Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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A lovely recording of the Dots show from 1994 in Amsterdam's Milky Way Club. Not the best quality, but surely not the worst for it being a live show. There is a nice blend of songs on here ? mostly their fav's from their live line up, from "Space Captain" to "A Crack in Melancholy Time." Edward and the band jam together and, even though heard on a stereosystem, bring forth an array of sinister tunes that can truly bring you back to their captivating live performances. This version of "9 Shades to the Circle," like their current tour's encore, strays lyrically from the Nine Lives to Wonder original, and at this show includes very haunting percussion effects and startling crashes that literally made me jump and rush to turn the volume down. "Premonition 13" gives chills with its bitter edged bite of captivating words and changing melodies. The version of "Belladonna" is acceptable, despite barely being able to hear Edward's voice. The original version of "Needles" appears here as well, and eerily comes and goes, fading into an quiet, awesome and completely awe-inspiring extended version of "Space Captain," which is a definite highlight of the show. The Milky Way was the first club they played in Holland and this concert was their final show before the club closed its doors.
The San Francisco-based group pronounced "Room Uh Sock Eeet!" reminds me of one of the best characteristics of some of my favorite bands' early days. They're tight and solid, have excellent melodies, energetic as all hell and recorded the album almost completely live. You have to when you're just starting out, living in an expensive city and short on cash. There's no tricks and gimmicks on this disc, you're getting a sound from the best live concert you could experience, with a minimal amount of correcting (if any) going on in post-production. Lots of melody, a tight knit with the rhythm section, bits of distortion and feedback and no vocals, this disc is a great release from the seeminly endless train of minimal electronica driving through your living room right now. For those who know who Tarentel is, the bassist used to be in them. Rumah Sakit has been brought to us by our charming and sexy friends at Temporary Residence.
Ryan Moore makes it sound so easy. He's become a natural at the Dub Soundystem project.
Over the last five years, his progress has moved into utilizing more electronic and organic instruments while staying true to the ideals of old school dubmasters. Organs and pianos echo, sub atomic bass lines swirl mesmerizing any listener caught in its path, new chimes ring in (almost never heard before), drum beats remain simple and reverberate in loops which end perfectly. The feelings are still there of a desolate scene in a hot western ghost town, or driving for hours in the desert. Listening to this sometimes makes me wish I enjoyed pot smoking as I can picture this would be a great soundtrack to chilling out with meaningless conversation, passing the coochie on the left hand side. Gosh that sounds tacky!
What a grand idea. As opposed to the usual, overly done idea of having other bands remix songs, Matt Johnson's clever self has decided to have other bands cover (or "interpret") his songs. Even though it's not much different from a remix (now the interpreting artist sings as well), it's a refreshing idea. This single for ShrunkenMan starts with The The's original version. The first interpretation is by Daau, beginning with strings and some wind instrument playing the familiar tune from the original. In comes a piano, playing the recognizable hip melody. More beautiful piano follows as the song builds. Suddenly the song goes off with a new style. Cool drums and vocals take over, which are amusing. This half of the song hardly resembles anything of the original. I love it. The next interpretation is by John Parish. This version is all acoustic, much simpler and slower than the original. The final version is a dark, spooky interpretation by Foetus. I recognize this version as it was played as a prelude to their live concert I caught last month -- remembering that I didn't even recognize it until noticing some vaguely familiar lyrics. I like this interpretations concept, all the versions are great and very different from each other. If anything, the EP was a wee bit too short. Other than that, it was perfect and I'm very much looking forward to the next set of interpretations, which I believe will be for December Sunlight. Read More
In their own words, this is "a ridiculous display of personal hygiene through over-sampled funk and breathing problems." I saw this bandlive about 4 years ago as one of five people in the audience and wascompletely stunned by their insane and delightfully tastelessperformance. I hadn't heard anything about them since, so needless tosay, I was very surprised to see this 7" turn up. The music isincredibly amusing, and highly innovative in its own ways. Using aplethora of eccentric samples, they combine a kind of extreme congodancin' funk to create this surreal music. This release also comes witha free ingrown toenail! Definitely for fans of Negativland, Nurse withWound, Volcano and the Bear, and the likes. They have several otherreleases available through their record label, Nerve Rust, which youcan contact at Box 211, Athens, GA, 30603, USA. Tell them Brainwashedsent you.
