The Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series has long unearthed some of the best obscure regional soul sides no one has ever heard before, many of them up there with being our most favorite soul compilations, so we were both excited and a bit dubious to discover that someone (the mysteriously monikered Shoes) had made a re-edit mix using nothing but samples from Numero's many soul reissues and released it on a label called "Numbero". Hmmm. Check out the cheesy late '80s/ early '90s throwback cover, a tongue and cheek tribute to those Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilations that always had skeletons blinged out in hip hop gear or a DJing octopus on the covers. This one features a skull-headed crate digger with a blinged out Numero label medallion swinging around his neck with various Eccentric Soul albums lined up on the back wall. While we had been questioning the possible legalities of such a release, we managed to get the story straight from Numero Group head honcho, Ken Shipley, who in a bizarre instance of synchronicity, happened to show up in the store one night just as we put this compilation on. Apparently, the record showed up at the Numero offices housed in an old saw blade sleeve. From the opening riff taken from The Home Schooled compilation, Shipley instantly recognized the sample, and the many hundreds following it (he says he has identified all the samples except for a few drum and percussion tracks that he couldn't be certain were from the original sources or added in). Using the manufacturing ID number on the vinyl (the same manufacturer Numero uses) he managed to locate the perpetrator and instead of trying to fight it legally, decided to release it himself. Smart move, because like Dilla, Oh No, Onra and Madlib, this is one of the best re-edit mixes we've heard, taking small snippets of various soul pieces (vocal snippets, horn riffs, rhythm guitars etc.) and weaving them seamlessly in something altogether new. And there is no DJ grandstanding, scratching or self-promotion you sometimes find in DJ mixes, just a killer fluid mix of sonic soul ear-candy from beginning to end. A glorious well thought through undertaking that you can instantly recognize as a labor of love! Note on the track listing: there are 13 titled songs but the cd only reads as two tracks and since the tracks are all woven together, it's hard to tell which part is called what, so we just made long excerpts for the sound samples. Awesome!!!!!
In the early 70s, the Capsoul label suffered a similar fate as Stax Records out of Memphis. Great small label, amazing artists, amazing songs -- but in the midst of a Motown big-hit explosion. Founded by Bill Moss in Columbus, Ohio, Capsoul produced some incredible soul and funk music. Musically, Moss had all the ingredients of a great label (he even wrote some of their hits) but his timing in the industry couldn't have been worse. As it was at this time, Motown had just moved to Los Angeles and was quickly growing to gigantic proportions. Sadly, Capsoul went out of business only five years after starting up. Even more sadly, when it did, all master tapes were destroyed. So the songs on this comp are actually taken from 45's gathered by the folks at Numero Group through various sources, including Ebay! Meticulously transferred, they sound totally awesome. The 19 funk and soul treasures are beautifully packaged and feature a couple cool studio photos. Extensive liner notes detail a bit of the label, its artists and historical context.
Without a doubt the Numero Group is becoming one of our favorite labels over the last few years. Releasing such tasty reissues with classy and informative packaging, a distinct aesthetic and most importantly amazing sounds that deserve to be heard! This time out they have excavated a lost treasure down in Florida. The short lived Deep City label put out a slew of totally rich 45's that unfortunately never made their way much past the confines of Florida. The core of the Deep City label were three high school teachers and former marching band members Willie Clarke, Johnny Pearsall, and Arnold Albury. They began recording in small studios with local artists like Clarence Reid (who some of you might know later would be known as Blowfly) and a then preteen Betty Wright. The sound that emerged was so gut hitting, soul wrenching, and totally right on. The warmth in these recordings makes you lament where soul music has gone in the last few decades, getting it so wrong with its slick glossy overproduction. Fans of the recent Searching For Soul comp on Luv N' Haight make sure you check this out as it's just as strong an offering as that amazing comp. If you are a big soul affieciando you might remember a few of the artists on this comp from the Soul Jazz comp Miami Sound a few years back but none of these tracks have been reissued until now and wow do these songs hit the spot. Highly Recommended!
By now there's almost no point in writing much about the incredible Eccentric Soul series on the Numero Group label every single record seems to speak for itself, LOUD AND PROUD!. One after another, lost pots of gold (should've-been-gold-records, that is) are constantly unearthed, dusted off and presented to us for maximum grooving. If there was any question as to how deep Numero have been digging, the answer becomes evident with this most recent outing, which compiles amazing soul recordings from the not so soulfully hip city of Phoenix, Arizona, recorded during the 60's and 70's. Being that I (Irwin) grew up in Phoenix, this release proved just how deep and far these guys will go for their lost soul.
As anyone who has lived in Phoenix over the last quarter century can tell you, any relics or history of a soul scene going on in the valley of the sun are pretty much non-existent. Luckily when Mike Lenaburg lived in Phoenix he had his finger on the pulse of the city's soul scene and managed to produce some totally scorching tracks from folks like Michael Liggins, We The People, and the Soul Blenders. Names that never got the same kind of glory that their rock 'n roll Phoenix counterparts like Alice Cooper did. But even so, these guys were responsible for some of the richest and liveliest sounding recordings to ever come out of Phoenix. As a high school kid I spent many of my waking hours in vinyl stores all over the city eavesdropping on the classic vinyl store employees and regulars talking for hours about the good old days, when there was a world of rich and vibrant soul music happening all over the place. I had no idea who those artists were and the one time I got the courage to interrupt and ask if I could see one of the records they all laughed and told me good luck since they were all pressed in such small runs that anyone who had one wasn't EVER going to give it up. So for years I could only imagine what these soul sounds from the desert sounded like but now I get to hear them for real, we all do, and they blow away anything I could have dreamed of. Phoenix, a goldmine for soul!!?? Who would have ever known. Thanks again Numero Group!
