ll hear such an extraordinary work of this style. Sure, the later Popol Vuh albums are brilliant in their own right, but the lack of synthesizers and an intentional change of aesthetic leave Affenstunde and In den Garten Pharaos as the sole torchbearers for the kind of revolutionary stuff the group were doing early on. Incidentally, Pharaos is by far the better album of the two.

Divided into two rather distinctive side-long pieces, the album retains a consistent aesthetic that is powerful and effective throughout. While I’ve already sung the praises of the title track, the second piece "Vuh" might be even better. Here, Fricke employs what sounds like a church organ in the form of dramatic, sustained chords that make the piece far more intense and unrelenting. These lay the groundwork for the development of the piece. A percussive backdrop, accompanied by various other sound effects, builds around the organ theme, creating ebbs and flows in the intensity level. In all, it’s masterfully composed, and careful attention will result in the listener feeling those chord changes resonating throughout the depths of the soul.

In all, this has to be considered one of the Krautrock movement’s essential items. Fans of early Tangerine Dream will easily lap this one up, and others who may have found records like Alpha Centauri emotionally frigid may warm up to In den Garten Pharaos. An excellent album deserving of its legendary status."

Holy fuck. That's all I can say when I listen to this utter masterpiece. I feel pretty dumb putting one of the all-time best ambient albums by one of the all-time best ambient bands into words. All I can say is that you MUST experience this. MANDATORY. SPELLBINDING. INTENSE. EUPHORIC. INCREDIBLE. INSERT LOFTY ADJECTIVE. Go for the second track "Vuh" by the way.

Vuh

Harvey Milk-The Singles (2006)

"Who would've though this would ever come to pass?! Those of you who love things slow and sludgy and heavy, should be on your knees, thanking whatever god you pray to, for allowing this divine musical covenant to be placed in your dirty, filthy unworthy hands!
Harvey Milk were Atlanta's answer to the Melvins, but slowed waaaaaaaay down and spaced waaaaaay out. Songs so spare but somehow so impossibly heavy, riffs so thick that they threaten to clog your speakers and rhythms so stretched out that they can barely be called rhythms. Add in a serious free jazz + ZZ Top obsession and you've got the recipe for one of the greatest, heaviest bands EVER. They recorded two brilliant full lengths (with their original lineup), one of which was re-issued on Andee's tUMULt label a couple years ago. And we thought then, sadly that we had heard the end of HM forever. But along comes Relapse to save the day, collecting all of Harvey Milk's impossibly rare 7"s and compilation tracks onto one black-hole-heavy chunk of aluminum. Most singles collections allow you to trace the development of a band, watching them slowly turn into the band you already know and love, but this collection proves that HM spontaneously combusted, emerging from their tarpit womb a fully formed, lumbering, molten, sludge rock colossus. From plodding, 3 mph sludgy, dirgey Melvins's worship, to chaotic noisy caveman thud, to Codeine-ish slow motion mood rock, to spare, rhythmic bass and drums space-scapes with demonic, anguished howls and Hendrix like riffs dipped in tar and sprinkled with wild peals of head-shearing feedback, to semi-acoustic tear jerkers, with warbly barely-in-key vocals, I mean, they even do a fucking Peter Criss solo song! How brilliant is that! Harvey Milk confounds as much as they just flat out destroy. How the fuck does a three piece rock band actually sound like they're playing on the wrong speed?! It's as if the entire band had a pitch control knob, and they keep turning it down and down and dooooown. And playing drums for this band must be utter hell. Massive expanses of space, demarcated by pounding beats, spread so far apart they just barely make up a rhythm, with enough space between beats for the drummer to get up, go to the bar, have a cigarette, and make it back in plenty of time for the next beat. So minimal and hypnotic and difficult and heavy, it just blows all other sludge rock hopefuls back to the stone age. And even in the context of a 'singles collection', songs that were never meant to be together on a record, this stuff falls so perfectly into place, you would never know this wasn't conceived as a proper record. Yet another testimony to the under-appreciated genius of the mighty Harvey Milk. Liner notes from AQ pal and Chunklet head honcho Henry Owings. Essential for those of you who love Boris, Corrupted, Earth, SUNNO))) and the like, as well as their massively head crushing opus Courtesy And Goodwill Towards Men!"

