**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
This sixties electronic kids' classic reissued on vinyl!! Here's our review from when we listed the (now out of print) import cd reissue way back in 2004:
This is the fourth Dimension 5 record in which Bruce and Esther ask children to, rather than drop out, drop into the way out sounds within! While the artists' statement on the back of the original record expresses a philosophy of "love and reverse-psychedelics", vaguely implying an anti-drug stance, there is a very slim chance that if your child was listening to this in the late sixties they wouldn't be carrying the keys to the kingdom soon after. The Way-Out Record For Children is conceptually exemplary of its 1968 inception. Likewise, it is very much ahead of its time. Heads will dig the vibrantly colored tales of sun travels, rainbows and butterflies set to a sitar and synthesized drum mantra surfing the cosmos ("Mudra") as well as the close encounters with shape changing creatures from outer space ("The Saucer's Apprentice"). Prog fans, check out the lesson in odd time signatures ("Accents"). What we perceive as our sense of taste is miraculously transformed into sound ("Four Seasons"), as is our perception of physical motion ("Rubberbands"). If you're not ready to come home by the end of this record, maybe the looping, echoey refrain of "nothing to do" in the closing track will prompt you to take another trip far out!
Mr. Night of the Hunter's extremely collectible record is now on cd.
Unfortunately, we can't play this disc in the store too often because Andee expects to be taken out for pizza and Jim starts having these creepy ice skating flashbacks from his childhood. But for those of you out there who love big organs, and I *know* you're out there, you're guaranteed to feel the swell of these pipes down in your loins when you crank this one up. Originally released in 1957 and 1958, the two albums on this disc are classics in the pipe organ genre. They were both produced by 101 Strings creator Dick Miller, who was apparently always keeping his sights on the bleeding edge of hipness. What's more is that Georges Montalba was nothing more than a pseudonym. The real man behind the organ here was Bob Hunter, a man who already had an immensely successful career as a concert pianist and arranger. While this may not seem all that odd -- plenty of people in show business use pseudonyms -- the persona of Georges Montalba was made ever more mysterious by two additional circumstances. The first was that Mr. Hunter, for some reason, never told anyone about his being Mr. Montalba with the exception of an audience attending a 1964 performance by "Montalba" in which he revealed his true identity. The second was the exploitation of Montalba's true identity by none other than the Church of Satan's longtime leader Anton La Vey. La Vey apparently milked a Church of Satan follower's suspicion that he was in fact Montalba. It wasn't too difficult to fabricate a story to fit since he had -- prior to acquiring his day job as Satan's spokesman -- been a successful theater organist in the San Francisco bay area. The whole gruesome (well, not really gruesome, but very interesting none the less) story is related in detail by both reissue producer Toby Dammit and Anton La Vey's own daughter Zeena Schreck (who disputes her father's claim) in the liner notes. Listening to this disc, it comes as no surprise that one might become convinced that Mr. Church of Satan himself was behind the pedals. The playing by Hunter of the huge Robert-Morton Pipe Organ (to which was affixed an additional complement of a Deagan vibraphone and a set of orchestral chimes) is truly possessed. Not to disparage Mr. La Vey or his followers, but upon closer listening you can tell that the caliber of playing is a notch above Mr. Satan's. On these two Hi-Fi Mono recordings Hunter performs the works of Saint-Saens, Khatchaturian, Rimsky-Korsakov, Manuel de Falla, Wagner, Sousa, Grieg and more (including a couple original compositions) with all the ferocity of Swedish progster Bo Hansson (see Hansson & Karlsson). Take this one home and crank it up 'til your neighbors' ears bleed.
Hugo Montenegro was one of many light composers of the space-age bachelor pad era that included Dick Hyman, Esquivel, Frank Comstock, Ferrante & Teicher and Ray Coniff. What set him apart from his contemporaries was a flair for restless frenetic rhythms, scatting vocalese, and groovy surfy spy themes like the soundtrack for such b-movie potboilers as The Lady In Cement and the TV shows The Wrecking Crew and The Ambushers. But his most literally electrifying moment came from his adoption of the Moog synthesizer for 1969's Moog Power, one of the more zany Moog records out there next to Gershon and Kingsley's In Sounds From Way Out. Not that he was exactly going for that. Everyone knew the Moog could make odd sounds, but Montenegro wanted to mine its musical potential to see if it had commercial appeal.
While the record is mostly covers of the day, "Hair/Aquarius", "Traces", The Doors' "Touch Me", and others by The Turtles, Harry Nilson and Jimmy Webb ("MacArthur Park", but only the rocking end part!), he puts such high energy into the arrangements which gives the songs a kind of warped feeling like the Hullabaloo singers on speed. We're sure that has only added to its appeal amongst Incredibly Strange Music circles. But the title song, the only Montenegro original, is worth the price of admission alone!
Hugo Montenegro was one of many light composers of the space-age bachelor pad era that included Dick Hyman, Esquivel, Frank Comstock, Ferrante & Teicher and Ray Coniff. What set him apart from his contemporaries was a flair for restless frenetic rhythms, scatting vocalese, and groovy surfy spy themes like the soundtrack for such b-movie potboilers as The Lady In Cement and TV shows, The Wrecking Crew and The Ambushers. But his most literally electrifying moment came from his adoption of the Moog synthesizer for 1969's Moog Power, one of the best Moog records out there next to Gershon and Kingsley's In Sounds From Way Out.
Now, in typical anthologizing fashion, the generous folks at The Omni Recording Corporation who have brought us many a left-field pop eccentric such as Porter Wagoner, Biff Rose (also reviewed this list), Bruce Haack, Hoyt Axton, and Jim Blanchard & Misty Morgan set their targets on Montenegro's enormously varied output. Sometimes Omni's exhaustive anthologies can be, well, exhausting, offering almost too much work from a single person. The first half of Mr. Groovy is largely well-worn covers ("Classical Gas", "Happy Together", "Love is Blue" etc.), that are not quite as rewarding as the second half's awesome Moog pieces and spy themes. But the quantity versus quality complaint is a minor one when it comes to Omni's releases who most of the time deliver both in large numbers. Just don't dismiss this disc because you don't like the theme from "Hair". Grooovy!
Oh man! Where would we be without the Moog (pronounced MOAG, not MOOG). We wouldn't have Stereolab, or Tortoise, or E.L.P. (says Andee!) or almost any of the risk taking bands of the last thirty years. Well, we'd probably still have 'em but boy would they sound completely different. And most certainly not nearly as good! The history of Robert Moog (who is unbelievably cute and so effusive about his keyboards and the folks who play them) and the development of the synthesizer is totally fascinating, especially so for music tech nerds, but definitely fun for anyone to watch. Loads of insane footage from the sixties and seventies: Moog instructional videos, live performances, interviews, and up close examinations of the machine itself, a snarled mass of wires and knobs and plugs that look almost organic, like the inside of a human being! But it's definitely the live performances that drive the point home, showing the Moog in its element demonstrating quite easily how it managed to define and recreate the possibilities of synthesized sound! A particularly awesome clip features Gershon Kingsley (of Perrey and Kinglsey) defending the Moog against critics who at the time claimed it was a machine NOT a musical instrument, some Stereolab shot right here in SF, and of course some INSANE Keith Emerson Moog jams. Later in the film there's a brief bit on the theremin, but for the most part it's all about the moog!