This time out the mighty Eccentric Soul series focuses on the dingy and delightful venue Smart's Palace, located in Witchita, Kansas which during the years of 1963-1975 was ground zero for all the best sweaty, sensual and romping soul being played around that town. While the club did get a few big names in their time, both James Brown and Aretha Franklin once played there, its bread and butter were the nationally unknown but completely talented soul artists located in the tragically underrated scene going on down in Kansas.
The man behind Smart's Palace was Dick Smart who not only ran the club but also played music himself, promoted most of the shows AND ran his own label. In true DIY fashion he helped cultivate one of the richest soul scenes around, totally overflowing with true but untapped talent. This has got to be the sexiest, sweatiest, most romantic, sultry and sexual set of songs that has come out of the Eccentric Soul series yet. So many amazing voices on here, some as smooth as butter, others as commanding as a drill sergeant of love. Fans of folks like Eddie Kendricks, Al Green, and Curtis Mayfield will find so much to dig as as the new to us artists here like Baby Neal, Fred Williams and Kenneth Car offer up songs that we could listen to over and over and still get down and dirty with their raw yet flawless true soul grooves.
If you've ever read any Iceberg Slim (Afro-Noir books), set in 70's south side Chicago, you'll get a pretty good feel for Bandit Label's founder, Arrow Brown. Keeping a harem of his "daughters", Brown ruled over his consortium with an iron-fist while striving for, what he imagined to be, a ghetto entertainment conglomerate. Much ghetto-glamorous drama ensued in the Bandit compound during its years of operation. Though no real "hits" emerged, this compilation is a document of the undeniably real soul that existed in the hearts of his artists. While you'll find some truly moving demos here (they had acted as rehearsal tapes), many songs have some pretty scrappy vocals that are also absolutely endearing. So despite the rich tales spun from real events at the Bandit studio, we're left with true soul-driven songs in this chapter of the beautifully packaged Eccentric Soul series. Well allriigghhhtttah!
Our love affair with The Numero Group is still running hot and heavy. Can they do no wrong? Looks like it with the most recent outing in their "Eccentric Soul" series where they dig deep to find forgotten and obscure regional soul labels and share the found treasures with all of our ears. And we thank them tenfold cause every time they do it we are exposed to such rich songs that begin making their way on every mix we make. This time out it's the other side of running a soul label in a town like Detroit. With Motown pretty much holding a monopoly on the sound and market labels like Big Mack had a really hard time breaking through. If Motown was for millionaires the Big Mack label was truly a label for the people. In fact they even advertised in the Detroit Free Press offering anyone off the streets a chance to record a one-off track for under fifteen bucks. And then you could go down the street and get your songs pressed on its own 45. This is soul deep in the garage bursting with sincerity and flare. We keep hoping that with all these great soul reissues by Numero Group and Soul Jazz and Luv n Haight someone will get the good insight to start making soul records with this same kind of raw stripped down production. Highly recommended!
At this point the Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series is no longer any sort of secret. The world couldn't help but take notice of the amazing job the label has done at digging deep into uncharted and forgotten regional labels and scenes from the heyday of soul and funk. So now, we usually don't have to turn people on to the series but instead we're often asked -which- of the Eccentric Soul comps is our favorite. A very tough question as they have yet to release a dud. But there are two of the releases so far that are a step or two above the rest in their golden soul perfection. The collection from The Big Mack label out of Detroit and Florida's Deep City label, a collection that we still listen to all the time.
So we were quite excited when we found out that Numero was going to mine even further into the Deep City vaults with a follow up collection from the amazing Florida label. Apparently Numero Group got their hands on a box of lost Deep City master tapes so seven of those tracks are on here as well as killer tracks from some of the other Miami labels putting out sizzling soul 45's back in the day. Every song we've ever heard from Helene Smith fills us with chills of excitement and she has two more on this collection, alongside amazing songs from a young Betty Wright, Lynn Willliams, Clarence Reid, The Rollers, etc. Anyone who has been taken by the spell of Miami soul needs to get this immediately and in fact this could very well become our new favorite of all the amazing Eccentric Soul releases. So damn pleasing!
Now On Vinyl!!
At this point the Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series is no longer any sort of secret. The world couldn't help but take notice of the amazing job the label has done at digging deep into uncharted and forgotten regional labels and scenes from the heyday of soul and funk. So now, we usually don't have to turn people on to the series but instead we're often asked -which- of the Eccentric Soul comps is our favorite. A very tough question as they have yet to release a dud. But there are two of the releases so far that are a step or two above the rest in their golden soul perfection. The collection from The Big Mack label out of Detroit and Florida's Deep City label, a collection that we still listen to all the time.
So we were quite excited when we found out that Numero was going to mine even further into the Deep City vaults with a follow up collection from the amazing Florida label. Apparently Numero Group got their hands on a box of lost Deep City master tapes so seven of those tracks are on here as well as killer tracks from some of the other Miami labels putting out sizzling soul 45's back in the day. Every song we've ever heard from Helene Smith fills us with chills of excitement and she has two more on this collection, alongside amazing songs from a young Betty Wright, Lynn Willliams, Clarence Reid, The Rollers, etc. Anyone who has been taken by the spell of Miami soul needs to get this immediately and in fact this could very well become our new favorite of all the amazing Eccentric Soul releases. So damn pleasing!