God what a fucking nasty band. I could go on forever. Everything from the bone crushing riffs to the earthquake bass rumble to the drum abuse that could split boulders to that fucking HOWL. Creston Spiers is easily one the most intense, heartfelt, honest vocalists in all of music. This band strikes one hell of a cord. You'd do well to get it.

Harry Owens from Chunklet deserves lifelong respect for being such an incessant Harvey Milk fanboy and getting all of these old unavailable 7" tracks together for mass consumption. Music fans are better off for it. A sincere thank you.

I do not know how to live my life

Scratch Acid-The Greatest Gift (1991)

"Scratch Acid played a huge part in the noisy underground movement of the 1980s; they took punk to the dirtiest, dingiest mudhole they could find and sullied it from top to bottom until it looked and sounded like some hell-bound bogeyman. It's not too far-fetched to think of Scratch Acid as the American equivalent of the Birthday Party, the Texans donning the mantle that was dropped when the BP disbanded. The Greatest Gift contains everything the band ever recorded, including a few lo-fidelity instrumentals. Scratch Acid never received the notice it deserved, but the musicians could pound out brilliantly frenzied and highly original post-punk/noise rock that sometimes rivals the material released by singer David Yow and bassist David Sims' future (and much more well known) project, the Jesus Lizard. The first eight songs were originally released in 1984 as an eponymous EP; from the opening crashing bars of "Cannibal" to the terrifying lyrics heard on "Lay Screaming" (a song which reads like something culled from a medieval book about torture), this band obviously never had any desire to control itself. Only one slight reprieve can be found in the relatively tender "Owner's Lament," a song replete with weeping strings. Songs nine through 20 first saw the light of a sickly day as Just Keep Eating, Scratch Acid's one and only full-length that found the band expanding its musical palette: insane noise rock numbers ("Eyeball," "Holes"), jaunty, faux lounge grooves ("Amicus"), goofy Zeppelin-esque riffs ("Cheese Plug"), and a spot-on cover of the Webber-Rice rocker "Damned for All Time," complete with exclamatory horns. The remainder of the disc comprises the songs from their definitive statement, the 1987 Berserker EP. A little more money went into this recording; as the sound quality is better than on Just Keep Eating, it was definitely worth it. "Mary Had a Little Drug Problem" and "Flying Houses" are whirlwinds of pounding drums, foreboding basslines, and scathing, blinding guitar phrases. The band never played so well or wrote better songs. Highly recommended to any Jesus Lizard fan and noise rock/hardcore punk aficionado. "

So fucking awesome. David Yow manages to be even crazier in this band. I chalk that one up to youth but either way, this should seem rather essential to everyone already.

Yow-zas

Faust-Faust (1971)

Listen to the Mothers of Invention's concert recordings from 1966 onwards and it's just trash. Musical bollocks of the most merely capable variety. Faust live? This is a different thing entirely. Like all the greatest Teutonic groups, Faust were brought up with middle-European dances and a staple of folk and tradition which was not 4/4. As a consequence, German bands could get far more complex than U.S. and British bands would ever dare and it still sounds rocking and crazy, rather than a bunch of Twee Smug Gits. Find an old Caravan,Man or Henry Cow LP for 50p somewhere and compare it with this. I'm joking of course.

Four years ago, I had dinner with a very successful journalist who told me that he'd had to review Love's "Forever Changes" for Q Magazine now that it was available on CD. Wow, I shouted. You lucky fucker! Yes, he said. But I know it so well I couldn't summon up any real energy, so I just gave it 8/10. "Forever Changes" is a dark achievement. Were it an ancient text or a document it would be hidden from view and spoken of in obscure circles, But because it operates through the medium of Pop Music, it gets tarts like said Journalist giving it 8/10. This is a classic case of a man sleepwalking through life.

So now I have to set to and tell you about the first Faust album, and I will not let you down. For a start, its a big 10/10. No, make that 11/10. It defies categories. It's a horrible noise. It's cut-ups to the Nth degree. Part of it is just like Frank Zappa's "Lumpy Gravy" (a funny bit, thank the Goddess.) It is super-gimmicky, syrupy in the weirdest places, and never outstays its welcome. But probably the strangest thing of all is just how good Faust sound when they are creating on the spot moments of rock'n'roll on the epic Miss Fortune. Here they transcend all studio trickery and here they come alive." - Julian Cope, Krautrocksampler

So fucking good.