Extra stuff includes deleted scenes, interviews with DJ Spooky, TIm Gane of Stereolab, Charlie Clouser of Nine Inch Nails, and more Bob Moog himself, as well as extra live footage from Money Mark, The Album Leaf, and more. Probably the most amazing extra though is a Schaefer Beer commercial, where a dude all decked out in his seventies finery, plays a wild Moog-ed up version of the Schaefer beer theme before pouring himself a tall cool one!!
Just in! 2nd pressing, now on red instead of green vinyl! If you've still got the holiday spirit, and haven't grabbed one yet, now's your chance before they're gone again...
Along with the recently reissued 12" of holiday faves by Wooden Shjips, WS mainman Ripley Johnson gets similarly festive with his WS offshoot spacekraut combo Moon Duo, which finds Johnson and his partner Sanae Yamada tackling one Christmas classic, and another obscure winter themed cover.
Up first is "Silver Bells, which we had heard described as "Silver Bells meets Silver Machine", but barring the swirls of reverb and the echo-ey vox, the band play it pretty straight, offering up one of the poppiest bounciest jams we've heard from these two. The perfect hazy blur of wasted Christmas cheer for sure.
The flipside finds the band tackling a fairly obscure Rolling Stones track, titled appropriately enough, "Winter", from the Stones' Goats Head Soup record, no one here remembers what the original sounds like exactly (the label describes it accurately as a 'deep cut'), but in the Moon Duo's hands it just becomes another gorgeously washed out smear of spidery glistening guitars, whirling gauzy keyboards, and tripped out reverbed vocal mumbles, all drifting in a wastedly warbly haze, that reminds us way more of the Velvets than the Stones.
A little spacey, a little krautrocky, a little dream poppy, a little Christmasy, but as always, droning and druggy and divine...
Subtitled: Musical Saw And Hawaiian Guitar Soli Recorded In Early 1920s. That's what it is, and it's SO GOOD! We're in love with this sepia-toned collection of old time tunes, some of them lively rags, others sad slowed-down ballads made even sadder by the unique sound of the saw.
If Japan's EM Records (the same label responsible for reissuing both the "Symphony of the Birds" and the Moolah records we raved about last list) has anything to do with it, pretty soon we'll have a whole little "musical saw" section here at Aquarius! It's one of their several weird, wonderful obsessions (along with thrift-store exotica LPs, obscure '70s New Age psych, pioneering electronic experiments, etc.) and so there's a slew of releases on EM featuring the gorgeous, if sometimes gimmicky (but not here!) sound of the musical saw.
We're gonna start you out with this, music by Sam Moore, an early 20th century master of the musical saw ... who also plays a mean guitar too, and who is accompanied on most of these tracks by another talent of the era, Horace Davis. (Roy Smeck and Frank Banta also make appearances.) You'll get to hear Moore's "Octo-chord" (an 8-string steel guitar) alongside the "harp-guitar" (a guitar outfitted with extra, resonating strings) of Davis on their hit, the "Laughing Rag". But it's the tracks with the musical saw that grab us the most. Listening to those, you'll understand why this instrument, steel bent and bowed, is also often called the "singing saw". It's got a definite vocal timbre, maybe also a bit like the electronic Theremin in that regard. Wavering, wordlessly moaning, haunting and eerie. MOOOHIEEE! (Man, we'd love to hear John Jacob Niles accompanied by a singing saw, if such a recording were to exist. That would be perfect.)
Some background: Sam Moore (1887-1959), was a child musical prodigy who, having quickly mastered the violin, guitar and banjo, soon developed an interest in playing more eccentric, unconventional "instruments" as well. He'd been doing so from a young age -- Moore's father once claimed that Sam, as a child, had been able to "get music out of a pitchfork" (!) although sadly, no recordings exist to prove it... But we do know that at one point Sam Moore was part of a vaudeville act called "Spooning And Ballooning" in which he played an inflated rubber balloon, dueting with another fellow who played the spoons (of course). Another of his unusual instrumental specialties was (as documented on much of this fantastic cd) the carpenter's steel hand saw, which is something of a Southern folk music-making tradition. 'Round about 1918 Moore had taken to playing the saw, and was able to capitalize on the fad for the instrument in the early '20s, bringing his sawing skills to New York City's famed Ziegfeld's Follies for a successful stint on stage circa 1920-21. Although that fad soon faded, Sam Moore never abandoned the saw, keeping it in his instrumental repertoire as his career stretched into the '40s and '50s.
All the recordings found here date from Sam's sawing heyday in the Twenties... 13 tracks all taken from rare old 78 rpm records treasured by collectors. That these vintage recordings, warm and crackly, are so burnished with the patina of the past only makes sound all the better to our ears. EM has fitted this out in handsome digipack, the only disappointment being that the extensive liner notes are pretty much all in Japanese...
What with the current retro electro boogie wonderkinds like Adult. and Ladytron, this is a more than timely release of that suave disco dance-meister with the bad-ass moustache, Giorgio Moroder. "Best of" may be a bit of a misnomer though as this compilation
Whoa, this is really... something! This cd is subtitled "40 one minute BIO-VIGNETTES by BILL MORRISON Recorded in 1971". And yes, it certainly is.
So, who the heck is The Balloon Man? Well, we're certain that he's not Bill Morrison the filmmaker who made Decasia, nor is he Bill Morrison the videographer/musician who plays with Skinny Puppy. Nope, they're different fellows altogether. This Bill Morrison was a real 'one-of-a-kind' -- a peculiar nightclub performer who back in '71 concocted the idea of pre-taped one minute long radio shows. He believed they would make for a lucrative career move. Problem was, no one else at the time agreed. And it's not really all that hard to see why. But we know as well as you, that there's just not enough stuff like this in the world. If only we were around (well AQ was, but WE weren't) to stand up and proudly proclaim the... um... brilliance of this wacked and damaged disc.
A Morrison minute can range from a totally focussed yet still absurd commentary to a completely oblique bizarre tangent. Along the way he touches on subject matter such as cars, brain tumors, coats, rectal disease, Leonardo DaVinci, wanting to stay in the womb when he was being born, and yes balloons. Hear him chuckling to himself about the how-to's of balloon blowing, getting himself riled up about blowing up balloons in different social situations, hollering a short phrase like "I sometimes think I should be! Y'know!" or "Oh oh oh oh oooh oooooooooh!" repeatedly until he's filled up the 60 seconds, and assorted other funny voices, noises and yuks. Sometimes he even continues to rant right over the cheery banjo'n'horn theme music that ends each vignette. Be sure to read the segments' titles, they're a hoot all by themselves! "Leftover Turkey", "Simple Balloon Animals: a Sequence", "Sex Between The Big Toe", "Make A Balloonskin Coat", "Bleeding Salmon", "In The Water But There's Something But You"!