The Numero Group's "Eccentric Soul" series lives up to its name with this new entry, lucky number seven in the series, which also lives up to the high expectations all its bumpin' predecessors have created for it -- Capsoul, Bandit, Deep City, all the rest, some better liked here than others but all pretty great when you get down to it... and get down to it is what you will, what this shit's all about. Long lost soul/funk/r&b gems from back in the day, regional obscurities that never had the breakout hit they deserved. Dunno why such soul men as Eddie Ray and Marion Black, heard here, didn't become stars. Wasn't for lack of talent.
Ranging from Stax style soul, to chicken scratch geetar funk in a right-on JB's vein, and even to some funked psychedelic instrumental wailing, this disc features 19 killer tracks, eight of them previously unreleased (demos and even finished masters recently discovered at an estate sale!), recorded circa 1969-1973 for the obscure Columbus, Ohio based label Prix. Yes, more amazing stuff from the same town that supported the Capsoul label documented on the very first Numero Eccentric Soul comp. If you like soul and funk from the era, you owe it to yourself to take a listen, and then you'll owe thanks to Numero for digging these tracks up. A great comp in a great series.
By the late 1960's East St Louis, Illinois had seen better days. Hit hard by poverty, crime, drug addiction and gang activity, it was really important for teens to have a safe place to hang out, and a positive outlet for creativity. No one understood this better then Allen Murray, a seasoned musician from the area who was semi-famous for his past work with the likes of Ray Charles and Ike Turner. He started a really inventive program at The Southside Community Center, where youth could come and sing and play music in his program called The Young Disciples.
With an amazing stable of musicians and fresh new voices on the mic, most for the first time, he really created an amazing musical world while also offering salvation to so many teens in East St Louis. What's even more remarkable is how damn good the music they made was. This was not some sort of amateur hour soul, in fact before we even knew the whole back story to this record we just thought it was another amazing lost soul label getting the primetime Eccentric Soul series attention it deserved. These songs are just dripping with warmth, soul and unfiltered funk. Another total winner from the Numero Group and such a cool program that Murray developed, we only wish it was being used as a template in cities across the country today!
There hasn't been a dud yet in the Numero Group's superb and ever ongoing Eccentric Soul series and this latest two disc offering is no exception, in fact it might find itself a special spot near the Big Mack and Deep City collections as one of our favorites so far!
This time out they dig up gems from two woefully obscure labels out of Atlanta in the late '60s. While there are some uptempo shakers sprinkled amongst the tracks on these two discs, what's swept us off our feet is the totally devastating heart broken soul that just drips with honesty and warmth. We just can't get enough of it. And it's the ladies who really shine the brightest on this collection, we now want to get our hands on everything and anything that Eula Cooper, Franciene Thomas and Sonia Ross have ever released. The kind of richly orchestrated soul that sounds so perfect when you're alone in your living room with the lights dimmed, a cocktail to lessen the pain of a broken heart and these songs to let you wallow with class, yet still enough uptempo tracks to let you cut a rug when your tears take a break. So great!
The Numero Group has helped spawn a much needed revival and rediscovery of lost soul from the 60's and 70's, showing the world that there was much more amazing music beyond the Motown monopoly. Amazing soul records were being released everywhere by all sorts of small independent labels. We'll never ever tire of really good soul done juuuuust right and once again the Numero Group has hit the bulls eye. This collection focuses on the Chicago label Twinight. The label began with the name Twilight but soon found out another label with the same name existed so they changed one letter and thus became Twinight which would prove to be an appropriate moniker for the label, as most of the records they released were only played during the wee hours of broadcasting day often referred to as the twinight hours. The label was known primarily for its one star Syl Johnson but this collection digs even deeper and exposes the music and the artists who never had big hits but who produced some classic soul burners.
This collection isn't as flashy or outright catchy as some of the past Eccentric Soul collections but it's that great kind of tasty soul that heats up nice and slow and keeps you coming back for more.
Another fantastic collection of lost soul treasures!
Interesting collection of early recordings from throughout the African continent. Rare recordings dating as far back as 1929 and on up to the early 50's give us a peek into the germinus of modern popular music on the continent. Inundated by Christian missionaries, Europeans looking to make a buck and an increasingly urbanized lifestyle new forms of music had been developing even long before the introduction of the phonograph to Africa. There's a wealth of proto-African pop on here in the form of string bands, concertina and/or accordion groups, guitar, brass bands and vocal ensembles.
MPEG Download: WEST AFRICAN INSTRUMENTAL QUINTET "Bea Tsin No. 2" [/audio/westafricanbeatsin.mp3]
MPEG Stream: WEST AFRICAN INSTRUMENTAL QUINTET "Bea Tsin No. 2" [/audio/westafricanbeatsin.m3u]
MPEG Download: SITTI BINTI SAAD "Njia Ungurusumbwe" [/audio/sittibintinjia.mp3]
This is a compilation from Economy, the new breakbeat/drill & bass subsidiary of the dark ambient label Manifold. With such notables as Justin Broadrick, Mick Harris, and Neil Harvey appearing under various pseudonyms and in various combinations, expect devastating dub production, fractured two-step drum & bass, and an overall malevolence.