Goethe on and grab it

Big Blood Falls For a Thousand Thousand Years

The last record with the Bleedin' Hearts got a good response so I figured I would post everything I have. The more I listen to them, and it's been a good year since I neglected them in any sort of way, the better it gets. These are CD-R home recordings of live setlists that the have used for shows since late 2006. Tunes range from completely psychedelic to spellbinding pastoral folk and everything in between. They're music is beyond words. This is a futile exercise. It stomps, strusts, runs, crawls, and stays stationary depending on the song. It's a soundtrack to life. Or maybe just my life.

Tell me of a band that covers Skip James and Can? That's right, there are none. Get this stuff. My favorite songs in parentheses.

Big Blood+The Grove ("The Grove is Hotter..." "In the Light of the Moon" "Low Gravity Blues)

Sew Your Wild Days Vol. I ("Adversaries & Enemies" "Spit Shine" "Wrinkles and Ribbons")

Sew Your Wild Days Vol. II ("Rodin Deadpan" "I'm So Glad" "Haystack AP"

Strange Maine 11/04/06 ("Under the Concourse" "Full of Smoke" "All Operations"

Strange Maine 01/20/07 ("The Fall of Quinnisa Rose" "Sovreignty You Bitch" "Indang Pariman")

Space Gallery 01/27/07 ("The Rise of Quinnisa Rose" "She Said Nothing" "Don't Trust the Ruin")


I got a couple other tidbits by them to upload actually but in the meantime, enjoy. Also, here are links to their main band Fire on Fire. HERE and HERE.

Thanks to Nitty Gritty too.

Big Blood & The Bleeding Hearts-S/T

This band is so godly in so many ways. I'm afraid I know absolutely nothing about the Bleeding Hearts but I'll go about trying to explain the glory of Big Blood. Imagine a band of bizarre music loving people playing avant garde tunes for the better part of ten years. Imagine them going on hiatus before two of the members, a cute married couple with a child, emerge as a psych folk band with a whole range of influences and a keen ear for the most beautiful heartfelt melodies I've ever heard in music. Seriosuly. Colleen Kinsella has quite the interesting voice but it's so full of emotion. Caleb Mckulerin ain't a bad singer himself. Their bizarre influences, like Sun City Girls, blend perfectly with their traditional folk influences and plenty of smart banjo licks. Lots of people tell me this stuff is weird but if you want a hell of a listening experience at the very least, give this one a shot.

Not my link but I owe someone out there...

PLEASE CHECK IT OUT

Bob Log III

"

When Bob Log III was a child, he lost his left hand in a boating accident. It was soon replaced with a monkey paw, and a new guitar style was born.

"It's my own personal style, see," Log says, "the paw moves much quicker than a normal hand, so my real hand has to flop around a lot to compensate."

And what about the helmet?

"What helmet?" he asks, his voice muffled by a helmet.

Bob Log III is an enigma wrapped in a riddle and riding a wave of futile guessing and searching as people around the globe are trying to figure out just one thing. Who is this man? Rumours have started to circulate that he is anyone from Tom Waits to one of the Strokes.

"He's Bob Log, an enigma." a spokesperson told NME. "He's not one of The Strokes. None of them have monkey paws."

In the April 24-May 1 issue of Time Out London, Tom Waits is asked who he is listening to right now. He says, "Well, I really like Wu Tang Clan, those guys kill me. And then there's this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He's this little kid -- nobody ever knows how old he is -- wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can't see his face, and plays slide guitar. It's just the loudest strangest stuff you've ever heard. You don't understand one word he's saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That's what I aspire to basically."

The chances that his identity will be found in our lifetime are slim, but this one man, bass drum/slide guitar, band continues to mystify everyone who hears him play. As long as there are bars, Bob Log will be there ready to let a lady sit in his lap, or if they're lucky, allow them to slip a boob in his scotch."

That's the official bio. Dude is freaking hilarious and awesome. I put three of his albums together for all those times you need stomping shit drunk as shit music. Break out the whiskey for this.

Shit on my leg

Sparklehorse-It's a Wonderful Life (2001)

Because I'm having a shitty day, here's some shitty day music.

Many thanks to Radiobutt over at Radiobutt.blogspot.com

"Well, is it a wonderful life?

It's mighty suspicious when a melancholic figure like Mark Linkous, the creative force behind Sparklehorse, christens his third album It's A Wonderful Life. Thankfully, he hasn't abandoned his idiosyncratic brand of surreal Southern Gothic futurism to turn his frown upside down. Nor is he peddling cheap irony, as in "It's a wonderful life, wink wink, I want to kill myself, ha ha ha." As with many of the delights on this record, the meaning is much subtler.

