Unlike the space-age Moog pop confections of Gershon "Perrey &" Kingsley's wonderful Music To Moog By (reviewed last list), this simultaneously reissued album was seemingly a more serious proposition, recorded at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in 1970. At the time, a live, four-Moog performance was considered rather astonishing. But with Robert Moog building the instruments and Kingsley training the musicians, they pulled it off.
The weird-sound-effects side of the synthesizer is definitely explored, providing an appropriate backing for some rather bizarre vocal parts including readings of poetry written by kids on subjects such as "The Brain" and "War". The overall effect is kinda new-music psychedelic, and there's a drummer and bassist present so they can fully rock out on occasion. Furthermore, Kingley's Quartet doesn't neglect to switch-on some (contemporary) classics: you get covers of "Sounds of Silence" and "Eleanor Rigby", the latter getting a super groovy treatment. Pretty cool, and quite kitschy despite the classical concert-hall, high-culture setting.
Another weird and wonderful installment in the fascinating and varied history of this lost musical visionary. Many of you avant garde types will no doubt recognize Kirchin's name from the infamous Nurse With Wound list of favorite and influential experimental recordings. But over the last few years, UK label Trunk has been releasing more and more lost bits of Kirchin's wild musical past and so far it's all been totally fascinating and compelling listening. Abstractions opens with eleven tracks, the Abstractions of the Industrial North recording proper. Dreamy and pastoral, cinematic and light and airy. Quite lovely and not even remotely avant garde or freaked out. Things get weirder with the nine bonus tracks, all cues from rare musical library ten inch records. Freaked out, acid tinged prog, mixed with groovy Euro soundtrack music, horns and organs, chimes and vibes, bombastic percussion and psych rock guitars all woven into what could be the clost soundtrack to the coolest spy thriller you've never seen. Smooth and groovy, with just enough weird stuff going on to keep it interesting. Pay close attention to track 18, "Pageing Sullivan", a burbling, psychedelic soundtrack jaunt through India via Paris, or something, but on the guitar you'll find a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page! And as always, super informative and interesting liner notes!
The late great Basil Kirchin's final work, that was years in the making, is not always an easy listen. Finally realized after years of working with what he called "particles" of music (some recorded as early as the sixties) while his body was riddled with cancer, it's difficult to separate what is happening in the music from what was happening with the man. Book-ended by spirited pastoral compositions of the British jazz variety that we are accustomed to, most of the body of Particles falls into the realm of the atonally challenging. He even calls the main suite, "The Atonals". Even so, it would be unfair to casually dismiss this. One needs to understand Kirchin's process, a laborious attention to recording, editing and filtering that works through primarily conceptual guidelines rather than compositional ones. For instance, "The Atonals", subtitled, "The Secret Conversations Between Instruments", began as recordings of between-session banter with the musicians without their knowledge they were being recorded. Then these hours of tapes were edited into snippets of conversation until each had a clear line of its own, orchestrated together with other lines, then run through a series of processes that remove the words and the voice sounds and are replaced with sounds of instruments that fit closest to the original "voice". It may take a few listens to Particles to unleash its power, but it's a fitting and uncompromised finale of one of the most innovative experimental composers of our time.
Kicking up her heels and cooing up a storm, Kitten On The Keys is one-ma'am band Suzanne Ramsey.
And (It's Not A) Pretty Princess Day is a delightful album full of quirky, charming old tyme piano numbers. She sings and plays with plenty of spritely wit and sass. Each song is steeped with saucy vaudevillian and pouty burlesque excess. Ramsey performs both her own originals as well as a plethora of covers, even tackling Sex Pistols and The Cure with a giggle and a wink. Actually (if she hasn't already!) she'd be a great human performer at the Musee Mechanique!
What is more amazing than discovering a whole movement in music that had never been documented, let alone even heard of. EVER! No mention in any books, magazines, not a single trace. What if that music was in fact the music of Funerary violins. A music created and composed to be performed at funerals. The only evidence of these musics, some scratchy old wax cylinder recordings, some faded photos, and brittle sheafs of old sheet music. A music that flourished in the 1800's and disappeared almost completely by the 1900's after the Catholic church's Great Funerary Purges. Only recently discovered in a locked trunk was the music of Herr Gratchenfleiss, recorded to wax cylinder by Wilhelm Kleinbach. The sound a mournful miserable, gorgeously minor key dirge. So completely moving and emotional, the recordings thick with static and crackle, only adding to the power and timelessness of the music. What could be more amazing?
How about making the whole thing up? Constructing an elaborate history of a genre that never existed. Populating this history with lifelike characters, creating photos, sheet music, historical documents, but most amazingly, recording all the music, and treating it to sound as if it was some old wax cylinder recording.
Hard to say which would be more amazing, a wholly undiscovered hidden dark corner of musical history, quashed by the church and relegated to be lost forever, or an insanely detailed project, the ultimate conceptual art piece. Either way, we are in love with this stuff.
Simply from a musical standpoint, this is everything we could hope for. The recordings are fuzzy and staticky, bathed in layers of crackle and grit, and years of neglect and decay, but beneath the recording inconsistencies we love so much, are some truly moving and emotionally rich performances, the melodies are so intense and sad, minor key and mournful. truly funereal. It's impossible not to imagine some old funeral procession, a row of black clad mourners, trudging down a dirt road, with their deceased atop an old wooden cart, the sky grey, the music of the Funerary violinist winding around the procession like wreaths of black smoke. So goddamn lovely. We have been listening to this non-stop since we got it.
And then there's the story. The "history". Is it real? Is it possible that a musical movement could disappear so completely. So much so that not a single person anywhere EVER had heard of the Guild Of Funerary Violinists? Or is it all a huge put-on? A massive made up world? The ultimate outsider art project. Either way, we are completely blown away. If this is indeed real, HOLY SHIT! How utterly mysterious and romantic!! We do sort of want to believe it's real. It's so perfectly evocative of some other time, of death and sadness throughout the ages. But if it is in fact made up, it has to be one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed hoaxes of all time. There's even a book (you can probably find at you local bookstore), filled with photos and sheet music, and histories of all the players, the birth and death of the genre, it's so detailed and elaborate, so much so it almost seems impossible that someone could have created all of this from thin air, if it was made up, it must have been the creator's life's work. Years and years of methodical planning and writing and recording for sure. But either way, it's magical and fascinating, and 'real' or not, the music is truly gorgeous, and the story completely captivating, both intertwined into some sort of time machine, perfectly transporting us to that rain splattered dirt road, the soaring sad sounds of the Funerary violin drifting into the black sky...
Before there was Joanna Newsom, there was Carol Kleyn, a young hippie spirit with an ethereal songbird voice who wrote rapturous paeans to love and nature on her harp. So it makes sense then that Newsom's label, Drag City, would reissue this lovely private press recording from 1976. Studying at the University of Santa Barbara, Kleyn befriended Bobby Brown (the instrument builder who recorded the amazing old aQ fave The Enlightening Beam of Axonda) and she assisted him with his constructions and live performances. He gifted her the harp, and she began to learn to play and write her own songs, eventually opening for Gregg Allman. Instead of waiting to get a record deal, she decided to make a record on her own and released it on her own label. She recorded two other lps soon after, before devoting herself full time to her family.
Love has Made Me Stronger divides its compositions between harp and electric piano. Her tone is bright and the songs exude a sunny yet eccentric warm energy. Similar to the beautiful Collie Ryan and Connie Converse reissues we listed a while back, Carol Kleyn's debut is a much-needed positive ray of sunshine in these dark days.
Usually it's the use of the unusual electronic instrument the Theremin that steals the show. But when you've got Japanese avant-garde vocalist Makigami Koichi playing the Theremin, that instrument's typically spooky and wavering tones almost take a back seat to the bizarre sounds coming out of Koichi's own mouth. Moon Ether's eleven tracks are mostly improvs, except for two traditional Asian folk tunes bookending the disc, and range from "Khoomi" throat-singing to totally free Theremin solos... and pieces that sound like sci-fi sound effects, or yodelling chipmunks! A lot of the time you can't tell what's Theremin and what's voice. He plays a Theremin "with moogerfooger", whatever that is. Maybe an example of Koichi's evident humor. There's beauty here, and a great deal of nuttiness. Wild gibberish for fans of Yat-Kha, Zubi Zuba, and Mike Patton for sure!!