The Sublime Frequencies label is really on a roll lately, as always it seems, a flurry of new releases, all of them fantastic, including a recent Record Of The Week (Omar Souleyman), not one but two releases on this week's list (this, and one of our current Records Of The Week, Dara Puspita!), and new stuff upcoming soon as well. And as always, every time we get a new SF release, we can't help but think 'best one yet!', every single one is a thrilling earful of some remarkable sounds. This one is of particular note, as it's related to a past Sublime Frequencies release, the Musical Brotherhoods From The Trans-Saharan Highway dvd, which after watching repeatedly, we couldn't help but hope for a soundtrack, and well, this is about as close as we're gonna get. A handful of these tracks were in fact featured in that film, and in addition to those tracks, there are twice as many more, to let us experience the magic and mystery of the Jemaa El Fna, aka Rendezvous Of The Dead, aka a central square in the Marrakesh, Morocco, which during the day is a place for locals and tourists alike to gather, food and music and magicians and entertainers and story tellers, but at night, when the tourists are tucked away safely in bed, these musicians create some of the most intense and passionate music we've heard. Explosive and expressive and distorted and super blown out. Amps powered by car batteries, broadcast through beat up old megaphone speakers, hand built instruments, wild percussion, soulful ecstatic vocals, it's probably worth revisiting our review of the dvd, as the setting is as much a part of the music as the sounds:
"Ancient mystical brotherhoods', small groups of stringed instruments and drums, players managing to create intense and intensely emotional sounds and songs, that range from dark and simple, sweetly contemplative, to fierce and fiery and jubilant, explosive and over the top._Performing in bustling street markets, lit by fires and lamplight, a huge after dark celebration, story telling, eating, socializing but most importantly making music... Small lantern lit clusters of people gather around old record players, home made amplifiers, rusty old speakers, strange (to our eyes) stringed instruments, all manner of drums and percussion, the crowd eager to bask in this amazing music, and just as often to participate, whether it be as another drummer, a singer, a dancer or even just as an onlooker. The music, is a stripped down blues, the buzzing strings, the gorgeous hypnotic melodies, looped and cyclical, so hypnotic and catchy, the vocals soulful and impassioned, from solo crooning to strange harmonies, to chanting, and lots of festive sing alongs. The focus is the buzzing strings and the pounding drums, and there are plenty of both, but there are also buzzing snake charmer style horns, and of course the usual outdoor crowd sounds, folks talking and laughing, cars driving past. It's so much like wandering through Morocco, it's amazing. The rhythms and the melodies, a constant barrage of groove and drone, simple percussive thumps and shuffles, haunting melodies, huge tribal drum jams and of course some incredible riffing. Our favorite jams feature what appears to be a traditional banjo, but electrified and plugged into a rusty old handmade amplifier, turning the banjo into an awesome buzzing sitar like beast, emitting intense almost metallic chunks of incendiary riffing, raw and emotional, super distorted and intense, underpinning the wailing vocals and dense drumming.
And that pretty much is a perfect description of this whole record, a jubilant, celebratory, wild and exultant musical get together, the sound is fierce and vibrant and raw and in-the-red, super distorted and LOUD, like you were really there, the stringed instruments buzz and howl, the drums pound and thump and utterly mesmerize, the singers croon and wail, usually with the crowd joining in, the sound is just so intense and alive, really incredible. The pure joy of music making is rarely so palpable. Which makes this, yeah, we're gonna say it again, maybe one of our favorite Sublime Frequencies yet!
Comes in a thick full color gatefold, includes extensive liner notes. And like all the Sublime Frequencies vinyl, these are super limited, we order as many as we can, but once they're gone, we're not able to get more. You know what that means...
Volume twa! Or at least that's how the pronunciation sounds, yeah our French sucks here but that never kept us from leaving work sore from chronic head bobbing and rabid fist thrusting. Okay maybe not that extreme, but it's like our own mini rave here at aQ whenever this is bumped. Yep, it's the third installment of much hyped French imprint, Ed Banger Records. More pumping electro from the masterminds behind the more commonly used term, "the French touch" and a very consistent example of the description.
Within this compilation the Ed Rec roster explore new ground and take some unexpected yet intriguing attempts at chopping the hell out of samples, synths, and vocals, and turning them into full on grueling disco-house anthems. But not ALL of it's that jump up, dancey, semi-rave hype shit, they tend to unveil more of their hip hop roots this time around with the likes of label frontman, Busy P's number, "To Protect and Entertain" a collab with Murs from LA's underground hip hop troop The Living Legends, including a simple yet arduous analog synth melody rolling over boosty drum patterns to accompany Murs' simple yet catchy raps. Along with Spankrock's rap appearance on the indie-rave thriller "Back it Up" by Feadz, as well as new predominately hip hop label signees DSL, who deliver a new twist to French rap with "Find Me a World". But of course the majority of the artists shine most with their dancefloor thrashers and grinding synth driven tunes that we've grown to love. Veteran Mr. Oizo cooks up more of his signature punchy and spastic sample chopping techniques, horns and all, with everything in its right place to produce a bouncy yet fun rhythm. Then of course there's Sebastian who delivers a mind fuck of a track, "Dog", sampling, yes, a black metal tune and cutting it to shreds, guitars, screams and all, delivering a punishing yet addictive, sweatdriven "banger" that we like to call "metal house" if we may...(yeah we said). While Dj Mehdi delivers his blissful disco composition "Pocket Piano", not necessarily for the dancefloor but amazing "groove" music nonetheless! Simply put, Ed Rec 3 is a well rounded hype machine that's bound to work wonders at any given party. Truly one to check out!