So yeah, you might've guessed the shows never aired. A year later along came Mal Sharpe (of the inimitable, 1960's absurdist men-on-the-street Coyle & Sharpe -- if you haven't done so yet, please do yourself a favor and familiarize yourself with this duo... seriously!) who decided to make a short film about this Balloon Man. Now jump ahead over thirty years, and Sharpe's daughter Jennifer has just released those long-unheard recordings on cd. Whew! These forty unrelenting minutes could almost be a fairground attraction. How much can you take? Last 'til "Leftover Turkey" win a pencil! Last 'til "Go Climb A Rock" win a pair of socks! Last 'til "Balloon Man Take Me To Wherever You Are Going" win a date with Balloon Man! Okay, not quite. One thing though, be sure to listen to it in a relatively quiet setting 'cause if your space is even remotely noisy you'll probably only be able to hear random mumbles, hoots and guffaws between the much more, ahem, stable crystal clear theme music.�
Very limited edition of 300 packaged in very sharp lookin' (oops, no pun intended) letterpress printed covers.
This one's a doozy, one to add to the WHAT THE FUCK section of your collection (you do have one of those don't you?), you know, Fastest, Steven Schultz, Rodd Keith, heck we might even include Ween and the Frogs and other twisted practitioners of their own peculiar sonic songcraft, and now you can add MSG to that group. (Not to be confused with the -other- MSG, the Michael Schenker Group, by the way.) It might be good to listen to the samples first, odds are you'll have one of two reactions, both of which were experienced by listeners at aQ, one was like 'what the fuck is this, for god's sake please take it off', while the other was 'what the fuck is this? This is totally fucking nuts and I love it', which is where most of us ended up.
It's hard to tell from the liner notes if these songs were actually recorded by a child, but we're thinking it was recorded by an adult, channeling his inner child. As the liner notes describe, and the title alludes too, these songs were born of a bored mind, trapped in a gated community, obsessed with MTV, heavy metal, hip hop, BMX bikes, candy, cars with boomin' systems, the man (boy) behind MSG inheriting a shitty keyboard after his grandma died, and creating songs that somehow combined all of his (above mentioned) loves at the time, set to what sounds alternatingly like lo-fi Kraftwerky robotic electro pop and DIY hip hop, imagine dorky sing songy melodies, shitty programmed Casio beats, and vocals delivered in various 'voices', from falsetto croons to faux robot voices, and some amazingly painful rapping.
"Liquid Titanium" is total sci-fi robo-funk, with stiff programmed grooves and sci-fi synths, not to mention some rad robo-vox, while "Boom Boom Boom" is super lo-fi pop electro-pop, with an infuriatingly catchy chorus, "Calculator Machine" might be our favorite though, some fuzzy squelchy synth-wave, with pounding drums, snake charmer synth melodies, more robo-vox and some anguished monstrous bellows, not to mention some hilarious lyrics. And of course there's the sort of cock rock anthem / public service announcement of "You Want To Party / Don't Do Drugs", replete with raspy arena rock star vox, but belted out over some dorky damaged synthesizer, and another cloyingly catchy chorus. Sure it's dumb, and goofy, but it's weird and pretty goddamn hilarious, and we end up finding ourselves listening to this way more than lots of other, less dumb things, which says a lot!
Includes a download coupon.
True to its title, Mucca Pazza's new album is a kitschy kaleidoscopic listen of, yes, marching band styled escapades that tumble out of your speakers with a swooning bump'n'grind exotica flair. Lots of brassy horn, accordion and percussion stimulation! We know it's a totally different thing, but if you loved the recently released Daisies soundtrack or Balkan gypsy music inspired groups such as Beirut or A Hawk And A Hacksaw, we'd highly recommend Mucca Pazza too! An ultra fun album that'll put a gleeful smile on any grumpy face.
Final pressing!! It's taken a long while to get enough of these in stock to list, as they've flown out the door since we started stocking it back in June, and then our distributors kept being sold out of it. Makes a lot of sense that folks have been freaking out over this, as the sounds on Science Of The Sea are some of the most blissed out sounds we've ever heard.
Originally recorded in 1982 (there is debate over that, we will get to that later) by an oceanographer in Germany while living on a houseboat. The sounds on the album undoubtedly talk to the sounds and feeling of the sea. You not only feel like your floating but often that you are underwater yourself. With soft waves glowing in their ripple, as such warm shimmering sounds come gliding out of the grooves of this record. Imagine the right kind of new age bliss injected into the most pastoral & ethereal side of kosmiche glory and you begin to get a picture of what kind of beautiful sounds are found on this album.
While some doubt has been risen as to whether this really is a reissue of some obscure private press from 1982, or in fact the work of a modern artists, perhaps even Brad Rose, the man behind Digitalis. But who knows, and in the end who really cares, as its the music that matters, and the music on this album is beyond gorgeous!
Long, long ago we stocked an LP of recordings from San Francisco's own Cliff House-based Musee Mechanique. Sadly this album went out of print a few years back, leaving many sad customers who'd found out about it too late. Well weep no longer, as AQ now has an all new disc (the first of several, we're told) of recordings made of the machines at the museum.
The Musee Mechanique, for those who've never been, is a hands-on museum of early penny arcade machines (some over a century old) kept in their original working order for the public's enjoyment by the determined work of curator Edward Galland Zelinsky. Every time we have visitors from out of town, we take' em here. Stereoscopic peep shows, moralising fortune tellers, old baseball game machines, nickelodeons, prisoner art made out of toothpicks, music boxes, player pianos, "test your strength" challenges, animated dioramas, and more are constantly kept in tune -- it's both historic and entertaining. (Including everyone's favorite -- Laughing Sal, a larger than life size doll who just laughs and laughs and laughs. Wonderful.) The 27 tracks found here are all new recordings of the various machines (mostly player pianos playing assorted rags), captured after museum hours, so it's free of unwanted tourist chatter (although they nicely left the sounds of the coins falling into the slot as lead ins to each track.)
The Musee Mecanique at San Francisco's historic Cliff House is one of our favorite things in the whole city. We *always* take visitors from out of town there, and they always love it. The Musee is a collection of antique coin-operated arcade machines, lovingly restored and cared for, including animated dioramas ("The Opium Den" is a favorite), crank-operated racing games, mechanical strength-testing devices, boxing and baseball games, fortune tellers, and many automated musical instruments (player pianos, music boxes, and the like), which fill the place with great old ragtime tunes. They've been recording the machines (complete with the sound of coins dropping in to start 'em) and have plans to release a whole series of cds documenting this delightful old-timey music. Volume One came out last year (and we sold quite a few), and now we've got Volume Two! Yay! These 27 tracks are similar to the stuff on the first volume, perhaps "more bouncy" though. And the famous Laughing Sal (the giant, manaically whooping automaton who dominates the entrance to the Musee) makes another appearance, closing out the disc with one of her always-disturbing outbursts of hilarity... A nice way to keep some of the spirit of the Musee Mecanique in your home, and to help support their preservation endeavors!