You might already know Koichi from his releases on Tzadik -- he guest starred on a Painkiller album, collaborated with Switzerland's Anton Bruhin (the great jaw harp jam Electric Eel), and Tzadik also released an anthology of his '70s/'80s band Hikashu. But *this* is another from the amazing catalog of Japan's doubtmusic, packaged in their usual nice digipack with die-cut cover hole!
Some of you may be aware of Russian artists Komar and Melamid's art experiment where they polled people from all over the world, asking them about art, their favorite colors, least favorite colors, their favorite subject matter, their favorite subject matter,
And if you're a regular listener to public radio's "This American Life" you'll know (via a recent feature on that show) that these crazy guys have now applied that same idea to music (oh no!) -- and came up with the 'most wanted' song and the 'most unwanted' song as voted on by you, the American public. The results included:
Most liked instrument: guitar, piano, cello
Most unliked instrument: bagpipes, accordian, tuba
Most wanted singing style: rock, blues/R&B, opera
Most unwanted singing style: opera, rap, country
And on and on, including many other preferences: least favorite subject matter, preferred tempos, numbers of performers, volume, subject matter, duration etc.
So, according to Komar and Melamid's research, the most wanted song ends up being a short, guitar based rock/soul song, of moderate volume, medium tempo, singable lyrics about a love story sung by a low voiced female. The most unwanted song is a twenty-plus minute rap/opera/country hybid with far too many performers, far too many tempo changes, sung by children and a high voiced female, with an unmemorable melody and lyrics about holidays. A song supposedly scientifically proven that "fewer than 200 individuals of the world's population will enjoy"! (Hmm, wait a sec, that sounds suspicously similar to Steven Schultz' "Stalin Claus Superstar" rock opera, reviewed here for AQ-list #112!!)
With these lame/absurd parameters in hand, our intrepid musicologists got weird-music guy David Soldier (most recently of Thai Elephant Orchestra fame!) to compose the most and least wanted songs, and then hired people (including Vernon Reid) to perform and record these two tunes. This cd contains the unfortunate results!
To be honest, both these songs kind of suck (well, no surprise there -- indeed, the "good" song might be the worst song EVER, and the "bad" song isn't much better!) but this disc is pretty funny and pretty brilliant, conceptually. Definitely another album to file under 'fucked.'
Julian Koster is best known for his stint in legendary Elephant Six outfit Neutral Milk Hotel as well as his membership in The Music Tapes. But this holiday season he's going to be known as the man who played Christmas songs on his lovely singing saw, turning old classics into something much more breezy and haunting. It's kind of reminding us of that awesome reissue EM Records put out of the early '20s musical saw stylings of Sam Moore, only if he were to play all of the holiday season's greatest hits. Even for those of us who don't usually get into the spirit of Christmas music can't deny how fun this is!
Lavender vinyl. comes with download with bonus kovacs tv material
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Finland's Ektro Records label (run by Jussi from Circle/Pharaoh Overlord as you may know) would have us believe that this four-song ep is one from the vaults, supposedly a reissue of singles tracks recorded back in '83 by the mysterious metal entity known as Krypt Axeripper. Obscure cult '80s metal, eh? Well it looks like it: it's got a suitable logo, fantastical n' scary artwork, and the cd booklet even reproduces the labels from the "original" vinyl release of the tracks "Battle Of The Axehammer" and "Possessed (By Trees)". Wait a sec, "Battle Of The Axehammer"? Isn't that also the title of the live Pharaoh Overlord album? Indeed it is, and we're about 99.666 percent sure that "Krypt Axeripper" is in fact the heavy metal alter ego of our friend Jussi! Playing guitars, bass, synths, and singing, Axeripper is joined by "Rattfinder" on drums, who from the sound of it is probably one of Jussi's colleagues in Circle...
And of course, as with *anything* Circle-related, no matter what the concept, it's got that hypnotic Circle-sound at its base. In fact, we'd say that there's stuff on Circle's Sunrise or Pharaoh Overlord 4 that's actually way more metal than the songs here. Yes, they're all got a bunch of very metal (and crudely catchy) guitar riffing going on, albeit ramshackle and lo-fi. But then there's the vocals, which despite lyrics about Lucifer, have a very woozy, weirdly crooned, eccentrically pop quality to them, pitched high in a much more gentle way than a real metal screecher would do. And the guitar solos -- those are all totally psychedelic, Floydian/Frippian washes, really nice as well. And the drums, we mentioned, not metal at all. Too wimpy and motorikally rhythmic. So it's a truly unique and amusing mix, and we LOVE it. Sure the vocals come across as a bit silly at first, but they're actually pretty cool when you really listen, and it's impressive how the vocal parts are arranged, with various lead and backing vocals interwoven, all sung by Mr. Axeripper hisownself.
False metal? More like freak metal. Krypt Axeripper may be fake (and funny) but we're still fans for real. It's interesting how in trying to make a pastiche of heavy metal music (if that's really what he was trying to do...), Jussi came up with something that, if we had to compare it to an actual metal record, reminds us of Voivod's most controversially "alternative" album, the college radio confusional Angel Rat from 1991. We also appreciate that this experiment was kept to just 11 minutes, four amazing, strange songs, not overdoing it, just enough to give his inner metalfan a chuckle -- and to get us to keep hitting play again and again and again on this wacked-out quartet of relaxed, quasi-metallic tracks. Krypt Axeripper seriously (or maybe not-so-seriously) rules!
How rad is this? One of our favorite Record Store Day items this year was not a record, but a book! A hefty, 508-page tome that thoroughly chronicles the history and obsessions of one of the largely misunderstood and under-appreciated niches of recorded music, the "vanity record" - also known as "private press recordings". Enjoy The Experience, edited by noted collector Johan Kugelberg, delves deep into the uniquely 20th century phenomena of the custom-made record and the little-known artists who made them, as well as the collectors and reissue labels that have obsessed over them and ultimately prevented them from fading into obscurity. A lot of our faves are here, including many we have reviewed over the years like The Shaggs, Michael Farneti, Gary Wilson, Jr. and His Soulettes, Bob Chance, Luie Luie, and Hans Edler, many with extensive back stories about their creation. But there is sooooo much more. Including Christian family recordings, ventriloquists, creepy loner folkies, restaurant /resort entertainers, over-the-top lounge singers and just outright bizarre musical artists who just wouldn't have been able to release a record any other way. There are pages and pages of beautiful color reproductions of the cover art to these home made records, some even hand drawn, in all of their earnest naive glory. There's even a chapter on Century Records, one of the most well-established custom record manufacturers, who provided stock album covers for individual artists - and it's funny to see how many different albums utilized the exact SAME cover (including the one seen on the front of this book!). Enjoy The Experience is a joy to behold and will renew your faith in the self-released record.
Comes with a download card for a 20 song playlist including a song from a hopefully up and coming aQ Record of the Week, when it gets reissued - try and guess which one! While supplies last, this special RSD edition also comes with a clear vinyl 45 reissue of a recording by the Century Records marketing department, on how to customize and create your own record. So Awesome!!
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Yet another release in Tiliqua's Erotic Oriental Sunshine series of Japanese erotic music from the sixties and seventies. We reviewed Kokotsu No Sekai from Japanese sexy action heroine Ike Reiko a few lists back, as well as a long lost release from seventies bondage / S&M queen Naomi Tani, whose record was issued to commemorate her withdrawal (ahem) from the world of porn.
Now we have another gem, this time from Japanese "Play Girl" Kuwabara Yukiko, who in addition to starring in a handful of films, and posing for various fashion and nudie magazines, made her mark most notably as the star of the erotic action series "Play Girl" which ran for 5 years and nearly 300 episodes! Yowza! That's a lot of erotic action for sure.
Yukiko only released a single album, this one, in 1971, another titillating example of Iroke Kayoyoku, a bastardized version of a more popular Asian music of the time, sexed up with chanteuse like crooning, and most important of all, an amazing array of moaning and groaning and cooing and giggling, as if in the throes of EXTREME passion.