This is the debut album from this band whose fans now seem to be growing exponentially. Thoughjudging by the instrumentation alone, this album seems to have no realconsistency to it, there is definitely a certain "Echoboy mood" thatglows through the whole disc, in instrumental and vocal tracks alike.The single of the album, "Kit and Holly," is a lovely blend of pleasantsounding keyboards and a nice guitar melody that mix very well with thelyric, "I've got to keep on running..." Great music for the road or forwalking around town with headphones, dancing to yourself. There aremany tracks that consist of simple keyboard programming with guitar orbass strummed down on top, making a nice, quaint sound. The album isreally well produced and constructed, especially for a debut. Echoboywill soon be playing in Barcelona at the Sonar Fest 2000, as well asother European dates. www.echoboy.com
The Buzzcocks formed in the summer of 1976 ... the big bang of UK punk. In October they spentless than a hundred pounds for half an hour of studio time to recordthe "Spiral Scratch" EP, the first independent, do-it-yourself, selfreleased UK punk record. The 4 songs that make up the EP ("Breakdown","Time's Up", "Boredom" and "Friends of Mine") were done live in thestudio, most in 1 take, each with a single guitar overdub. They'reexactly what you'd expect from the early days of punk ... simple,cynical, sarcastic, catchy, brief and explosive. Howard Devoto's lyricsare more personal than political, delivered in a nasally whine over thetight and talented (in punk terms) rhythm section of Pete Shelley,Steve Diggle and John Maher. The Devoto fronted Buzzcocks is thedefinitive line-up as far as I'm concerned. The album that followed, "Time's Up", has slower, less abrasiveversions of the 4 EP songs plus 7 more songs including the classics"Orgasm Addict" and "I Love You, You Big Dummy". If you're a fan of anyearly UK punk (such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, etc)these two discs are just as essential as "Never Mind..", "Damned,Damned, Damned" and "The Clash". Kudos to Mute for giving a shit aboutthe past and re-issuing them ... this is really important stuff forhistorically minded music aficionados such as myself and gives everyonea chance to discover vital music. The "Time's Up" disc also includesthe "Breakdown" video with footage from the first gig and both discshave really nice inserts chock full of pictures (most from Devoto'spersonal collection and previously unseen), liner notes, interviews andlyrics. My only complaint: why 2 discs? The EP is a whopping 10 minutesand the album less than 30, so why didn't they just put it all on 1? Ohwell, both were reasonably priced. Thanks again Mute ...
As the title says, this 7" release was available at the recent Kid 606 dates throughout Europe. Again, a split release from 555 Recordings of LeedsUK, the Kid's side consists of three tracks - all very short,especially at 45rpm on a 7". "Start/over" is a droney melodic piece, asis the last track, "Relive yr unhappy childhood." However, the middletrack, "attn:vat!" is very statically beat-driven, with subtle odditiesgoing on through the background. Fun stuff. Side AA is Lesser, with twotracks: "epic act" and "awful way to go." It starts out with Lesser'sshout out to Kid 606 and "those that don't like it, eat a bowl of dicks- those that do, blast these kicks." At which point the butchery ofFaith No More's "Epic" blasts through with extreme, V/VM-styled beatsand morphs of the original. The latter track is mostly noise andmachine-gun-styled drumbeats. A very fun and release, as most 606releases are.
The 606 side is a niceblend of noise and hard, fast electronic beats, although the noiseseems to flow more melodically in the music than with Kid 606's usualwork. It keeps around the same pace throughout thetrack, though at the end a few different noises and effects are addedto make it extra tasty. It clocks in at a little under five minutes.The Remote Viewer side is a bit softer, with a unique, low-tempoelectro-beat overlaying droney distant keyboard work. The track dropsoff after a bit, then picks up - then repeats this again. This is on apicture disc 7", with much Japanese writing and nice anime girls withguns and such. It's out on the 555 Recordings of Leeds UK label.