Everyone here at Aquarius was SO happy and relieved when the Musee Mechanique -- that wonderful place full of antique penny-aracade machines that's one of our favorite San Francisco cultural/fun spots -- found a new home at Fisherman's Wharf. Previously it had been a highlight to a trip out to the historic Cliff House next door to the ruined Sutro Baths up above Ocean Beach, but the Park Service decided the Cliff House needed a renovation and gave the Musee an eviction notice. Thankfully, rather than close up, they managed to make a move down to the Wharf, which while not as picturesque a location, still seems to have worked out well for 'em. You'll now find the Musee at pier 45, shed A, right alongside the Jeremiah O'Brien and that WWII submarine. Not only did the Musee find a new home, but now they've released a third volume of recordings documenting the player-piano-roll operated mechanical musical contraptions you'll find there. Vols. 1 and 2 were hits here at AQ and with good reason. Vol. 3 picks up where they left off, featuring more of the music made by their collection of lovingly preserved orchestras-in-a-box from decades and decades ago. For the first time ever, the machine pictured on the cover, the huge and impressive "Englehardth", finally appears in all its sonic glory on disc, as they finally got it fully restored into working order.
As with the other volumes, these are excellent recordings and each track starts with the coin drop, a nice touch. Musically, you can expect lotsa charming old timey tunes with titles like "Maurice's Irresistable Tango", "Grandpa's Spells", "There's A Shanti In Old Shantitown" and "My Song Of The Nile". Some you'll recognize, some won't be so familiar. All are quite quaint to modern ears, yet lively and spirited. There's 27 musical tracks here, from jaunty foot tappers to romantic melodies -- and then as always, the Musee's mascot, Laughing Sal, wraps things up with her disturbingly forced, truly hysterical laughter. Next best thing to actually visiting the Musee Mechanique, which we highly recommend.
Yes, it's that time of year again, where all we hear outside the store is the worst Christmas music imaginable playing incessantly everywhere. Luckily over the years, we've been able to find a few select holiday gems to play in the store that don't make our skin crawl. Like John Fahey's The New Possibility, A John Waters' Christmas, Basinski's Silent Night (now sadly out of print) and Low's beautifully solemn Christmas album. This year we got a new treat in the form of this strangely monikered National Jazz Trio Of Scotland. We say strangely monikered because this is neither a trio nor is it jazz, but really what it is is Scottish musician Bill Wells and a handful of like-minded musical compatriots taking apart and rebuilding (respectfully) the traditional Christmas carol canon. Musically, Wells brings an eerie hushed chill and a charming vibrant peacefulness to the proceedings that sound like carols heard shortly after a quiet early morning snowfall. With just keyboards, piano, viola and voices, this is definitely great for keeping the ire of holiday tension down to a sedate manageable minimum. Lovely!
PHAK YEAH!! It's been, like, ten years since this local groop, the 'South East Asian' alter ego of sonic subversives Mono Pause, put out their debut album, which became quite a bit of a hit here at aQ. Now at long last they've recorded a follow-up full-length, featuring the anthemic track "Fucking USA" which appeared on a 7" single some years back, along with ten more brand new cuts of their exuberant ethno-rock exotica.
Among several AQ pals, Neung Phak's ranks include Mark Gergis (of Porest), who is the man responsible for a lot of our favorite Sublime Frequencies releases (and who now runs the likeminded Sham Palace label too). So you know that this band's take on various forms of traditional pop musics from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and elsewhere is well researched, steeped in firsthand knowledge probably gleaned on a backpacking / cassette-tape-digging trip overseas...
Neung Phak should definitely appeal to fans of Dengue Fever, trafficking in the same sort of groovy vintage Cambodian Rocks style psych pop, but with more of a twisted, fucked up edge to it, in the tradition of the late great Sun City Girls - whose Abduction label put this out, and whose Alan Bishop makes a cameo appearance.
"Fucking USA", which they would have us believe was recorded in Pyongyang, is probably the most punk rockish thing on here, but the whole album is exceedingly energetic and effervescent. And full of surprises - like the distorted electronic noise and free jazz freakouts that erupt in the middle of foreign-language funk vamp "Sa-Ha".
Make no mistake, though, even with the sometimes crazed vocals and distorted acid rock guitars, many of these tracks are dancefloor fillers, for sure! Their wild East-West hybrid may have its faux-ethnic elements, but they don't fake the funk. It's like the music Funkadelic would have made if drafted and sent to Vietnam in the '70s, then gone AWOL and playing in some dive bar with local musicians.
Meanwhile, the disc's closer, "Sad Chatri", is a seven-minute psychedelic slow burner, its grooves more for nodding out than getting down. Damn good, as is this whole album, highly recommended!
By the way, this was also released on limited vinyl as well, a couple months ago, but that lp version went out of print too darn fast for us to list - though we may just have 1 copy left if you act quick...
What would happen if the Shaggs had found god before recording their seminal LP? We've found the answer and it is The New Creation. Recorded in 1970, a year after the Shaggs' "Philosphy of the World" was released, one wonders if the group may have been inspired by the Shaggs D.I.Y. attitude. Hailing from Vancouver, B.C. The New Creation were the most unlikely blend of Christian evangelism with a flower-power hippy outlook which propelled their unique vision through an extremely off-kilter musical vehicle pieced together with leftover body parts: the Velvet Underground taped to the side of the Shaggs chassis with a rebuilt Pat Boone engine under the hood. Ramshackle and tentative, but so earnest and heartfelt and surprisingly catchy. And the lyrics aren't as positive as the music and the presentation might lead you to believe, focusing more on damnation, and fire and brimstone and b
Biblical tales of God's might and power. The biggest surprise is the opening track 'Countdown To Revolution', an epic, acid fried, unstructured freak out with strange effects, 'trippy' reverb, and all manner of TESTIFYIN'!! Creepy but cool!
From the same folks who brought us the amazing Teen Dance Music From China And Malaysia compilation.
Finland's self-proclaimed Undisputed Kings of Lasermetal are back! Note that 'Lasermetal' as a genre exists ONLY in connection to Nightsatan, and is definitely NOT actually metal, though these guys do look pretty metal - you've got one guy, Inhalator II, wearing all sorts of studded gear, including studded headband; another guy, Wolf-Rami, who has a scary skull face inside his motorcycle helmet; and a third, Mazathoth, who wears a Boba Fett style helmet, and a cape, and has antlers inexplicably growing out of his back. But they're an instrumental synth trio, not metal in the slightest, except conceptually perhaps.
If you recall, we made Nightsatan's debut album Midnight Laser Warrior an aQuarius Record Of The Week a few years back, blown away by their brand of "crazy, futuristic, electro prog", a soundtracky, synth-heavy sound inspired by John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream, not unlike Zombi or Umberto, but taking that into a ridiculously fantastical Finnish realm of over-the-topness. Well, with this new release they somehow go even FURTHER over the top, 'cause instead of just sounding like a soundtrack, it IS a soundtrack, to a real movie that's included here on its own dvd disc packaged with the cd. And the movie stars Nightsatan, playing themsleves, as surreal sci-fi superheroes wandering a futuristic wasteland encountering (and slaying, or having sex with) strange characters. It's an homage of sorts to Italian '80s post-apocalyptic exploitation cinema, complete with dialog dubbed in Italian (English subtitles are provided). It comes across like a mix of Mad Max and Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, truly bizarre and absurd, full of gory special FX and nudity. Sex, violence, and synthesizers! Basically, an extended, insane music video for Nightsatan. It's a professional production, including some impressive special effects (it's worth watching the 'making of' bonus feature to see how they did it - 'cuz we didn't think they had deserts in Finland), with a plot involving, yes, 'loops of doom' - we can't explain it but it does sort of make sense. it's really a bit disturbing at moments, and twistedly funny too, and of course the music is pretty rad, and you can enjoy it alone on the soundtrack cd, which is twice as long as the movie, consisting of 14 tracks, 48 minutes of Nightsatan's retro-futuristic synth-splorations, droning and glistening, often underlaid with propulsive beats via Inhalator II's 'laserdrums'. Mood-wise it ranges from sinister suspensefulness, to exciting electro-rock, to maudin, melodic 'love theme' moments.