On Kuwabara Yukiko to Anata, Yukiko coos and purrs over a lush bed of Lawrence Welk strings, sexy smokey sax, playful vibraphone melodies, and flamenco melodies. Soft and easy, swinging from big band jazz ballads, to spaghetti western twang, to champagne bubble waltzes, with soaring strings and shuffling percussion, muted Wes Montgomery-like guitar and that slow moaning sax.
Much like the Tani disc, Yukiko, lays way back, spending as much time lounging quietly as she does whispery sexily in our ears. Only occasionally does her kitten-like purr escalate into downright moaning and groaning, instead, she spends most of the time, doing her best Birkin or Bardot, sing speaking what can only be sexy tales and subtle come-ons.. Oh la la!!!
Wonderfully wild and kitschy, and oh so sexy!
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, saucy nude photos of Yukiko on the cover, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese!
ULTRA LIMITED!!! Only 1300 copies pressed. Already almost sold out, these will most likely be our last copies...
Perhaps one of the most recognizable figures from the old school SF punk scene -- if you've checked out Jim Jocoy's great photo book We're Desperate, you might've seen a snapshot of her from back in the day! -- Bambi Lake has just released a lounge cabaret-styled album of covers and originals including "Cockettes Remembrances", "The Golden Age Of Hustlers" and "I'm One Of God's Children (Who Hasn't Got Wings)". Recorded live at the Dark Room here in SF.
Rural Canadian schoolkids ages 9-12, sixty of 'em, singing pop hits like "Space Oddity", "Good Vibrations", "I'm Into Something Good", and "Band On The Run", backed by shimmering, gamelan like percussion and sparse rock instrumentation??
Yes! And of course it's Irwin Chusid (of "In The Key of Z" fame, a specialist in "outsider" music) who's responsible for getting these 1976-77 recordings finally issued on cd for our enjoyment. Apparently these kids had a somewhat unorthodox music teacher, who, tapping into his student's musical enthusiasm, arranged and captured this amateur outpouring of charmingly naive genius...lovely yet fucked up. And funny. Yet so heartfelt and innocent. Over the course of these nineteen earnest tracks, you'll either lose your mind or fall in love with the Langley Schools Music Project. Genius or not, certainly Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Bowie, the Bay City Rollers, Fleetwood Mac, the Carpenters, the Eagles, Barry Manilow, etc. never sounded so...odd. "Lo-fi Spectorian majesty" indeed. It's like an all-Shaggs orchestra playing AM radio covers. We have to agree with John Zorn's cover sticker blurb: "Touches the heart in a way no other music ever has, or could." So terrible, yet so brilliant. Never intended for release (it was originally pressed as a limited double 12" for the kids and their families) but now the 2-track tape reels have been remastered, and this cd, with a detailed 16-page booklet featuring super cute photos of the kids, has been unleashed on the world! Great Christmas gift material, if we may be so bold.
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Anton, founder of the Church of Satan, is a virtuosic thereminist and makes most of this cd's music on a big old organ in one take, which, when you hear all the different layers of sounds, is pretty impressive.
The crazed, genre-scrambling grindcore of Germany's Le Scrawl is, as threatened, back! This new 13-song, 16-minute cdep will either bring a big smile to your face or confuse and annoy you utterly. Imagine Napalm Death teamed up with Uz Jsme Doma. That is, political punk metal all fucked up with horns and a weird sense of humor. Keyboards and flugelhorn aren't normally part of an underground grind band's arsenal, but Le Scrawl aren't normal... Metal nerds should note that this was recorded by Harris Johns, whose previous credits include numerous Sodom albums as well as Voivod, Helloween, Coroner, Tankard, Pestilence, Saint Vitus, Therion, S.A.D.O., and more. But this definitely must have been a unique session for Johns! Scrawl are one of the original wacky grind outfits, and they sure know how to mix up the gruff and the smooth. Metal riff one moment, lounge groove the next. And having just seen 'em live on a rare US tour, I have to say I was amazed at their deadpan delivery of their complex and, well, silly material. Oh yeah, if you don't like ska...well just wait 5 seconds...every five seconds.
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Dracula always wanted to be an opera singer, and he ain't bad.
EM strikes again! Another out of left field release from our favorite weirdo reissue label. This time it's a career retrospective of the one and only Legendary Stardust Cowboy. More heard of than actually heard, this super deluxe collection gathers up all the essential bits and pieces from the Ledge's tumultuous career, from his first single, "Paralyzed" recorded in 1968 by a then unknown T-Bone Burnett (who also played drums) all the way up to tracks from his 1984 album Rock-It To Stardum.
But who is the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and why does anyone care? Well, it's been a long time since we heard this stuff, and boy does it sound even more totally wacked than we remember. It's like stripped down country rhythm and blues with a maniacal madman screaming and howling, in a totally unintelligible much mouthed howl over the top. Anyone familiar with Brak from Space Ghost Coast To Coast or with Homer, the crazy guy who plays guitar on various corners of Valencia Street might have an inkling of what's going on here. Or imagine AQ fave Jon Wayne (the band not the man) recording a record after full frontal lobotomies. Completely mental, ultra damaged, outsider country rock. Hard to believe the reaction the 'Ledge must have gotten when he appeared on Laugh In in 1968, these days we're exposed to so much insane music and so many weird records, but back then, this must have been the freakiest goddamn thing America had ever seen or heard.
For some songs, the Ledge cranks it down, and delivers his demented narrative in a sung-spoken drawl, like a more damaged twangy Lou Reed, but even those tracks are peppered with stumbling spastic drums, fake bird calls, random bits of talking, studio sounds, detuned guitars, weird bursts of way-up-in-the-mix sci-fi synths and all manner of bleating trumpets.
THE definitive slab of outsider country music. Like some impossibly demented mix of Chet Atkins, Reynols, Daniel Johnston, Brak, Jon Wayne, Joe Meek, Buddy Holly, Wild Man Fischer and Hasil Adkins.
And as with all EM releases gorgeously and extravagantly packaged, in an oversized Japanese style jewel case, a huge booklet packed with liner notes (most in Japanese), photos and lyrics and of course a Japanese style obi. The entire thing beautifully printed with gold ink on white. Leaves us saying "wow" for a bunch of different reasons!
The musical saw has long been used in popular music as a mysterious embellishment much like the similarly haunting theremin, but on Jim Leonard's Super Saw the instrument's ghostly howl takes center stage. Leonard is nothing short of virtuoso (he also wrote a book about the instrument!) and was a bit of a saw renegade. Here he incorporates some of his own distinct playing innovations, namely the speedy "saw shredder" bowing style which stand in stark contrast to other saw players' extended tones. On the first few numbers his performance is accompanied by delightful sounds that resemble actual construction (like sanding, gentle hammering and yes, sawing). Mind you, it's in a most melodic and playful fashion. The rest of the album is a strange coming together of lonesome cowboy twang, rousing ragtime, mystic waltzes and cocktail exotica. At times it's so otherworldly, you'd almost expect a vocal appearance by exotica great Yma Sumac. Additional instrumentation fleshing out the selection of nineteen originals and familiar standards includes banjo, Hawaiian style guitar, harmonica, and organs.
Apparently this Japanese import is the only release of Leonard's music currently available. And as always beautifully and painstakingly packaged by those folks at EM record in Japan!
Since we reviewed the reissue of the mysterious private press album L'amour by the equally mysterious single-named crooner Lewis, who was rumored to have disappeared shortly after its release in 1981, a lot has happened. First, there was a discovery of not just one, but of two previously undiscovered albums he released in the early eighties, of which Romantic Times is one, now reissued. But perhaps more importantly is the news that Lewis himself has been discovered, complete with last name, Baloue, alive and well in Canada, and he apparently has no interest in drudging up his previous life as a hopeless jet-setting and rumored bill-skipping romantic. In the L'Amour review, we mentioned the legendary rumors of his arrival into Los Angeles seemingly out of nowhere in a white suit and white Mercedes with models on each arm before running up a fancy hotel bill and studio time and then skipping town, tapes in hand, without paying his bills. While those rumors may be dubious, it's hard to argue with the cover photo of this newly discovered record of Lewis in fancy white suit with not only said Mercedes, but a white private jet to boot!