We often feel like we're totally out of the loop when it comes to dance music. And as if to prove that point, every once in a while we'll randomly stumble across a disc that totally kicks our ass, only to realize, that the world at large had already been hyping said disc to death. Such is the case with this second comp of far out futuristic electro weirdness from Ed Banger Records. We sort of just picked it up on a whim (some AQ folks were already hip to it, we're not all dance music squares) and were immediately smitten. Wild and fun, funky and funny, heavy and fuzzy and if the person writing this review actually danced, this disc would have had him out of his seat like a shot.
No need to do a total track by track run down, as every single song here is a killer, a few names we knew, most we didn't, but the sound is crazy. And fucking awesome. It's like the music of LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, but supercharged, injected with youthful energy and punk rock snottiness, peppered with more distortion and buzz, fucked up beats, off kilter loops and samples, but remaining totally hooky and danceable.
Some of the best tracks:
The killer dis track "Dismissed" from Uffie, a killer slab of seriously foul mouthed electro nastiness using a bastardized version of what sounds like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" as the main loop, but it's all about the vitriolic invective, what sounds like a nasty teenage white girl awkwardly rapping and spitting all sorts of goofy playground insults.
Ultra hyped next big things Justice who do their best Daft Punk, and offer up a super damaged cop-show block rockin' beat workout with machine like rhythms and cool crumbling synthy bass lines and awesome glitched out buzz drenched synthesized riffage.
Krazy Baldhead who come closest to Jones Machine for sheer mindless electronic bliss, throbbing synths, bouncing bass, another track that sounds like some futuristic chase scene.
Sebastian, who offers up a blast of ultra distorted beats, weird blown out fuzzy loops, the whole thing chopped and hiccuping like some radio with bad reception or a turntable with fuzz all over the needle.
We could go on and on. Needless to say, every time we play this in the store folks go nuts for it, and even some of the dance music phobic we know have been rocking this like crazy! Some of the other folks on the comp: Mr. Oizo, DJ Mehdi, Mr. Flash, Feadz, Busy P, Klaxons, Fancy and Vicarious Bliss.
Way recommended.
Fact 1. This album was recorded in two hours. Fact 2. This album does not feature any music from Terre Thaemlitz, Ekkehard Ehlers, Thomas Brinkmann, DJ Spooky, Scanner, or Noto. Fact 3. This album represents the 'idea' of those artists as reduced down to 'one-trick musicians.' Fact 4. This is crap. Fact 5. Assholes at ArtForum will probably try and tell you otherwise.
It would be one thing if the anonymous 'artist' behind this atrocity of post-modern posturing had decided to parody electronica or legitimately attempt to translate one form of music into another (i.e. Zeitkratzer's orchestral recapitulation of John Duncan's shortwave compositions). Instead, "Edition Kunst Plays" is a collection of hurried audio scribblings that may have begun as a sarcastic comment on the ubiquity of these artists; but these re-interpretations are so clumsy, so clunky, so unlistenable as to render any dialogue with the original artists irrelevant. For example, Noto's work has been reduced down to an unprocessed sinewave firing at regular intervals and aimless pitched up and down for a couple minutes. Any sense of Noto's sublime use of rhythm with a perfectly controlled post-techno context? Any sense of the beauty within crisp lines and sharp turns? No fucking way. Sure DJ Spooky, Terre Thaemlitz, et al. deserve to be mocked and humiliated for their own insipid post-modern posturing. But they can do that on their own.
One of the worst albums of the year.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"Electric soul for rebels" -- two volumes of electronica. Contributors include Zulutronic, Alec Empire, Techno Animal, DJ Vadim, and plenty more.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Abstract hip hop operated by Alec Empire, DJ Spooky, Spectre, DJ Vadim etc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The fourth in Mille Plateaux' series of advanced electronica comps, and you can't argue with the lineup: Techno Animal, DJ Spooky, Alec Empire, Panacea (thrice!), Spectre, and more. "Electric soul for rebels."
This is another Reader's Digest compendium from Mille Plateaux that inevitably features Kid 606 and brings together the diaspora of the contemporary electronica spectrum under a singular heading. Here it's "ClickHop" (ugh), a term to describe the Hip Hop
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"The Story of Volkslied Into Krautrock Goes On"...yes, the third and fourth volumes of the previously vinyl-only "Pre-Kraut Pandaemonium" series are compiled onto cd. 29 tracks of crazee German '60s beat music.
This one should hardly need a description. C'mon, it's called PSYCHEDELIC SITAR HEAD SWIRLERS! And it's a massive 5 disc collection of Eastern tinged garage rock from the sixties and the seventies, from all over the world, all the songs linked together by one common sonic theme, the gorgeous hypnotic buzz of the sitar. Sometimes subtle and minimal, other times, intense and distorted and buzzy, the songs themselves ranging from hippie folk pop, to crunchy sitar drenched garage rock pound, to organ driven groovers, featuring a whole mess of bands you no doubt are already familiar with (or should be), many of whom we've raved about on past lists: J.K & Co, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Pretty Things, July, Ramases, C.O.B., Meic Stevens, Erkin Koray, Popol Vuh, Brainticket, The Chocolate Watch Band, The Amboy Dukes, The Strawberry Alarm Clocks, Them, Krokodil, Mecki-Mark Men, The New Tweedy Brothers, Kuni Kawachi, The Book Of A.M., Shocking Blue, Pentangle, Sheila Chandra, Ananda Shankar, but for every band you already know and love, there's a handful you've probably never heard: Wylde Olde Souls, Popera Cosmic, Stuntz's Blue Leg Expedition, The Misty Wizards, Mushroom's God, Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band, United States Of Existence, we could go on, but needless to say, this collection is pretty incredible.