Fans of Umberto, Trans Am, Blizaro, Emeralds, all ought to dig - imagine a mix of all those, but with an added element of pure Finnish WTF?-ness. It's hard to believe that Nightsatan are NOT one of the so-called NWOFHM bands put together by the guys in Circle, like Steel Mammoth. But nope, they're just friends, apparently this sort of thing just what they do in Finland these days. Ah, Finland. Ah, Nightsatan!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally (legally) reissued.
We mentioned in the past that EM records just might be our favorite new record label. They also have pretty much clinched the title of MOST CONFUSINGLY ECLECTIC RECORD LABEL EVER. Their catalog is massive, but even just looking at only the discs we've reviewed so far, your head will spin and your ears will spew smoke just like those old cartoons. Let's see, so far we've got freaked out sixties free jazz, musical saws, space age exotica, cut up tape birdsong symphonies, bizarre seventies psychedelic krautrock (from the USA), lost Australian dub, experimental tape music and of course MORE AND MORE SAWS. What the heck is it with the musical saw? EM Records (and Japanese music fans in general) seem to have an inordinate love of the singing saw.
It's easy to see why though. A high keening lonesome wail that imbues whatever music it's accompanying with a ghostly, old timey, dreamlike, melancholy vibe. This record from the bizarrely named Noahlewis' Mahlon Taits is not some recently discovered, unearthed 78 rpm record from the thirties or forties, some dusty old scratched up slab of wax, stashed in the bottom of an old trunk in the basement of some house in the country for the last 8 decades. Although it does definitely sound like it. Nope. Noahlewis' Mahlon Taits are a modern ensemble, channeling musical ghosts and sonic spirits through an eclectic array of old time instruments, weaving, dreamlike, otherworldly soundscapes of old time jazz and slow smoldering ballads, warm and warbly, just like listening to some scratchy old 78, but performed live.
Brings to mind the band on some doomed ocean liner, the bar band at that mysterious bar at the end of the world. People are sitting in corners, heads held low in dark booths, couples slow dancing, a row of regulars slouched over the bar. Very cinematic and atmospheric. Flutes and violas, guitar, accordion, piano, cello, shuffling jazz drums, banjo and ukulele, and of course musical saw. The fiddles creak and keen, pianos tinkle, the cellos and violas weave soft fluttering backgrounds, melodies are dimly lit and drift wraithlike through the smoky jazzscapes, there are even a few moments of blurping jug music, but above it all is the singing saw. Its haunting theremin-like siren song soaring one moment, whispering and shimmering the next. So totally lovely. Six Pieces For Dancing immediately transports you to another time, another world, it's like stepping into some old tattered photograph, straightening your ascot and top hat, handing the doorman your cane and overcoat, grabbing a drink and heading out to the dancefloor, just as the band in the corner starts up again. So cool!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Word-jazz classic from a voice you've heard on the Incredibly Strange Music compilations and countless TV commercials. Every piece is about a color, from olive to ecru, plus 10 never "heard" (seen?) on the original, including fuchsia, cerise, nutria.
100 percent pure fun! All your favorite early 80's new wave and post-punk classics done bossa nova style by a couple of French producers with some wonderful female vocalists from France and Brazil. The story goes that the producers (Marc Collin & Oliver Libaux) found singers who were unaware of the original versions in order to capture a totally fresh cover version. And they did! Joy Division, XTC, The Clash, P.I.L., Dead Kennedy's, The Undertones, etc. get the treatment. The perfect soundtrack for when you want something that will make you smile and dance around your house. This moves beyond guilty pleasure and ranks right up their with one of the most fun and well executed cover records in a long long time.
High Llamas fans, you probably don't want to miss this! Indeed, you're probably already well aware that band leader Sean O'Hagan composes plenty of lovely music outside of his main band, right? But you probably weren't able to attend the various aural art installations he and Belgian pop-artist Jean Pierre Muller have collaborated on for the past half decade, were you? This new book+cd set, though nowhere near the actual experience of being in those environments, will have to do!
The 5.5"x6" 96-page hardcover book is filled with full color photo documentation of the first two installations' preparation, Muller's touch-sensitive art pieces as well as the attendees interacting with them.
The cd features O'Hagan's unmistakable soft-focus space age cocktail hour soundtracks which formed the interactive sonic loops in the installation. Their burbling dreaminess make for quite a languid contrast to the immediacy of the eye-poppingly vibrant paint and collage visuals!
We've long been a song-poem boosters around these parts. How could we not be? So innocent and inspired and brilliant. From John Trubee's legendary "Blind Man's Penis" single to those I'm Just The Other Women collections from way back and the more recent The American Song-Poem Anthology: Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood And Brush compilation on Bar/None. For those of you who are new to song-poems, there was (and still is to a lesser extent) a whole industry of musicians (and shysters of course) that would set your poem to music for a couple hundred bucks. Probably the most well known was Rodd Keith, who has had several compilations released over the years. But the song-poem industry was definitely a subject ripe for a documentary. So finally someone went and did it. And it just so happens that it was AQ pal Jaimie Metzger! We're happy to report that the film is really really good, and so goddamn funny. And of course a little sad. Some of the highlights: Interview with Caglar Juan Singletary, a cute nerdy bespectacled young man who writes about ladies, religion, science fiction and martial arts, and is responsible for the absolutely brilliant "Non Violent Taekwando Troopers". The whole segment on Gary Forney and his son Josh and their Iowa Mountain Tour, where they play their classics "Chicken Insurrection", "Three Eyed Boy" and more, for a perplexed crowd at an RV park. This part was so brutal I literally had to walk out of the room! The interview with the man who sang and performed "Blind Man's Penis", a cute old country veteran talking about how embarassed he was, and how that song was maybe his most embarassing moment. A totally intense segment with Gene Merlino (responsible for the brilliant "Jimmy Carter Says Yes!") pulling a major power trip with his band. A serious argument ensues. So rough. Anyone who has ever played in a band will shudder with recognition. Then there's an amazing segment showing the whole process from the poem's arrival through the finished song/product. It only takes about one hour actually! All the segments with Tom Ardolino of NRBQ, the original champion of song poems, who is so damn cute and genuine and plays us all his favorite song poems. And a really poignant bit with Rodd Keith's son. An amazingly made, brilliantly researched, hilarious, sad, and totally fascinating documantary. Kudos to Jamie. And obviously all the writers and musicians. Lots of DVD bonus footage, deleted scenes, studio sessions, the Iowa Mountain Tour Live (oh man....) much of it filmed by AQ pal/regular Cayce Lindner!