The lyrics of the leadoff track do indeed declare life wonderful, but this statement is surrounded by baroque, hallucinatory images of ghostly bees, bloody roosters that fly like doves, and swamps filled with poisoned frogs. It seems that life is full of wonders, sadness, mixed blessings — sometimes dread — but it's a strange enough place that it's worth sticking around and exploring.

Life lacks some Sparklehorse staples. It's less stylistically eclectic than previous outings. It has a narrower dynamic range, less of a country-folk flavor, and no irresistible anthem co-penned by David Lowery ("Rainmaker" and "Sick Of Goodbyes" on the first and second records, respectively). Instead, It's A Wondeful Life is a cohesive, atmospheric listen that rides along on mid-tempo drum-machine grooves, layers of keyboards and strings and Linkous' brittle voice narrating his haunted ballads.

The mood is broken up in a few places, notably the scorching full-tilt rocker "King Of Nails" and the itchy plod-stomp of Tom Waits' cameo "Dog Door," which would find happier company on an actual Waits album. More felicitous contributions by Polly Jean Harvey and Cardigans chanteuse Nina Persson add harmony without diverting the path of the 'Horse.

The overall result is similar to an Eels album, with imagistic lyricism — skeleton kisses, diamond rain, babies on the sun — substituted for bittersweet vignettes and an air of mystery in place of cosmic punch lines. The songs' cinematic texture provides a soundtrack that seems to suspend the world around the listener in poignant slo-mo. Strange, sublime and beautiful, the wonders of Life reward patience and repeated listens."

Everything's so goddamn wonderful

password: radiobutt.blogspot.com

Album of the Year 2008

I'd make a list but I'm far too lazy. I've posted a bunch of stuff from 2008 that would make up the potential list anyway. In fact, my album of the year is an earlier post but on the heels of a wonderful trip into the nether regions of the mind, I figured it couldn't hurt posting it again. No matter what, this album is perfect for any situation. Lounging, tripping, driving, whatever, it moves at such a perfect pace that it's just impossible not to get into it.

For example, we popped on Alice and Wonderland with this album in an attempt to sync it up while under the influence. Not only did us time travelers love it, but my drunk roommates also enjoyed it as well. To me, that's the sign of a completely compatible album. Everyone I've played it for really digs it, regardless of genre preferences.

So what is it? I guess if I had to describe it, I would say it is the Girl Talk of old school Psych, Krautrock, Freak Beat, etc. None of the music is original but goddamn if it isn't perfectly reinterpreted and overall enjoyable. The guys are two premier London DJs with an affinity for Psych and so there you go. If you missed it the first time around, don't this time. If any music makes Zoltar joyous, then it has supernatural powers without a doubt. Get it.

A very happy new year to all. 2009, here we are.




Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve-Ark 1 (2008)

Fire on Fire-The Orchard (2008)

"For anyone who has experienced the genre-bending and ranging music of Cerberus Shoal any time in the past decade, this rebirth known as Fire on Fire should come as no surprise. That band seemed to make a habit of reinventing their sound every couple of years or so (or evolving might be a better word). A band that required loyalty and a healthy sense of wanderlust and adventure.

With Fire on Fire they’ve done it again, or some of them anyway, but this time unplugged and firmly entrenched somewhere in a dimension far removed from those musical roots. The trappings now are rough-hewn and varnished implements: guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, upright bass, accordion; plucked, strummed, pressed and purposefully bowed. But bubbling under the surface and woven in the words, that genesis of youth and anger and cynicism and sense of irony and sarcasm blend with newfound purpose like dandelion wine, and into something that wets the palette but leaves behind an aftertaste of bittersweet satisfaction. This is music for folks who may not be ready to stop being contrary and skeptical, but who have matured to a point where those emotions can be effectively channeled into something useful.

Right out in front of the toe-tapping acid bluegrass and new-generation Americana folk instrumental arrangements the band lays out a rich layer of vocal harmonies that’ll keep your ears glued to your iPod or Media Player or car stereo or to whatever portal-to-your-soul of choice this CD happens to land in. I’ve a bit of a soft-spot for sincere folk music (and what folk music isn’t sincere)? But this ain’t folk any more than Neil Young is a country singer. We’ve gone beyond that and more. The dirge-like apocalyptic lament “Sirocco” with its hypnotic fiddle and unrelenting bass lays a trance-like bed on which something akin to a post-apocalyptic and sickly gleeful chant issues forth: “and if we tear this kingdom down (tear it down!), let it be with a deserving and joyful sound”. I suppose this is close to what A Silver Mt Zion might have sounded like if they’d grown up just south of the border instead of on Mile End Street. And with a keener sense of harmony.