If L'Amour was all about epic space and heartbreak, an atmospheric personal lament projected onto the big open landscape, Romantic Times is much more about inviting and nurturing love back into life. Some of the songs sound like classic love songs with new words, for example the opener, "We Danced All Night", is basically "Strangers In The Night" with new lyrics and a snail's tempo. The spacious synths are tempered by narcoleptic waltz rhythms from a drum machine, and there is, of course, also some romantic sax inflections. Lewis's croon is more soulful and breathy, kind of like a mumbling Bryan Ferry, that quivers and soars with each pulse of the drum machine. But with all the romantic allusions, the slow dancing, candlelight and roses, the silhouettes shot through a brandy glass, there is this pervasive creepy stalker vibe that we imagine women would run for restraining orders if they heard this music on a date. Which is kind of why we are digging this so much, the allure of romance and affluence blind-sided by some creepy sentimentality makes for an incredibly bizarre listen.
8-bit, Nintendo, thrash metal. We're putting those keywords up at the start of this review to grab your attention, just in case you've never heard of Lich King before. Or even if you have, 'cause this ain't anything like the usual record by 'em. Massachusetts' zombie-lovin' Lich King are a New Wave Of Old School Thrash band, one of many these days (there's quite a glut), and they're pretty good. Although we've never felt compelled to actually review any of their albums before, some of the metalheads here do own a couple Lich King discs themselves. Even moreso than some other current retro thrash revivalists like Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste, Lich King are probably best known for their overt sense of humor. They write songs with titles like "Black Metal Sucks", "Behaver", and (they deserve an award, or at least a chuckle, for this one) "Attack Of The Wrath Of The War Of The Death Of The Strike Of The Sword Of The Blood Of The Beast". There's a tradition of fun and humor in '80s thrash metal after all (Anthrax! S.O.D.!), so their silliness makes 'em all the more authentic, especially since it doesn't stop 'em from spitting out some totally legit riffage, in the vein of Slayer and Nuclear Assault and Exodus, et. al.
With this release, for their own amusement mainly, the boys in Lich King decided to get even sillier, and recorded a bunch of their own tunes 8-bit chiptune '80s video game style!! Perhaps they were inspired by the internet-only fan band 8 Bit Mayhem's black metal covers (whose "De Mysteriis Dom Supernes" album is well worth Googling). Or maybe AQ fave Xexyz (if you liked that, you want this!). Certainly they were inspired by their own childhoods, playing Nintendo. In any case, a cool idea. With Super Retro Thrash, it's revealed just how catchy Lich King's songs really are. Stripped of vocals and guitar distortion, here it's all about the "riffs" and rhythms. And they're relentless, mind numbingly mesmerizing, we're lovin' it.
There's 9 songs here, including two unreleased as yet tunes from Lich King's next, upcoming proper album. And yes, among the "hits" they've selected, you get an 8-bit version of "Attack Of The Wrath Of The...", along with chipped-out takes on "ED-209" (their Robocop themed song), "Combat Mosh", "Toxic Zombie Onslaught", and more, including also the aforementioned "Black Metal Sucks".
The ironic thing is, not only is this the first Lich King album we've ever reviewed, we're also honestly more into it than any other of their "actual" albums, having listened to it lots more already (it's addictive!), AND surely will sell lots more of these than we would of any other Lich King release ever. We pretty sure it will be a big AQ hit like the Xexyz, or the Iron Maiden electro album. Meanwhile, it's something THEY thought only a few fans would want, it's limited to just 299 numbered copies!!! We got a bunch, but dunno if we'll be able to get (m)any more. The graphics are great, parodying an actual NES cartridge (we love the little lo-res Lich King guy depicted on there, rushing around Mario-style), photographed like it's sitting on a shaggy green carpet in someone's family room back in the '80s.
Back in the day, when we would scour thrift stores for weird easy listening and exotica records, albums by Enoch Light (and His Light Brigade), were at the top of the heap! The sound sitting comfortably alongside Esquivel, Les Baxter, Martin Denny and all the rest, yet somehow, Light was always our favorite. Not sure if it was the super striking minimal album art (which is how we first discovered them/him), or the fact that most of the records had titles like Persuasive Percussion or Provocative Percussion, or that, as those titles suggested, Light was big on percussion, and stereo. He was an early adopter, obsessed with the possibilities of stereo, the sound on his records careening wildly from speaker to speaker, so much so, that initially his records were not played on the radio, since radio was monaural! Every album was equal parts jazz, exotica, easy listening and weird demonstration record. The bulk of the records made up of covers of popular songs, or new versions of standards, but given super drum heavy, and very rhythmic arrangements, wildly percussive (obviously!) and playful, groovy, exotic and jazzy. In our imaginations, Enoch Light looked like the Heatmiser from those old Christmas claymation specials, wild haired, maniac bandleader, gesticulating wildly before a motley crew of musicians, effortlessly whipping up wild blasts of sixties big band jazz, and playful percussive frivolity.
This super bargain priced collection gathers up EIGHT classic Enoch Light records on 4 cds!!! You get: Persuasive Percussion Vol. 1 (1959), Persuasive Percussion Vol. 2 (1960), Persuasive Percussion Vol. 3 (1960), Provocative Percussion Vol. 1 (1960), Provocative Percussion Vol. 2 (1960), Grand Award All Stars - Percussion And Brass (1960), Stereo 35mm Vol. 1 (1961), and Stereo 35mm Vol. 2 (1961).
Another installment in the convoluted and lost history of the Funerary Violin. A mysterious body of work, attributed to the equally mysterious Guild Of Funerary Violinists, all of which was lost to history until quite recently. A book has been published, and a handful of recordings were discovered, illuminating this amazing, and surprisingly, entirely fictitious movement.
We've reviewed two other unearthed recordings from this historically valuable series, one a compilation called Babcotte, Sudbury And Eaton: The English School Of Funerary Origin, the other by Wilhelm Kleinbach called The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss. Check those reviews more a more detailed description of the Guild and its contentious history. Both were recorded before the advent of modern recording, preserved with the fuzz and whir and scratchiness of old wax cylinder recordings, gorgeous, mournful, beautiful, delicate and wistful, each a heart wrenching funereal lament, but all of it a massive hoax.
Not that it takes away from the brilliance of the music, or the incredibly detailed liner notes, if anything it makes it even more amazing. That someone could create what is essentially an entire alternate history, complete with sound.
These recordings, supposedly performed Herbert Stanley Littlejohn in 1956, were taken from a book of music discovered in a dusty corner of a church in 1954, dating back to the late 1600's! In the process of recording the pieces, Littlejohn tripped on a cat, fell down a flight of stairs and smashed his skull dying instantly. This disc collects the finished pieces from that session.
As with all the Funerary Violin releases, the liner notes are extensive, names, dates, events, the notes to this disc are particularly humorous commenting on, among other things, "the poor technical performance standard amongst guild members in what remains one of our darkest periods." And like the other discs, the music is exquisite, genuine or not, utterly lovely, the melodies are mournful and sad, the playing smooth and refined, the notes drifting dreamlike into the starry night, the recording lo-fi, but warm and shimmery. Even without the amazing backstory and fabricated history, this would still be entirely recommended!
The return of the always hilarious Longmont Potion Castle!!! If you're like me (Matt), you missed LPC the first time around, and are super stoked to have a disc from this side splitting and incredibly aggravating (to his victims) prank call mastermind! The most amazing thing about these calls is how long these people on the other end stay on the phone! Most of the calls consist of LPC picking fights with mall employees and local business owners, trying to sell dog bowels to a pawn shop, and requesting Orange Julius employees to feed him grapes while he's interviewed for a job. There's also a lot of fucked up editing and sample based pranks on this disc that are sometimes more creepy than they are funny, like the fucked up effected speech impediment of "Can O' B.S.". The receivers of these pranks range from confused elderly folks to aggro townie redneck dudes, all of whom get super pissed and usually end up threatening some sort of beatdown. It's interesting and hilarious to realize how many people love a good verbal tussle, and out of frustration how many people are willing to actually fight assuming the prankster "comes on down there...". LPC's delivery is totally dry and deadpan, almost stoned sounding, but the things coming out of his mouth are so completely absurd and absolutely hysterical! The best is when the delay pedal is implemented over the phone for extra confusional hilarity. LPC records are by far the most consistently funny, clever, bugged out, annoying, and ultimately excellent pranks on disc EVER!!! If you have 1-5 (compiled in a now out of print boxset), 6 certainly stands up, and for those of you have never checked LPC out, this is a great place to start! It's a bit hard to describe how great this stuff is, but it's one of a kind, So funny and super recommended!