This week the Kismet label brings us two rare sitar infused flower power psychsploitation oddities: The far-out mindwarping "children's" record for the hippie acid kids, Kali Bahlu Takes The Forest Children On A Journey of Cosmic Remembrance from 1967 (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this 1971 sitar and electronics groover from Holland's Okko!
Just like the title suggests, this is Dutch musician, Okko Bekker composing original tunes and performing covers for Sitar and Electronics. Taking a less druggy and more groovy and jazzier tact than the Kahli Bahlu record, Bekker covers the Beatles and channels Hendrix, following the likes of Big Jim Sullivan (Lord Jim), Bill Plummer, and Gabor Szabo into pop sitar territory. This is probably a bit more heavy and far out than the others, but it still definitely falls more under the category of lounge exotica than into any head-expanding territory of its own. Though it come close on "Pointed Sails on Ganges" the most Eastern of any of the tracks offered here, and the one that most sounds like the cover looks. Still pretty damn groovy!
Nico meets Jandek in these beautifully introspective proto-goth dirges by an anonymous woman from Czechoslovakia who moved to Canada and self-released these songs on a series of singles in the late seventies and early eighties. Music was her outlet to deal with the depression and alienation she felt living away from her home country, and these songs are almost laughably dour, though also quite lovably naive. Mostly performed with delicate Eastern-European tinged organ drones, she later recorded under the name, The Triffids (no connection to The Australian group), with an instrumental track that includes percussion and synth. Early demos are also included here, and display a slightly brighter air with acoustic guitar and reverbed vocals that will appeal to fans of Liz Harris (aka Grouper). Perhaps not a record for everyone, but those with unusual and eccentric tastes towards obscure but sincere outsiders will find a lot to love here!
Comes with insert with lyric translations. Limited edition of 500.
Issue #4 of this Seattle zine has arrived! You simply seldom see this sort of lovingly handmade, cut'n'paste publication these days! Features include stories about Grouper and Blue Cheer, animal facts, assorted other writings, comics, collage, drawings, and reviews of gigs and... beer! The 52-page zine comes in a plastic sleeve which also corrals a handful of odds'n'ends -- some screenprinted stickers and a cd-r of educational, spoken word and children's LP obscurities. Limited to 450 copies!
Oh, oh, eye oh oh! Drummer/trumpeter/vocalist/Flaming Lips mascot Yoshimi P-We's other main gig besides the Boredoms is back with their first album since 2009's Armonico Hewa. Over the years, OOIOO has honed both the playfully melodic aspects of their sound, and their sheer rhythmic prowess, into something simply magical. Gamel is something even more extra-special though, probably our favorite from the groop since their early outings Feather Float and Gold & Green near the turn of the millennium. As the name suggests, this album takes a lot of inspiration from Javanese gamelan music, in fact adding two actual gamelan players to the core group, OOIOO herein melding the tinkling, metallic (actual metal, not heavy metal) percussive sound of the gamelan with the band's usual tight grooves, vocal chant and electronic textures. They were somewhat "tribal" before, now OOIOO verges on exotica! It's gorgeous, dense, detailed, funky in a funky way, bright and colorful, absolutely captivating right from 10 minute opener "Don Ah" through all eleven kaleidoscopic tracks. Super recommended!!
Both the compact disc and limited double vinyl versions come in gatefold sleeves, the vinyl with a free download card.
What hath the popularity of The Osbournes wrought? Music for the weirdest nightclub you've never been to, apparently. Opium Jukebox is actually Martin Atkins of Killing Joke -- Opium Jukebox seems to be his project for doing trancey techno cover versions of rock music. He's already done a Sex Pistols tribute, an alt-rock one with Nirvana and Jane's Addiction tunes, and has a Rolling Stones tribute in the pipeline. None of which much interest us...but THIS does. He's roped in a sitar player and dug up some vocal samples ("courtesy some dodgy market place in the Far East") to do a "Bhangra" style album of Black Sabbath covers!! Yep, a blend of traditional Indian instrumentation and modern electronic synth and beats making essentially instrumental and 'exotic' (but mostly recognizable, if you know your Sabbath) versions of the likes of "Iron Man" and "War Pigs". For some reason they've neglected "Sweet Leaf", which seems odd 'cause this has a definite hookah-suckin' vibe -- most of the synth effects sound like bong hits, even. It's super-cheesy, but how can you resist? We couldn't. While we would certainly recommend the artistry and atmosphere of Rondellus' Latinized early music style Sabbath-chants above "Bhangra Bloody Bhangra", there's still a place on our shelves next to that AQ-fave Rondellus "Sabbatum" disc for this. It's a worthwhile novelty for sure. Wonder why it exists, but listen and enjoy (or at least, confuse your friends). Track list: Supernaut, Iron Man, Heaven & Hell, N.I.B., Paranoid, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Snowblind, Embryo, War Pigs, Suicide Solution (hey that's a solo Ozzy song, not a Sabbath one!), and Supernaut again.
And as we later discovered, if you dig this, check out the Opium Jukebox Sex Pistols record which is done in a similar style, sitars and all.
4 local guys have fun messin' with Henry Mancini. Ralph Carney. Joe Gore. Matt Brubeck and Scott Amendola. "Eccentric." "Quirky."
Second album from local band featuring experimental reeds/horn player Ralph Carney and lauded guitarist Joe Gore, among others. "Adrenaline-fueled far-out ride through '60s and '70s film soundtracks and radically reinterpreted standards."
Groovy, baby! Are you a filmmaker making a movie about sex kittens on the moon? A crime drama with rocket ships and ray guns? A documentary about swinging space aliens building the pyramids? Or just daydreaming about such subjects? Well, have we (and Omni) got the totally fab, pre-fab soundtrack for you!! Swank futuric funky jazz loungey freakbeat electronic grooves perfect for any kitschy exploito-flick you could imagine, pounded out by a band led by composer Peter Thomas, whom perhaps you know already as the man responsible for scoring Raumpatrouille (Space Patrol), a classic German '60s sci-fi TV show. His "in-kraut" stylings on many, many other soundtracks have earned him a cult following.
This exuberant disc consists of prime Peter Thomas stuff, material recorded in 1970, released as an obscure library music lp in 1975, and never before released on cd, until now! Remastered, from the original master tapes, and expanded with 4 rare bonus tracks, this features 16 tracks in total, most about 2-3 minutes in length, each categorized variously as either "Beat", "Electric Beat", "Strong Beat", "Rock Beat", or "Fast Beat", for what it's worth. They've ALL got bombastic beats, along with brassy horns, sizzling synths, fluttering flutes, and occasional wordless vocals... Any TV commercial or film project that was wild enough to made use of this library music would sound pretty hip, considering that the players in the Orchestra Peter Thomas included close associates and/or members of krautrockers Amon Duul II and Brainticket... Oh, and on lead guitar, Vampyros Lesbos co-composer Siggi Schwab!