From the opening droney sitar spoken word tale, the collection flits from groovy flute flecked hippie jangle, to woozy, druggy almost Spacemen 3 like hazy buzzy drift, from jangly power pop to warm woozy psychedelic dream pop, from twangy strummy folk to sitar-ed Beatles covers, with much of the comp heavy on the drone, the sitar's distinctive buzz transforming even the simplest most standard chunk of sixties pop, into something more exotic and far out, more trancelike and WAY more psychedelic. So awesome.
Each disc comes in its own full color sleeve, all housed in a thick full color box, with a massive booklet packed with photos, record covers, and of course liner notes detailing the various songs and artists.
The presence of Edward Ka-Spel and Silverman will undoubtably cause the tiny pressing of this compilation to sell-out to the legions of Legendary Pink Dots fans. But even without them, "Electrically Induced Vibrations" makes for a pretty good listen, populated with an LPD-like aesthetic of dark grandeur, conceptually minded artfulness, idiosyncratic production, and arcane mythologies. Along with Ka-Spel and Silverman, there's Cylobe (featuring ex-Coil members Stephen Thrower and Steve Norris offering an abstraction of glitched electronics with downwardly spirally clarinet bleetings), Colin Potter (Ora and Nurse With Wound collaborator doing quiet dronework), Omit (AQ's favorite NZ misanthrope producing a restrained version of wooden loops and synthetic washes), and Mistress of Strands (mixing vibrato electronics with lifting female vocalizations that sounds very Projekt records), as well as Steve Thomsen, Arkkon, and Fibrillation. Anomalous pressed up a mere 428 copies of this album, so be quick. Housed in a nicely silkscreened Siwa cover.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The cd edition of the"Pre-Kraut Pandaemonium" lps vol. 1 & 2, crazy German beat music from the late 60's, before the punks went cosmic, the same scene that spawned the Monks (who appeared on a later edition in the Pre-Kraut Pandaemonium series). Cryptic liner notes indicate that there's indeed some pre-Can (then called Inner Space), pre-Amon Duul etc. musicians on here.
Back in stock! (And, also, when we reviewed this a few weeks ago, we spaced out and somehow listed it under the title of Electro Grind Holocaust, which is a totally different comp on the same label, whoops!)
For those of you who just flipped over our recent Record Of The Week selection the Drum>MachineGun compilation, and want MORE crazed drum machine grindcore insanity, this other collection entitled Electro Grind Gore Compilation should also be of interest! It's slanted a bit more toward the underground and obscure than the Drum>MachineGun comp, and also more towards the porno/gore obsessed side of this bizarre metal/punk subgenre -- a subgenre that features, as displayed here, razor sharp spastic guitar riffage, techno dance beats, belching death metal grunts and growls (some so subsonically extreme that they sound like bubblings from below the earth), non-sequitorial samples (often offensive and, um, humorous), and lots of bleepy bleepy bleargh distortion and noise. There's a unexpectedly high catchiness quotient, in spots, but these tracks are definitely utterly maddening at the same time. It's kind of a "chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter" deal with the electro danciness and the harsh splattermetalgrindnoise in collision. In fact, it's kind of unclear just who this sort of music is supposed to appeal to: we can't imagine techno fans digging all the noise and gore, and we didn't think so many metalheads liked techno-dance beats -- but I guess we were wrong! Of course we like it, so...
Electro Grind Gore contains 28 tracks from 17 bands, most of whom we'd never heard of before. Some names: Atomik Surfing, Shunt Incision, Basket Of Death, Vomitrone, Skrotum, 666.Porn.Star, SMES, Posthuman Worm, Absurd God, Tourette Syndrom, Firbrosarcoma... A very international line-up indeed, the bands hailing from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, France, Croatia, Holland, Germany, Panama, Spain, Australia, and Italy. It's a veritable World Cup of sick underground electro grind! While here at Aquarius we're better versed in black metal, doom, and "true" metal, if we ever do decide to turn this drum machine fueled electronic grindcore deviancy into an AQ specialty, we'd definitely start by tracking down more stuff by the bands on this comp!
One of two new Medical Records releases on this week's New Arrivals list, this one the first ever Medical compilation, gathering up a collection of extremely rare singles in conjunction with the like minded Crispy Nuggets blog. Electroconvulsive Therapy gathers up five rare singles, both the A and B sides and tacks on two super obscure compilation tracks. Fans of Medical Records will no doubt be thrilled by these obscure gems, and like most Medical releases, we can safely say we'd never heard, or even heard OF any of these. Up first is The Electronic Circus, who hail from the UK and feature Chris Payne, who played on Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle. The sound here is much more synth poppy though, female vocals and swirling synths over pulsating rhythms and pulsing percussion, the B side though is much more strange, at least contextually, just stately solo piano, wreathed in reverb, and laced with subtle synthiness. Up next is Psychic Youth, from Boston, both sides of their only single, originally released in 1982, the sound is more cold wave, frosty female vocals over minimal synthwave, the B side featuring male vocals, but otherwise sonically similar, arpeggiated step sequenced synths and stripped down programmed rhythms. Then there's another UK band, this one going by the strange moniker Aaaah...!, their sound classic eighties synth pop, moody and minor key, with dramatic crooned vocals, the B side warped and woozy and squelchy, and definitely the more twisted of the two.