LONGMONT POTION CASTLE IS BACK!!! Longtime readers of the aQ list know how much we love this twisted master of the crank call. Maybe the only crank caller worth our continued attentions. Hilarious, tripped out, nonsensical, infuriating, straddling the line between totally genius and hilarious, and completely ridiculous and stupid. Confusing innocent victims, picking fights with some of them, befriending others, posing as the UPS man wanting to deliver some sod, or acting as a representative of City Search offering a service to reverse negative feedback, for only $1300.
Mr. LPC always sounds so laidback, like maybe he's stoned, or drunk, but even when things get heated, he never gets riled up, delivering his confusing threats as coolly as if he was ordering a pizza. And he's always ready to spit out another totally classic line, which with repeated listens will turn into things you and your friends end up quoting all the time: "I'm a webmaster, do you know what that means?!", "I'm on 9 now, I don't want to go to 10 on you!", "I was trained in fruitland", "Are you ready to peep my growth?". And the response from the folks on the other end of the line are usually just as hilarious if not more so than the stream of brain melting non sequiturs coming out of LPC's mouth. It's hard to explain exactly what makes LPC so much better than pretty much all other crank calls, give a listen to the sound samples, check out the reviews of the other releases. Part of it, as we may have mentioned before, is that it's anything but mean spirited, weirdly playful, poking fun, and even when the 'victim' starts swearing up a storm, offering to beat the shit out of LPC, dude remains cool, and definitely threatens back, but usually his threats are so confusing and WTF, that they often diffuse the tension, and they ended up having a somewhat friendly, and WAY weird conversation.
Number 7 is peppered with LPC "medleys" and "themes", which are basically, classic calls chopped up and collaged into bizarre free form soundscapes of demented zingers, irate freakouts, mumbling weirdness, all set to music, and doused in reverb and delay. Those tracks are almost as fun as the phone calls proper, and are definitely packed with some of LPC's best, and most awesomely insane lines EVER.
Also as a bonus, the final track is an awesome drum machined speed metal jam. On past records, the phone calls were split up between killer chunks of thrashing home recorded metal, but this one "Interlude Encore" might be the raddest yet. Totally shredding, chugging Slayer guitars, swooshing ambience, shredding wah wah leads, and furious frenzied drum machine double kick blast beats. We'd definitely be up for a whole record of jams like this.
Needless to say, Longmont Potion Castle rule, the music, the calls, the vibe, the mood, the concept, it's hilarious, baffling, funny as fuck, and so fun to listen to. Might even win over the anti crank call haters out there. Probably not though.
As always. WAY WAY WAY RECOMMENDED!!
"Touchy"? That term could connotate affection or annoyance depending on how receptive you are to the bizarrely heartfelt musical stylings of the one and only Luie Luie. Seriously music making doesn't get more strange, sincere and ambitious as this. Once called the "Greatest Single Act In The World", Luie Luie is a one man band of drums, trumpet, Moog, guitar and flute who often (and still does!) performed in Mexican and Mediterranean restaurants in Southern California. But he is so much more than that. Soldier, Martial Arts Enthusiast, Actor (he appeared in a film with Elvis!), Musician and Inspirational Speaker, he created a new dance concept called the "Touchy" to help bring people closer together and engage each other in new and exciting ways musically. On this album from 1974 with almost every song including the word "Touch" or "Touchy" in their titles, he begins each song with a spoken preamble that outlines his philosophy on life, love and humanity and how his "dance' works. With the help of the "Touchy Button", a pin with a drawing of Luie's face on it, partners can wear the pin on various parts of their bodies and the object is simply for the partners to touch each other with their "Touchy Buttons" to the music. Yet, the music Luie creates is probably not what most would describe as dance music. Often beginning each song with a loud trumpet blast, followed by lurching rhythms and swampy beats that waver in and out of tempo, containing melodies that seem like a underwater Mariachi band went insane, the music seems almost counterpoint to his endearing explanations of togetherness, like you may want to run away...far away! But with a closer and more firmly resolved listen, you have to realize that the music and this album are truly extraordinary. Who else could make music this warped and wacky yet with absolutely no tongue in cheek? And with each new song we're drawn in to its wonderful strangeness and naivety that by the end we're all smiles. Companion Records has done an amazing job with this reissue, working directly with Luie so that he finally receives royalties for this record, which has been bootlegged several times in the past. With extensive photos and liner notes by Luie himself and for a limited time, each copy will include two newly remade "Touchy Buttons". Fans of Incredibly Strange Music of all types and varieties, this is a must have!
For being released on the same label that brought us two albums of elephants playing instruments (the Thai Elephant Orchestra), an album of rapping by grade-schoolers (Da Hiphop Raskalz) and several other weird/wonderful projects, the idea of an album of avant-groovy cover versions of well-known television themes seems downright tame! Yet, downtown NYC hipster jazz/world/cassette culture/kitchen sink band M'Lumbo do manage to entertain and intrigue -- who could not help but enjoy unusual, out-there renditions of such familiar tunes as "Hawaii Five-O", "The Addams Family", "I Dream Of Jeannie", "I Love Lucy" and "Get Smart", among others?? It's exotica for the TV generation(s), coming across like a wild mix of Martin Denny and Afrobeat and John Zorn. And actually, most of the time you'd be hard pressed to identify the TV tune that they're using/abusing as a basis for each track of faux-ethnic improv, lost under electronics and samples and an abundance of percussion, and even what sound like the calls of jungle birds... in fact it's probably best if you try to listen *without* thinking about these songs being TV themes, or at least imagine that M'Lumbo's "cargo cult" conceit is true, and you're hearing the musical worship of classic cathode ray gods done by some musically freaky tribe of "savages" who just happen to have free cable and became addicted to old TV reruns.
What was meant to be a limited series, seems to be extended indefinitely, with a new disc on this week's list, and at least two more installments planned. And if anything, they just keep getting better, and more perverted! There's just too much sexy sound to stop now. Longtime readers of the aQ list will no doubt be familiar with the Erotic Oriental Sunshine series of archival releases from Tiliqua Records in Japan (who also released the Joakim Skogsberg, this week's Record Of The Week). Each disc in the series unearths a lost gem from a particular sexy chanteuse, lost examples of a strange, and distinctly Japanese artform, where studio bands would perform groovy tunes, exotica, lounge, new age, jazz, even sometimes sort of Morricone style soundtracks, while a starlet would coo and purr, groan and moan over the top.
Past installments have included sexy action heroine Ike Reiko, Japanese "Play Girl" Kuwabara Yukiko, seventies bondage / S&M queen Naomi Tani (who Mabuki is often compared to), legendary porn actress Taguchi Kumi, sexy Lolita, Petite M'Amie, aka Mari Keiko and the most recent disc (and the only one not out of print), which instead of focusing on a particular starlet, focused on the composer responsible for many of these releases, Masami Kawahara.
But this newest installment returns to the series' original pattern, collecting all the recorded works by a single actress/performer, in this case, S+M / bondage queen Mabuki Junko, who essentially took over when Naomi Tani retired. Mabuki was curvaceous and busty, and a spirited performer, writhing and squirming as she was restrained, tied up, whipped and spanked, finding fame starring in films with titles like All Women Are Whores. Her film career was brief, her musical career even more so, having released a single 7" and a single cassette. The cassette was part of a series called Yoru No Driver, designed for truckers, to keep them company on long lonely all night drives, and were thus sold primarily in gas stations and truck stops. Both are collected here, and both are as weird and wild, freaky and fucked up as all of the other installments. And in its own way, one of the weirder installments.
Playing more like some soap opera on tape, the music is exotic and groovy, somewhere between easy listening and light jazz, but with strange Eastern tinges. The music fading out, to play in the background, while Mabuki and her male 'co-star' deliver their lines. Growing more and more frenzied and feverish, until Mabuki begins to sob, and groan, and squeal, the sound of fabric tearing, the sound of tape being pulled from a roll, the sound of whipping, grunting, breathless grunts and howls, all bathed in reverb, and over a smooth jazzy backdrop.