Definitely another awesome Omni find. Packaged with informative, photo-illustrated liner notes, where you can read about PT's one of a kind "Tho-Wi-Phon" synthesizer, among other interesting things.
Perhaps most famous for his 1937 cantata, Carmina Burana (whose "O Fortuna" is the go-to score to represent medieval horror and fascist power in film), our favorite Carl Orff works are actually the musical exercises he developed with Gunild Keetman for educating young children. Developed in the 1920's and popularly known as "shulwerk", or "schoolwork", the music is elemental and combines movement, singing, playing, and improvisation. Often played on what is known as "the Orff instruments": glockenspiels, xylophones, metallophones, drinking glasses, violoncello, bells, cymbals, drums, and the triangle, but also plenty of hand-clapping, knee slapping and feet-stamping, the exercises were largely rhythmic and percussive in nature and were designed for instructors to tailor the material to the students specific needs and playing levels. Instructors were also allowed to add popular children's songs and rhymes from their home-country to the repertoire. Translated from the German by Margaret Murray and performed by the Chorus of the Children's Opera Group, The Speech Ensemble from the Italia Conti School, and The Instrumental Ensemble, this Trunk records reissue was originally released in 2 lp editions in 1958. Most songs are under a minute for a total of 85 songs (for this reissue, the lp version has been distilled to 48 tracks on a single lp, but you get 'em all on the cd version)! This UK version features many nursery rhymes like "Pat-A-Cake" and "Tinker-Tailor", but also has some old British folk songs lincluding the very oldest song "Sumer Is Icumen In" and some creepy ones like "The Witch Scene from Macbeth" and "Tommy's Fallen In The Pond", that give some of the singing a spooky feel. But it also hearkens back to a seemingly lost time, where music education for young children was a serious endeavor available and encouraged for everyone. Delightful!
Which is gonna be harder, to convince you to buy a cd just for one song, or to buy a cd by The Osmonds? What about both?? Let's find out...
Ok, we might have trouble arguing that it's worth buying a whole cd (one with two entire albums on it!) just for ONE song. And it definitely seems likely we'd have even more trouble when that cd is by The Osmonds. But, then again, the song in question is "Crazy Horses"! If you haven't heard it before, this will be a lot easier for us if you just listen to the sound sample below, before we continue...
If you -have- heard it, you know that it was a remarkably heavy hit from a squeaky-clean group of cute, mop-topped brothers (including of course youngest brother Donny) not normally known for being such rockers. Heavy enough to qualify as proto-metal in our book. And also a bit of a novelty, we'll admit. But doesn't it make you wonder if the rest of the album from which it comes, 1972's Crazy Horses, is also as kitschily kickass? Well... the whole album is a bit of a novelty it turns out. Nothin' on it quite as crazy as "Crazy Horses", but there ARE definitely some other cool tracks, including the garagey groover "Life Is Hard Enough Without Goodbyes" and the Beatlesque "What Could It Be". Elsewhere they dabble in everything from soul balladry to what sound like Broadway showtunes, but seriously, there's enough decent rock here to make "Crazy Horses" not seem like a total fluke.
Adding to the value for money (really), the Crazy Horses album is teamed up on this twofer cd reissue with The Osmonds' 1973 concept album (yep, a concept album!) The Plan, which tries to teach about the boys' Mormon faith with the aid of some definite fuzzed out acid rock moves (and brassy horn sections too), the most bizarre example of which would have to be the stompin', over the top track "The Last Days", which seemingly suggests signs of Biblical prophecy to be found in the contemporary sociocultural situation of the early '70s... Both Crazy Horses and The Plan are at their best total bubblegum psychedelia, pretty charming after all these years, reminding us of the Beach Boys, early Bee Gees, and ELO - not an unimpressive feat by any means.
Neither album has been available on cd forever (if ever?) and if you don't want to bother digging for the original LPs of 'em at a flea market, then we'd definitely recommend this cd reissue! For "Crazy Horses", of course, but also a lot of other surprising, surreal pop pleasures...
(PS you can also check out YouTube for some "Crazy Horses" action, complete with goofy dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyRiNZDb5EY)
Yes, this is a Jack Palance album. You know, that scary Ripley's Believe It Or Not guy. Plus he was in some movies and stuff. Of course, you know him, you love him. Back in 1969, someone at Warner Bros. though it would be a good idea for Jack to make a record. Maybe 'cause he'd been in some westerns, or maybe 'cause he dug Lee Hazlewood and Johnny Cash, or maybe 'cause the country-rock thing lends itself well to a semi-spoken word delivery when you can't really sing all that well, Jack grew a moustache, went to Nashville and, with the help of some studio pros, cut this album. Now it's been reissued on cd with a big ol' booklet of liner notes and everything. And it is pretty entertaining, totally orchestrated, with backing singers and so on, Jack Palance recognizable as himself, playing upon his sinister, tough guy screen persona with ballads like "Meanest Guy That Ever Lived" (that one he wrote himself, in fact). Now we wish somebody would reissue the Telly Savalas LP!
While Esquivel, Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman are usually the first names that come to mind when people talk about classic exotica, for our money the leader of the pack should for sure be Korla Pandit. Filled with charisma and a quirky disposition he used his Hammond B-3 organ to create sounds that evoke the sounds of a haunted carnival in a mysterious section of India via a b-movie made on a back lot of a studio in Hollywood. Pandit is best known for his TV show which aired in the 1950's on KTLA and through syndication throughout lots of the country.
You got to check out Youtube clips of it right away, it's simple and stunning black & white filmstock zooming in on the beautiful face of Pandit as he wailed away on his organ, sometimes even playing two of them simultaneously. Adorned in a turban, a voice-over would introduce him and his 'Universal language of music.' While it was often believed that he was born in New Delhi the truth was he was actually born in Missouri and was truly one of the first iconic musicians to create such an elaborate alter ego. We love how Pandit's music was not just throwaway novelty fare. There is true mystique, suspense and playful uneasiness in the sounds he created. It makes so much sense that shortly before Pandit died Tim Burton made sure to get him on the silver screen for a cameo role in Ed Wood. It also makes so much sense that after his run on the KTLA show he was replaced by Liberace. While Liberace may have gained more fame and fortune, Pandit is the one who taps into the imagination and hearts of those of us who love strange and enchanting sounds.
Perhaps best known as the arranger of a forty-five year old masterpiece that's famous for having never been released (the Beach Boys' Smile), Van Dyke Parks may be finally getting his due. Of course we've been huge fans of the eccentric wonderland of his 1968 solo debut Song Cycle, which got a beautiful sampling nod from Madlib on his Beat Konducta series (check out the "Left On Silverlake" sound clip from our review of the Beat Konducta Vol 1 & 2 to see what we mean). And his orchestral arrangements on Joanna Newsom's 2006 release Ys were some of his most inspired work we had heard in a long while.