Then there's Shazam, another obscurity, whose A side sounds a bit like Depeche Mode via Men Without Hats, swirling synths, and skittery programed rhythms, and a main melody that sounds lifted straight from another classic song you'll no doubt recognize, the B side more stripped down and spacey. Finally, the last complete single is from Claude Arto, he of another outfit recently reissued by Medical, Mathematiques Modernes, the A side another purloined classic melody, here wreathed in bleeps and bloops and squelchy synths, while the B side is all crunchy distorted synths and tangled melodies. The comp tracks come from N.A. Pop 2000, whose song is a moody slab of dark electro pop, complete with some really cool, weird female vocals, dramatic and affected, and Berliner Strasse from Yugoslavia, who adds some guitar jangle to woozy, bloop, bleep synths and some super icy, male vox, the whole thing fantastically woozy and warped.
Fantastic stuff for sure. Medical Records obsessives will definitely want, as will anyone into rare synth pop and vintage cold / new / synth wave weirdness. Super deluxe packaging as always, the vinyl pressed on 180 gram paint splatter transparent green vinyl, housed in a heavy, full color jacket, and like most things on Medical, very, very limited!
We hadn't heard of DIEM before, but the title - and the cover art of a couple dozen VU meters in action - whet our curiosity. Turned out to be an awesome collection, of just what it says, a curated selection of electronic music produced at the Danish Institute Of Electronic Music (originally the Danish Institute Of Electroacoustic Music), since its founding in 1987: everything from conceptual, computer processed droneworks to the skittery scribble scrobble of abstract IDM beatscapes. Some pieces hold to a more traditional, academic 'musique concrete' aesthetic; others venture into ambient, 'lower case' laptop electronica realms. Both old and new stuff flow together well (the tracks are arranged in alternating chronological order, going both forwards and backwards, so you get a piece from 1988 followed by one from 2012, then one from 1989, 2011, etc.), and all are pretty great, seeing as how they were able to chose some of the best from 25 years worth of avant-garde output. Almost all tracks are exclusive to this box, which is enjoyable for what it contains, while also serving as a sampler of sorts to the works of a host of hitherto unknown to us electronic musicians that we now may have to track down other releases by. We hadn't previously heard of most of these artists, though many are presumably well-known in academic circles and/or in the European electronic music scene - some in fact being award-winners in Scandinavia.
$11.98 is certainly a "nice price" (perhaps subsidized by the Danish government?) for this, considering what you get - two cds in cardstock sleeves accompanied by a thick 30 page booklet, stuffed inside a hinged-lid cardboard box, a handsome little package indeed. The booklet contains several in-depth essays detailing the Institute's history, providing an account of all the (at the time) state-of-the-art recording equipment and computer music-making gear and software they acquired and discarded over the years, while pointing out the irony of how the rise of home PC recording rendered obsolete not only a lot of their studio's expensive machinery but also affected an aesthetic change in electronic music, where glitch and noise were to be valued rather than technologically scrubbed away. Many pages of the booklet are further devoted to providing information about each individual track and composer found on the discs. And there's photos too, some good retro gear porn for anyone into that sort of thing (you'll see the Otari MTR-90 24-track analog tape machine that was DIEM's pride and joy in 1987, and from where those VU meters on the cover come; and we're especially we're partial to the photo of the Macintosh Plus computer, circa 1988, hooked up to an Emulator SP-12 drum machine and Emulator II sampler).
Rather than provide a list of unfamiliar names, we'll just mention a few favorites amongst the 20 tracks here. There's the constant-pitch drone of "Tunnel Vision" (1995) by DIEM director Wayne Siegel, the percussive onslaught and processed sound collage of Rasmus Lunding's "On Learning How To Kill" (2002), the playful mad scientist bleep and bloop mixed with sampled chamber strings of Fuzzy's "Electric Gardens And Their Surroundings" (1989), the amazing vocal experiments (from inhuman gutturals, to Yoko Ono or Bjork like babble) of Line Tjornhoj-Thomesen on her 13+ minute "Lauria" (1998), Puzzleweasel & Richard Devines's quite IDM-ish "Mad Bonce" (2008), the blissfully-blown-out whoosh of Vectral's "AC-3" (2007), the piercing, dramatic drones of Anker Fjeld Simonsen's "Octav III" (1988), the noisy/melodic mashup of Hans Hansen's "Passaics Monumenter" (1998) - and we could go on. Well worth picking up!