The years of experimentation and experience manifest all over this album, from the plucking bluegrass-tinged title track to the Jesus-freak throwback “Toknight” to Colleen Kinsella’s chilling vocals on the accordion tribute “Squeeze Box” to the all-acoustic post-rock (did I just say acoustic post-rock?) “Haystack”. An enchanting closer to a stunningly engaging album. All I can do at this point is hope like hell these guys somehow wind their way to South Dakota USA so I can see them live. Not likely, but you never know."

My most anticipated album of this year. Just came out today. Get it. Seriously.

Burn me

John Fahey Mega Post

One of the greatest guitarists of all time. No disputes necessary.

"John Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of his art. Fahey himself borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American music but also incorporated classical, Brazilian, Indian and abstract music into his eclectic œuvre. In characteristically witty fashion, he once said of his style: "How can I be folk? I'm from the suburbs you know." In 2003, he was ranked 35th in Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".<sup>"


The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death (1965)
Here

The Legend of Blind Joe Death (1964/1967)
1964-Here
!967-Here

Days Have Gone By (1967)
Here

The Yellow Princess (1969)
Here

Death Chants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes (1964)
Here

Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites (1965)
Here

Voice of the Turtle (1968)
Here


Note: passwords for all files that require it is "levente"</sup>

Big Black-Songs About Fucking

"During the 80s, along with other contemparies such as Sonic Youth and Ministry, Steve Albini’s Big Black were branded ‘Pig***’ music by music critic Robert Christgau. The term gives off a particular dark feel of music that is loud, harsh and most importantly of all, noisy. Big Black sound unique and there is quite a lot of factors that add to why it’s so unique. First point, there is no real drums on here, there is only a drum machine (noted in the liner notes as “Roland” respectively). And my second point is Albini’s special production techniques; he is faithful to the analog way of recording (though in 1987, I’m sure there was no other option), the drums must always sound live which means lots of lovely reverb, the guitars must be filthy raw and the most important trait of an Albini recording is that the vocals are low in the mix. This has helped shaped many albums but most of all and most importantly, Songs About Fucking.

Words cannot describe how violent this album is; the guitars are drenched and drowned with fuzz making it hard to pick out any clear guitar line, the drum machine usually gives off a jack hammer effect and Albini sings with such brutality that it sounds fierce even with the vocals low in the mix. The songs go by fast with most of them not reaching the typical three minute barrier. The songs are packed with controversy fuelling Albini’s desire to offend. Who else could write a song like “Fish Fry” about a man cleaning out his truck after throwing a dead body into a pond from it? And who else would have the balls to cover the Kraftwerk classic “The Model” and possibly make a version that is nearly as good as the original? Big Black are certainly one of a kind and Songs About Fucking is the magnum opus of their career.

What makes the album what it is, is the tight rhythm section from Dave Riley and Roland the drum machine. They provide the basis of the songs with the static, fuzzing guitars obliterating any ounce of silence. A sense of joy tingles up the spine with the jack hammer intro of “L Dopa”, the jumping bass line of “Kitty Empire” or even the balls out approach to the second half of “Power of Independent Trucking”. All the tracks have some sort of special moment to them and it makes each track a worthwhile listen.

Songs About Fucking is a classic, it is influential to many other bands but what stops it from getting top marks is that the second side doesn’t live up to the first side. Even Abini notes: “The best was side one of 'Songs About ***ing'. I was real pleased with the way we did that. We just hopped into the studio, banged all the songs out and hopped out. Didn't take long, didn't cost much, just real smooth. Side two we recorded at a more leisurely pace and I think that hurt us.” The second side has a fair share of astounding songs but none of them live up to the sheer brilliance or intensity of the first side. Any fan of punk music or industrial music will enjoy this a lot. If it’s not the warmth of the sound that sucks you in then it will be the force of it all. Albini has made his best album with this and while projects like Shellac or Rapeman pertain to this sort of sound, it has never beat it."

This is a nasty album in the best way possible. As violent as any album I've heard. Listen to it loud.

Fuck me