Yet he has remained an elusive cult figure, a master of subtlety and nuance in his craft that has championed the sounds of American folk ingenuity from earlier eras in dizzyingly bright kaleidoscopic arrangements that can be a bit of an acquired taste for those unfamiliar with them. Channeling industrious American composers, such as Charles Ives, and Scott Joplin, the bygone popular song structures of Tin Pan Alley, Honky Tonk and Ragtime and eccentric instrumentation of zithers, mandolins and singing saws, Parks arrangements don't just capture an old-fashioned sound but the feel of a forgotten age that adds a patinaed sheen of passing time to his work. His music and arrangements could easily be a score for any number of Richard Brautigan novels.
Parks himself curated and released this first volume of his arrangements on his own Bananastan imprint, and in typical Parks fashion, it's a varied and eccentric affair. Featuring songs by Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie, Little Feat, Lowell George, Ry Cooder, Sal Valentino, Dino Martin, The Mojo Men, and a few songs by Parks as well, including the first track, an adaptation of Donovan's "Colours" called "Donovan's Colours" credited to George Washington Brown (a pseudonym of Parks) from the Song Cycle album. While most of the tracks enjoyably engage us, there are a few rabbitholes such as the calypso-inflected Bonnie Raitt track that may have you reaching for the skip ahead button. But wiggly twists and turns have always been a feature and ultimately a joy of the Van Dyke Parks experience persuading us to unexpected places we might not venture on our own.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We're pretty excited about this new vintage reissue label, Monk, that's releasing these nice deluxe vinyl versions of early recorded music that are hard to come by these days: blues, folk, country, bluegrass, Western swing and early jazz. Sure there's Mississippi records, but these have nicer packaging, are well researched, and compiled, and just a bit more, well, deluxe. Plus Monk also seems to be focusing on the veritable stars of these genres like Charley Patton, Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs and Django Reinhardt, providing a fine selection of their best early recordings.
Of course everyone should know by now that pretty much everything about the Mississippi Delta Blues tradition began with Charley Patton. From his gravelly voice, his mean bottleneck slide work and his rock-star style stage antics (playing his guitar down on his knees, or behind his back), he influenced plenty of the stars of the next generation including Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, and John Lee Hooker as well as John Fahey, who wrote a book about him. Plus Patton's off-stage womanizing, hard-drinking and death at a young age pretty much established the template for rock and blues idols to come. Fourteen of his best tracks are included here on Prayer of Death including his first bonafide hit, "Pony Blues". You can hear the devil calling in each exquisite note!
Ho ho ho! Just in time for the holidays, the diggers at Academy/Voodoo Funk have unearthed and reissued this rare 7" slab of Christmas cheer, Afrofunk style. Pee Pee Dynamite (what a name!) was an artist from the happenin' mid-'70s music scene in Ghana, and this single was produced by Kwado Donkoh, known to those in the know for his work with the Uhuru Dance Band and the Agoro Records label.
If you pay attention, sure the singer is talking 'bout Christmas and New Years, but unlike a lot of seasonally themed recordings we've heard, this really could be played anytime, the seriously groovy funk shuffle happenin' on the A-side will keep the party goin' right through New Years Eve and long into January... Meanwhile the slower, soulful B-side, truly lives up to the name "The SOUL of Christmas". A neat stocking stuffer for the funk lover in your life. Limited edition as well.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Everything's in Finnish here so we're not totally sure where the band's name stops and the title begins. We've heard from this Markku Peltola guy once before on the Ektro label, with a lovely disc in 2003 called Buster Keatonin Ratsutilalla. Now it seems that Buster Keaton is part of the band name? Of course the real Buster Keaton was a brilliant silent film comedian way back when, and it would seem that Markku Peltola, apparently a famous actor himself in Finland, is a big Buster Keaton fan. Beyond that all we know is that this music is all instrumental, very moody and pretty and sort of chamber-proggy. We compared the other Peltola disc to Penguin Cafe Orchestra and that still applies. It definitely makes sense that this was released on Jussi of Circle's label, since some of this, especially the 13-minute "Juuri N�in!", sounds just a bit like Circle side project Ratto Ja Lethisalo. Also Peltola was a member of a weird Tom Waitsy Finnish prog outfit called Motelli Skronkle of which we know Jussi was a big fan (and in fact a Motelli Skronkle collection is forthcoming on Ektro!).
So, how to describe this? These songs are mild and melancholic, but also rather peppy. There's strings and violin and acoustic guitar and sad horns and clip-clopping, tip-toeing percussion. It all has a sort of genteel, old world charm...nice nice nice. It could be a soundtrack to a quirky Finnish indie film, or the recording of the house band in some really hip cafe where the everyone sits around nodding and smiling wistfully and tapping their feet. We imagine the habitues of this cafe being well-dressed, wearing hats, maybe giving each other sly looks or staring dreamily into space, and perhaps spilling their coffee when the music suddenly gets nervous and frantic (which it threatens to do sometimes, but doesn't really). Strangely irresistable.
Newest recording from England's pluderphonic artist par excellance Vicki Bennett. This release finds Vicky entering more and more into the musical realm of Stock, Hausen & Walkman and entering it with style. Humorous and infectious samples that don't tire with increased listening like so many "funny" electronica releases. Highly recommended.
Fuckin' A! All the the Vanguard recordings of Perrey & Kingsley finally available in one reasonably priced 2 disc set. Yes, I said "2 disc set". "The In Sound From Way Out", "Spotlight On Moog", plus Jean Jaques Perrey's solo albums "The Amazing New Pop Electronic Sound Of..." and "Moog Indigo" are all included here. Perrey & Kingsley, for those unfamiliar with their work, were probably the first electronic composers to work in the popular realm, releasing "The In Sound From Way Out" in 1966. Taking the ground breaking developments in tape and electronic music pioneered by Otto Leuning and Vladimir Ussachevsky and creating outrageoous arrangements of popular standards of the day a la Martin Denny and Esquivel, Perrey and Kingsley made some "easy listening" music that was anything but easy to listen to. Incredibly frenetic rhythms composed of multi-tracked tape loops of sound effects and recorded noise were the back drop to high paced electronic renditions of all the popular hits of the day using the most advanced synthesizers available. Everyone from Stereolab to Negativland claims a huge debt to the inspiration of these mad scientists of electronic pop. Also included are some nice biographical liner notes -- 7 pages worth -- by The Wire contributor Richard Henderson. Oh yeah, and there's also a third disc of Fat Boy Slim and Eurotrash remixes which you can promptly throw away when you get your copy. In its place you could fit a copy of Jean Jacques Perrey's "Good Moog" which was just re-issued as well and retails for 17.98.
Why the Beasties did not give credit to P&K (for the album title) is beyond me. Give credit, it's tribute. No credit, you're lame. A really amazing collection of early experimentation with tape loops and cut n paste frivolity, entertaining to an extreme.
A nice mini-primer of Jean Jacques Perrey and Gerschon Kingsley's best maniacal Moog melodies of the mid-sixties from the Vanguard label. All the best hits are here, including "Baroque Hoedown" better known as Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade theme, It's always great to hear these tracks that so many modern bands like Stereolab, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and The Beastie Boys are indebted too and for the uninitiated, this is a good place to start. Our only complaint is that it's much too short and offers nothing that hasn't been available before. Of course this hasn't stopped us playing it non-stop since it arrived.
This time it is a legal reissue. Originally released 1968, an early electronic-pop classic.