Other tracks feature fuzzy flute, muted trumpets, string stabs, groovy guitars, some actual singing (most notably on the second track, which was the title song to one of Mabuki's films), steel string guitars, spacey synthesizers, shimmering harps, shuffling snares, what sounds like koto, xylophones, some tracks totally goofy and cheesy, others haunting and ominous, at least one a groovy string soaked disco groove, but most all of them featuring long stretches of soap opera drama, with Mabuki pleading and sobbing tearfully, eventually giving in, and losing herself in some sexy punishment. Weird weird weird, but as always pretty fascinating and of course way recommended for fans of wild and exotic sounds.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, sexy photos of Mabuki including the cover shot of her gagged with a scarf, and the gatefold phot showing Mabuki in an open robe trussed up with red cords, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese including a biography of Mabuki, and notes on each track. ULTRA LIMITED!!! Like most of the releases in this series, this one is a one time only limited pressing of only 1000 copies, and is already SOLD OUT. There's a good chance once these are gone we will be unable to get more...
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Just as it first appeared in the Boston Area around 1977, there are no song titles, contact info or any other identifying information accompanying this mysterious release, a reissue of a private press recording of serene but outsider-inflected new age classical composition. Like another similarly minded aQ fave, Moolah, the music presented on Mad Music Inc. is an oceanic mixture of echoed piano, harp and gong, in short sketches with one track adding percussion, some subtle bass groove and female spiritual cosmic jazz vocals (not quite the "cosmic disco" stated on Drag City's cover sticker, but still pretty cool!).
The primitive cover painting of two diametrically opposed naked women looks like it was inspired by Da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man, with the women jumping out of their constrained environs. This seems like it would be an easy candidate for the Nurse With Wound list, especially with the back cover graphic of a chuckling Ming The Merciless type character with a tape machine implanted on the side of his head. Whatever it means, it must have been too elusive for even Stephen Stapleton, an obsessive authority on such obscurities. Regardless, for fans of weirdo new age, library records, and private press mysteries, this should be a nice sounding addition to your collection!
Awesome. A few years ago, some friends of ours -- the Jewelled Antler guys as a matter of fact -- had a once-in-a-lifetime record collector wet dream come true experience while on a day trip up north of San Francisco. They came across some sort of town dump / recycling center place where a whole bunch of old vinyl lps had been left free for the taking. Like, someone's entire record collection! Of course our friends expected to find the usual beat-up Bread, Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel albums, but took a look anyway, just in case... and soon realized they'd stumbled upon a small cache of extremely cool, rare records! Obscure psych rock and free jazz stuff. Terry Riley and Alice Coltrane and even some Yahowha 13 lps!! Lucky bastards. Among the treasures was an album on Verve by someone called Malachi. We got to hear it, were wowed, and ever since have been hoping to find a cd reissue... at last, here it is!!
Psychedelic New Age before either terms were widely known or even invented, Holy Music was recorded one late San Francisco evening in 1966 by proto hippie Malachi. While most people consider psychedelic music of this time to be from garage rock bands who used sitars, Holy Music was truly one of the first psychedelic recordings in the way we define that term nowadays, meaning long and druggy, hypnotic, droney and blissed out. These five pieces named Wednesday (the day in which he recorded them) are raga-tinged guitar cycles accompanied by Jews harp, tom toms and meditative chanting, that bridged an eastern ornamentalism with earthy western counter-cultural invention. Malachi was the Animal Collective of his day. Allen Ginsberg was a big fan, and if you like your psychedelia to be both dreamy, drifty and earthy then we're sure you'll be big fans of Malachi too. Recommended!!!
Poor misunderstood Charlie Manson. Visionary, musician, troubador, murderer. Wait, one of those things he is not. Murderer. That's right, let's not forget that Manson committed no murders himself, it was his 'Family' that did 'em. Which of course insured that these recordings would be both way more infamous than they would be otherwise, but at the same time would be poison to any one who agreed to release them. Recorded a couple years before the Tate-LaBianca murders, these recordings have a rich convoluted history: it was rumored that the intended victim of the murders was in fact a record producer that rejected this record, and every producer approached to release them later recieved death threats, and it was later proven that much more succesful musicians than Manson had been taargeted for assasination! Phew. You'd never know it listening to this album. In fact, in a blind listening test, you'd be hard pressed to pick this out as the work of a soon to be incarcerated cult leader / mass murderer. Reverb drenched beatniky psychedelic freekfolk, sort of hippy and trippy but really pretty great. And Manson's voice is really nice, a little rough, a little raw, but warm and rich. The tracks range from gorgeous lilting dream folk to tripped out beatnik jams, to sixties psych rock, complete with bongos, acoustic guitar, strange clattery percussion, noodly electric leads, all with lots of delay and reverb giving the whole thing a rich shimmery vibe. Not all that surprising as Manson was BIG into music. Read any of the Brian Wilson / Beach Boys bios, and you'll find the Boys spending a great deal of time hanging with Manson, who seemd to always be a fixture at big Beach Boys bashes, and threw wild parties at his desert hideaway Spahn Ranch. And indie rockers have been obsessed with Manson Sings for years, always talking it up as a lost folk gem and sometimes even covering Manson's songs (the Lemonheads do a killer (sorry) version of "Home Is Where You're Happy").
Fans of the current crop of indie hippy forest folk, like Devendra, Feathers, Wooden Wand, Fursaxa and the like should realize, if they don't already, and whether they like it or not, that they have a freak folk father figure in the form of one Charles Manson...
This new version has extensive liner notes by Phil Kaufman, road manager of the Stones, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa and others, ESP label honcho Bernard Stollman, as well as an interview with Manson himself.
Finally available on disc.
Both albums digitally remastered with added liner notes by Martin Denny himself.
Everybody's favorite sleeptalker is back and we're really fucking excited! Dreams Again, the previous release on Tzadik, is one of our most loved and consistently selling "spoken word" CDs, and with reason. Most of us who talk in our sleep tend to say maybe a couple words or phrases at best, often mumbled so quietly that it's hard to even catch the words they're saying -- if you even happen to be awake and close enough to hear it. Well imagine someone that regularly, throughout his entire life, recited entire dreams in a clear voice. And imagine every one of those dreams being the most ridiculous and surreal dreams imaginable. That's Dion McGregor. The story goes that in 1961 Dion McGregor -- a born again freeloader, chronic couch-surfer and quasi-successful song writer -- was discovered to be a verbose sleeptalker by the friend whose house he was currently crashing at. The friend, a director of porn films, attempted to jot down the dreams, but McGregor's speech was just too fast. With some mild coercion (free rent must have been involved) a mutual friend and song writer, Michael Barr, agreed to allow McGregor to sleep at his apartment in return for being allowed to record his dreams. Barr set up a microphone at the head of Dion's bed and for seven years recorded everything he could. Apparently Dion's vocalizations tended to begin just before waking in the morning, so there was a bit of predictability they could count on. Playing the tapes to the right people at the right time eventually resulted in an LP released on Decca in 1964 entitled the Dream World of Dion McGregor (and in 1999 Tzadik released a cd of additional material also recorded by Barr). While there must be enough tapes of McGregor's ramblings to cover several more volumes (Barr claims to have recorded upwards of 500 dreams), we'll have to settle for these 80 more minutes for the time being. Listening to these bizarre tales it's hard to believe that these are coming from a man who's genuinely asleep. The way McGregor recites them sounds almost conversational, describing the events he's undergoing. At the same time Mcgregor is both the director of his dreams: telling us to all get ready for the scavenger hunt (reciting off a myriad of strange objects that must be located), but also a participant: confessing to us that he'll never be able to locate said objects in such short time. And, it must be added, he almost invariably ends each transmission with horrified screaming. No matter how mild or whimsical a dream may be when it starts, it always seems to end in either tragedy or just plain shrieking madness. But the theory that McGregor made up and performed these monologues, fully conscious, is even harder to imagine. He would have had to have been quite a writer and a performer to achieve such results, and to allow it to remain archived in obscuity for eternity. No matter, even if these were faked they still add up to an impressive collection of the most fucked up, hilarious and down right amazing monologues this side of Kenneth Patchen. An absolute must for all lovers of the more disturbing aspects of the human psyche!