The second in the series of squiggly early electronic pop rarities from the 60s from Bruce Haacke, The Mindexpanders, Harry Breuer, Gil Tryhall (featuring a cut from his "Switched On Nashville" album of electronic hillbilly weirdness), Fred Weinberg, amongst others. Just like the "Love Peace & Poetry" series, "Electronic Toys" is packaged with the idiosyncratic pin-up photos of Bunny Yeager; after all sex sells.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The local improv jazz label - Asian Improv - presents this benefit compilation of West Coast hip hop for the Asian Pacific Islander Student Alliance. Featuring Latyrx, Encome, Mista Sinsta, Mountain Brothers, DJ Rhettmatic, Medusa, KNT, Zion I, 427, Anomalies, DJ Vinroc, Visionaries, and more.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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New Michigan based label with a strange name, and stranger music on this compilation--noise, electronic, & experimental sounds from some obscure and more-than-obsure artists (Crawl Unit, Rampoon, Tabata of Zeni Geva with Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, Totemplow and Brume being among the better-known). An excellent collection that causes us to look forward to more from this label (such as an upcoming Tabata solo disc).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Here's Forced Exposure's apt description:
Debut release on a new CA-based IDM label, focusing on that sparkling electronic machine crinkle that can sound just right. OST's track, "August" is a legitimate classic, that could easily fit somewhere within the Warp "Artificial Intelligence" series. Many other tracks are of similar vintage & emotional quality. The CD features obscure US artists such as: Solenoide (aka Office Products, aka Mr. Pharmacist; currently been doing work with Mark Hosler of Negativland, while having escaped an earlier life of hacking, sits behind the door and thinks about asthetic pranks'), Lillianthal (Arrow Kleeman, NYC, has performed with the Silver Apples, before becoming Lillienthal, "hoping that his search for sound found and personal mood will set him aside from the even flow of contemporary electronic dance music, this is his debut'), If.Then.Else. ('playing bass, playing jazz, discovers the synthesizer all hell break loose; not to be seen until now, he hides with the machine in attempts to beat it at it's own games'), Sybarite (aka Xian Hawkins, who has also performed and recorded with Simeon of the reformed Silver Apples), O.S.T. (aka Rook Vallade, has recorded on Switch Records, Plug Research, Worm Interface, remixed Spacetime Continuum, etc.). [/cat/compilationsplit40.html]
Bay Area indie band The Cubby Creatures make home-spun crafty pop music, and their homebase label Cubby Control run by bassist/vocalist Brian Weaver also puts out compilations of other likeminded Bay Area and beyond artists. This is the fourth and final volume of the series which began back in 1997 as a celebration of 4-track home recordings. This volume differs from its lower-fi predecessors in that it is comprised of twenty completely exclusive tracks by exclusively Bay Area artists. There's quite a variety of styles from acoustic folk to funk-a-booty, from loopy psych-pop to minimal dub-tronic, from an off-kilter carnivalesque theme to a more urban soundscape. A charming lil' something for everyone! The participants include Thee More Shallows, The Slow Poisoner, Dax Pierson, Jai Young Kim, The Andy Peters Show, Mos Eisley, Thee Druggles, Brian Weaver and The Cubby Creatures or course.
An assortment of tracks by 19 very disparate SF indie artists. The most odd is probably the inclusion of Lower Forty-Eight, who contribute a rumbling stoner rock track that bursts forth amid the much more abundant, low-key melodicism. The other 18 songs
Whoops, how'd this one slip under our radar? Encyclopedia Asthmatica Vol. 1 presents 32 playful, whimsical visuals from the ultra blissed out indie label's roster of gentle folk and electronic pop - Sufjan Stevens, The Curtains, Castanets, Shapes And Sizes, Half-Handed Cloud, Rafter, Bunky, Liz Janes, My Brightest Diamond! A hi-fi and lo-fi mix of animation, live clips, found footage and more, the dvd's probably worth nabbing for the Stevens clips alone, but the rest are super dreamy delights too!
Holy crap! An epic, double cd, FORTY THREE band, label sampler from local label 20 Sided Records (who recently released the awesome new Trainwreck Riders album!), featuring a bunch of bands from right here in SF, but also LA, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Long Beach, Oakland, and as far away as Seattle, Bellingham, Spokane, Phoenix, Portland and Denver. The really crazy thing, is that of those 43 bands, we actually had only even heard of 5 or 6, and more than half of those are from right here!
So this is a pretty awesome introduction to a whole bunch of new bands, a list of which we would imagine wouldn't mean much, since odds are you probably wouldn't know most of these groups either, but there's definitely some good stuff, the sounds super varied, heavy on the indie rock and variations thereof, but still all over the map: crunchy, fuzzed out twee pop, jangly Pavement style indie rock, Ramones-y garage punk, chugging math metal, blown out shoegazey Built To spill sounding indie pop, bluesy garage stomp, rollicking chaotic garage stomp a la Thee Oh Sees, dreamy echo drenched folkiness, brooding slow build epic post rock drift, and that's just a tiny taste, and heck, screw it, here's a list of the bands, the ones we know: Blank Tapes, Slow Trucks, Ugly Winner, Hazel's Wart, Ash Reiter (who has a new full length on 20 Sided!), Trainwreck Riders, and the ones we don't: Sci-Fi Caper, The Suicides, Quiet Americans, High Horse, Wild Pack Of Canaries, Saything, The Hoot Hoots, Mosshead, Big Mittens, Future Space And Time, The Palisades, Smalls, One Hundred Percent, Eureka California, Myth Ship, Rosa Grande, The Fay Wrays, San Joaquin Steamers, Vows, Fpod Bpod, Li Xi, Rubedo, Cannons & Clouds, Sugar Candy Mountain, Pony Village, The Cat From Hue, Pro Wings, Street Pyramids, Upstairs Downstairs, The Wild Kindness, Excited States, One F, Candysound, Animal Eyes, Former Friends Of Young Americans, Owl Paws and Speak Friend. Phew! It almost reads like one of those Robert Pollard / Guided By Voices box sets, where every song is credited to a different made up band! And usually we're pretty wary of comps where most of the bands are names we don't know, but lots of this stuff is pretty great, and odds are if you dig all the strains of indie/garage/fuzz pop/rock/punk, there's lots to love here!!