More pioneering electronic music unearthed by Japan's EM Records (previous releases include discs by Barton Smith, David Rosenboom, and Noah Creshevsky). This time, it's Barton and Priscilla McLean. A husband and wife team, but no Sonny and Cher here!! This duo performed live as the "McLean Mix", and were responsible for a bunch of sought-after Folkways LPs in their time, including 1979's "Electro-Symphonic Landscapes" (all the tracks from which are found here). The cover of this cd is an adaptation of the cover of that LP, the artwork actually being the graphical score for Barton's "Song Of The Nahuatl" (it's interesting to note that while the McLeans worked together, they didn't collaborate compositionally it seems -- half the tracks here are by the Mr. and half by the Mrs.). The McLeans got their start together in electronic composition in academia, at the University of Indiana, South Bend, 'round about 1973, when the Music Department there brought in a huge EMS Synthi-100 synthesizer and Synthi-256 sequencer. Hours of tape-splicing creativity would ensue! That mega-synthesizer was later repossessed (!) so the McLeans turned to musique concrete techniques (bouncing steak knives on violin strings, metal bars on piano strings, that sort of thing) to source their sounds, combined with the output of what electronic equipment they were able to access. Much of this disc, tracks dating back to 1975, feature this sort of laborious processing of sound. And the results are fantastic! Reminds us a bit of the classic Forbidden Planet soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron, another husband and wife team who preceded the McLeans in the annals of electronic music... In addition to the vintage '70s stuff here, there's a couple tracks of some newer material from the digital age... which holds up quite well, actually! Keening drones, mysterious pulses, psychedelic bleepage -- yep, way better than Sonny n' Cher!
EM has graciously provided both English and Japanese liner notes, so the 22 page cd booklet makes good reading for anyone curious about the McLeans' musical methodology, as well as providing cool graphics and intriguing photos to ponder.
Few records in recent memory have had us so excited in anticipation for their release, but this outsider visionary gem is so unquantifiably unique that it has worked its magical charm on us in such an intense way that we knew we had to make it Record Of The Week. Even before we heard a lick of music, the album cover, title and artist had us asking so many questions. That simple but puzzling orange cover with a vintage stock photo of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the mysterious and oddly misspelled title, Liter Thru Dorker Vibes, by an even more mysterious and misspelled artist name, Medico Doktor Vibes. Dorker Vibes??? What on earth could this be? Only a small text in the bottom right corner that said, 1979 Compton, CA and the record label Bi-Russell Records offered any clues to its origins. But the music inside, even stranger still is a primitive bedroom concoction of Caribbean-inflected outsider rock made with electric guitar, kalimba, synthesizer and drum machine that is an equally woozy, weird and introspective set of spell-casting witch-doctor psych groove.
Folks who bought Johan Kugelberg's excellent book on Private Press records, Enjoy The Experience, may recognize the cover as it was featured in that book as well as the opening song, "Diska Limba Man" which was included on the companion musical compilation, but its curious lack of back story in the book only give the record a more mysterious aura as if beamed into our world from another dimension. And it's almost like it was, as this record was just discovered at an Oakland Colosseum flea market only a few years back and made its way to the ever-curious vanity record enthusiasts at Companion Records. Companion, who has brought us some incredible private press reissues from Stan Hubbs, Michael Farneti, The New Creation (whose Troubled just got a vinyl release, reviewed elsewhere on this list), Marc Mundy and Luie Luie, did the legwork (with help from Rob Sevier of Numero Group) to track down the artist, who it turns out is a Guyanese man named Bill Russell, and worked with him to see this unique release resurrected. True to Companion's mission, they have reissued the record in the same form as the original with an old style tip-on sleeve, blank back cover and no liner notes, so as to experience the record as it is, unfettered from preconceptions. However, we did press the label for a little context and we'll get into some of the record's back-story a little later.
Each of the seven songs here vary in tone, but they are united by the instrumentation mentioned above in different combinations and Russell's accented softly mumbled delivery, as well as a seemingly urgent determination to get each song recorded as envisioned. As primitive as the recording and performances are, every song seems to have a deliberate focus, with moodier songs on side one and more rocking songs on side two. The record doesn't seem to have been made to promote himself as a professional or as a demo to make better produced recordings. In that, it is a perfect one-off record, its only obvious influential musical touchstones apart from some Caribbean musical rhythms, might be a bit of Santana and Hendrix perhaps (though this doesn't quite reach their heights, quite the opposite), but we're hearing a bit of Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Otis G. Johnson and even some Suicide in there too. It really just sounds like Russell plugged all his instruments directly into a 4-track, hit record and worked around the mistakes, never letting them curtail his vision.
The opener, "Diska Limba Man" sets the tone with an off-kilter synth sequencer and wonky slow-disco rhythm, the tempo slowing down and speeding up in an elliptical groove while an electric guitar and a tinny kalimba add melody and texture respectively. Russell's voice thickly accented but emerging from an introspective murmer sings of a small musical instrument and the man who plays it, embarking on a hypnotic repetition as the song progresses into a sort of subdued dark disco trance. The second track, "Kalimba Tune", is just that, the kalimba alone in a beautifully played magical weaving instrumental that borders on the minimalist composition of Philip Glass. The third track, "Take A Closer Look" ends the first side with a slow looping organ dirge with a loping martial rhythm, inflected with a simmering guitar melody that adds a mystical resonance. The song urging the listener to "take a closer look at the life you are living" points to the lighter ("liter") and darker ("dorker") vibes the album title implies.
Side two has more of a heavier rock feel. "Givers of Affection" opens with a motorcycle blues guitar riff and what sound like harmonica blasts and rudimentary drum machine in a Canned Heat style, Russell's voice double tracked in a driving falsetto. "Lonely No More" has a more laid back sunbaked Zam-rock vibe, with funky Caribbean rhythms and freaked out synth leads, filtered through homegrown distortion and double tracked vocals layered incongruously into a strange psychedelic brew. "Dig This Calypso" is a stoned sunny and breezy take on the origins of the calypso beat, and we're usually not that big on calypso, but as with all the songs on the second side, this one layered with warm distortion and gritty guitar squalls all filtered back in a lo-fi Caribbean funk groove, makes it one of the better calypso inspired songs we've heard. The final track, "Water Late" is an instrumental with a medium-fast shuffled martial rhythm, and some seriously wonky exploratory guitar leads as if Doug Blunt was fronting some primitive cave rock band like Cromagnon. It ends the record on a slightly open ended note as we're left to wonder what in the hell did we just listen to? But that is exactly the kind of naive quality in this record that makes us want to put it back on and listen to it again, figure out the words and try and put together what it all means, and why for all of its outsider artistry, these songs remain so hopelessly and wonderfully implanted in our brains. And most importantly, who or what is Medico Doktor Vibes?
The folks at Companion filled us in a bit. Bill Russell is an immigrant from Guyana who came to the United States and served in the U.S. military in the seventies. He came from a musical family and after serving, settled in the LA suburb of Compton and decided to make a record. He bought the recording equipment and instruments he used on the record all at once and set about making this one and only LP. He chose the cover image carefully by color because he thought it matched the mood of the record and thought it would appeal to people, even though he oddly didn't notice the Golden Gate Bridge, or at least it didn't register any additional symbolic meaning for him and he didn't have any Bay Area connection. The title though intentional is logically vague. The story goes that Russell saw the recording as a bridge between "light" and "dark" people, but felt that just calling it Lighter Through Darker Vibes was too politically charged and so he twisted the words to "Liter" and "Dorker" in avoidance (this must have been before the word "dork" came into a more common parlance). His hopes were that both Light and Dark people would come together and groove out to his music , though it was distributed modestly with only 100 original copies and went absolutely nowhere. Perhaps now with this reissue, Russell's original vision will finally come to pass. We certainly hope so.
Limited to 500 copies! Sorry no download code.
Okay, so he was "the English Phil Spector". Whew, got that out of the way. In fact he's arguably one of THE most innovative, albeit the most obscure, producers *ever* (other candidates being Spector, Brian Wilson, Lee Perry, other votes welcome!). Though famous first and foremost for his hit with the Tornados' "Telstar" (the first English pop song to hit #1 on the charts in the U.S.), this tone deaf wunderkind had a penchant for the very strange and esoteric as well. It's been said that the man turned down the opportunity to have a first stab at recording The Beatles and David Bowie while counseling an aspiring band to axe front man Rod Stewart if they wanted to work with him. Bad judgements or refined tastes? Given much of the work Meek chose to produce in their stead one might quickly point the finger in the direction of bad judgement, but Meek's visionary "I Hear A New World" suggests that the man had an altogether sublime inspiration that was far ahead of its time.
Fascination with what life could possibly exist on the moon was the seed which drove Joe Meek to compose what could be considered the first "rock" concept album. He wanted to "create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space." Quite a task. A task that required Meek to use every producing trick in his bag (a very, very big bag.) Take the foundation of an instrumental band, in this case Meek's The Blue Men -- a sort of Venturesy, Shadowsy, Les Paulsy kind of thing -- then squash the hell out of the drums with compression, throw delay and reverb around like a death battle with King Tubby, and add a potpourri of unusual instruments including the Clavioline (a super primitive pre-synthesizer) a purposefully out of tune tack piano, the occasional double speed vocals and you can almost hear Joe's New World. Top this off with the fact that Joe was attempting to create a stereo recording working only with primitive two track machines (not a huge multi-track facility) in his two room apartment recording studio and you know the man had to be a mad genius. (Certifiably mad, if the murder of his landlady and his suicide are any indication.)
This fine new edition of this *absolute*must*hear* album includes, along with all the original tracks, a 35 minute monologue by Joe Meek recorded in 1962 in which Meek gives a brief autobiography leading up to his residing at 538 Holloway Road, describes his studio and its contents: microphones, recording decks, etc and talks about his work. Quite a unique document. Also included on the disc is a film clip of Joe Meek in his studio talking about the music industry (and though the makers of this CD claim that you can only play the film on a PC, it seems to work fine on both Mac and PC.) Plus you get a nice fold out poster with Meek's original notes for each song on I.H.A.N.W. and a thorough telling of the story behind the album.
Let There Be Drums! Whoo, cool to have this old fave reissued on vinyl! Especially with previous anthologies on Strut and Mr. Bongo now out of print, original lps of course also being hard to come by...
What the heck was the Incredible Bongo Band, you might ask, and what was so Incredible about it? Well, just listen to the soundclips of "Apache" and "Last Bongo In Belgium", we bet you'll recognize 'em. The Incredible Bongo Band are one of those almost anonymous groups who in fact contributed quite a bit to hiphop and dance culture, with many of their breaks being sampled literally HUNDREDS of times. In fact, it can be argued that IBB cut the "original breakbeats"! Kinda funny to realize that they were in fact Hollywood-based studio session players, led by producer Michael Viner (responsible for several Sammy Davis, Jr. hits), who came together to record chase music for the Ray Milland/Rosey Grier horror flick "The Thing With Two Heads" - and ended up putting out records now revered the world over by the hiphop/DJ community. Their debut "Bongo Rock" 7" sold over two million copies in 1972; that is, apparently after they pulled the cover that showed how white they were and replaced it with a closeup of racially unidentifiable hands playing bongos. During the course of their career, supposedly such big names as John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and Glen Campbell all dropped by to play a little.
The band's main bongo player Jim Gordon (who co-wrote "Layla") later went cuckoo and killed his mom, but despite that tragic association, the IBB's music is super fun, and more than a little kitschy, good not only for DJ sampling purposes but also enjoyable groovy listening on its own. The 8 tracks on this reish of their 1973 full-length include both funky originals, and equally bongo-riffic cover versions, like the aforementioned surf classic "Apache", also Iron Butterfly's heavy psych epic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", believe it or not (lotsa room for a bongo workout in that one). And who can forget "Duelling Bongos"?
We haven't gotten any of these in yet, but figured some of our weirdo music / obscure art-vinyl obsessives might want one of these, especially folks into the whole Trunk Records scene of strange lost audio from yesteryear. These are EXTREMELY expensive, but exquisitely handmade, so this is in fact a pre-order, cuz we'll only be getting as many copies as we get orders for, so if you want one, and order one, we'll charge you for it now, and ship it in a couple weeks when it comes in, either on its own, or with whatever order you have pending at the time.
So here's the skinny. The Trunk Records label is definitely a good reference point, as this record really does seem like it could just as easily have ended up on Trunk. Mary Millington was the most famous pornstar in 1970's Britain, appeared in all the most famous adult magazines, even had some film roles in proper non-pornographic films. Around the mid to late seventies, Millington began to record 'porn audios' which were included with many magazines at the time, which were, as you might imagine, Millington simply talking dirty, playful and casual and conversational, telling sexy stories, being nasty, stories about peeing on her suitor, and being peed on ("Lovely Little Tinkle"), giving blowjobs ("The Longest Tongue In The World"), and giving underwater wanks ("Come Play With Me"), laced with little aside ("Ooooh, it's hot!", "I've got pubic hair in my mouth!"), and all set to groovy, soft focus psychedelic jams, all remastered from the original tapes and some of the flexi-discs included with the above mentioned magazines.
If you were a fan of the Flexi-Sex release on Trunk, which collected some of Johnny Trunk's favorite sexy flexis, you'll have an idea of just what you're in for, sexy, goofy, funny, playful, weird, total outsider audio from a lost era.
And as mentioned above, the packaging is super super deluxe, pressed on 140 gram 10" opaque blue vinyl, housed in fancy gatefold sleeves using recycled card stock and conservation glue, hand pulled screenprint artwork by Walden Press on the front and back, as well as a saucy full length image of Millington inside, on 1970's style newsprint.
EXTREMELY LIMITED!!! We can probably only get a handful, so (pre)order now if you want one!
Some recommended, unusual improv here. We were quite surprised at what a pleasant and compelling listen this is, considering the definite weirdness and occasional wackiness of it, which comes mainly from the "Two Voices" referred to in the title. Those two voices - belonging to Phil Minton and Audrey Chen (who also have a duo-only all-voice disc out on Sub Rosa, released simultaneously with this, that we'll be listing soon too) - specialize in mostly nonverbal, nonsensical "singing" - not really what most folks would call singing, but freely improvised sound-making with lips, teeth, tongue, throat, lungs... And what they do is really taken to extremes here - quiet extremes as there's not really any screaming or shouting. Lots of moaning muttering mumbling whining wailing whispering whistling burbling babbling blubbering hissing and humming, however. Pretty much almost any noise you could imagine being able to make with your mouth and some others that you can't! And while without meaning linguistically, you can't say it's not meaningful on some other level, more primal and emotive.
Sometimes there's a silliness to it, Minton and Chen sounding like Muppety monsters with gastric disorders, but sometimes it can be downright disturbing, harrowing stuff like a chorus of damned souls; either way we're enjoying it and we think fans of, like, Mike Patton's various vocal experiments and a lot of the singing of Eye from the Boredoms would really dig this too. Obviously that also goes for anyone already into UK voice improv vet Phil Minton - or similar "sound poet" Jaap Blonk of Holland.
On the face of it what we've just described might seem to be outside of a lot of folks' usual musical comfort zone, but for those with open ears, we feel that this comes off as being intriguing and entrancing rather than in any way annoying, also in part perhaps because of the other elements on here, the "Four Instruments" portion of this quintet (as well as singing, Chen plays cello, Segers is on electric bass, Jacquemyn on double bass, and Verbruggen plays drums), which provide the perfect environment of gently improvised "chamber orchestra" music for these eccentric voices to inhabit. The instruments and voices really mesh well, the musicians laying down delicate drones, skittery percussion, scraping strings... all of which mimic or is mimicked at times by the human voices themselves, achieving an atmospheric synthesis, so you can't always tell what's voice and what's instrument, not to mention how many there are.
It's soothingly bass-heavy, as you might imagine from the instrumentation, and also as we said rather gentle and oddly pleasant, with quiet blissed-out stretches, despite its textural density and potential disturbance factor. Even when Minton, on the fourth track, gets into some rapid fire glossolalic mumbo-jumbo like an auctioneer with Tourette's, it's actually somewhat hypnotic (or amusing). By the way, he's the only person on here with whom were were previously familiar (and we haven't reviewed much by him, just a couple albums he's been on with folks like Bob Ostertag and Tom Cora), most of the other folks are presumably from the Belgian improv scene since this was recorded in Brussels and released on Sub Rosa.
Again, like we said, a bit of a surprise, but we've been listening to this A LOT, even when going to sleep at night. Strange dreams...
