November 30, 2008

Discordance Axis - Jouhou (Devour, 1997/Hydra Head, 2004)...

Hell yeah. This was originally released on Devour Records in 1997, and here it is again in new packaging with bonus tracks from the split 7"s with Plutocracy and Melt Banana, etc. "Jouhou" seems to remain my favorite output from the band, if for no other reason than I find the recording to be thicker and more effective than many of their other sessions. The percussion is really thick and smooth, the guitar tone is dirty but has a lot of chunkiness to it, and the vocals are as scathing as ever and fight their way out in front of the instruments. I'm sure most people know the drill here: Most of the songs are a about a minute, some a little more, some a little less, lots of frantic speed and dissonance, relentless screaming, plenty of blasts, a general feeling of controlled chaos that does definitely come off as structured and well performed, etc. The vocals get a little deeper during parts of tracks like "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said", which also covers a wider range of textures and tempos. "Aperture of Pinholes" also has some very noteworthy slower rhythms that are among the heaviest the band ever displayed. The recordings on the 7"s are also pretty good. Slightly muddier, especially the guitars, but still dense and clear enough to get by with ample rawness factor in place. Plus you'll get a couple of token grinders like "Tokyo" and a cover of Melt Banana's "So Unfilial Rule" (All nine seconds of it!). The last track on the disc consists of the sounds of the venue being cleared out and cleaned up after the band's last song at their last show in Tokyo on their 1997 tour, as the recording wasn't stopped when the set ended. (Aversionline)

HERE

November 26, 2008

November 25, 2008

Trencher - When Dracula Thinks "Look At Me" (2003)...


Trencher a London based threesome deliver 14 brutal Casio Powerviolence tracks in under 17 minutes and thats including the hidden track at the end of the album. Walking in to the sound of Trencher is akin to walking into your living room to find Locust thrashing it out with Crossed Out over a particularly competitive game of twister. Each track is a micro symphony of anarchic explicity - sex, death, anger and essentially a sense of humor drive these nasty (sound) bites of Trencher's self proclaimed casiogrindcore

(Co-released by 'A Tree in A Field Records, Super Fi, Victory Garden, The Action Index, and Crucificados Pelo Sistema.')

HERE
or THERE

'Mouth To Anus' vid...

November 24, 2008

Weekend Nachos - Torture EP (Tooth Decay, 2005)...


Torture opens the gates of Dimension X with the introduction "End of Your Faith," a sludgy prelude to the onslaught of powerful violence, and by powerful violence I mean powerviolence. This is not that To Live a Lie trendviolence, this is actual powerviolence taking nods from the likes of Infest and Crossed Out with a little Path of Resistance and Eyehategod for some variety. What sets Weekend Nachos apart from the poseurs is that the music is rooted in hardcore as opposed to Bridge Nine and The Locust.

(from Chicago, Illinois)


HERE

Daniele Baldelli & Tbc - Cosmic at Baia Degli Angeli (1979-81?)...



Baldelli was pretty much the inventor of Cosmic Disco sound. That doesn't mean he invented cosmic disco: he was the only Dj who could create a perfect cosmic atmosphere in a Club, slapping Bob Marley on top of Tangerine Dream on top of Fela Kuti with 3 turntables a tape reel and filter banks. He had denim jackets and 2 assistants to help him put the records on the 3 decks while he was busy on the filter bank or the drum machine because he's not an octopus you know. Right there, there was a John Carpenter island with Santa Claus swimming weeping and smoking weed, illuminated dancefloors and bleached 501s, more denim, in Baia Degli Angeli where was it, club near Pesaro, kids would take a train all the way from Sicily to come to Cosmic Sound.

(We're sorry for the approximate date and no title, sarge's getting a little sloppy.)


HERE

Bermuda Triangle s/t (1977)...

Released as a private pressing on the aptly named Winter Solstice label, Bermuda Triangle who hail from Long Island New York released this gem in the height of Punk...1977. A combination of The Farm Band and Bobby Brown (the solo act from early 1970's California), Wendy Carlos meets Joan Baez the band were made up of a female singer/bassist/female drummer/violinist and a guy who sings and plays the electronic auto harp/organ and piano. The sound is totally lost in time and transports you back to the carefree days of the early seventies and is extremely trippy. You have to check out the wah wah auto harp, the weird percussion and bass, a great listen almost pre-dates the current folktronica scene. This wild album has to be heard and is quite superb from folk to reels to country all bathed in this misty auto harped glory. (Forced Exposure)

(Includes cover of smash hit "Dream On")

SHIT IS RECOMMENDED!

HERE

originally found here

November 21, 2008

Excepter - Stream 36...

While the previous post was fine and everything, but, if like me you don't want to be reminded you live in a god awful, cold, grimy and bleak city by listening to a load of cheery summer songs with the sound of waves crashing in the background, then this one is more up your crack alley... Excepter playing a set at East River Amphitheater, NYC, August 19th, 2006 and is way more dubbed up and synthy with all the tricks and some low-end growl.

HERE

John Fell Ryan:Desert Island Disk...

Excepter is a New York vocal and freestyle electronics band synthesizing live group performance with intuitive sequencing technology. Formed in 2002 by John Fell Ryan and Dan Hougland and featuring Nathan Corbin and Jon Nicholson, Excepter is a constantly changing and self-produced social experiment in the recording arts and public address system engagement...

..."One Dozen Desert Island Discs... For this list, I'll stick with the classic Desert Island Discs situation: imagining what I would bring to pass the possibly endless days away washed-up on some uncharted shore, left for dead or worse."


HERE


John tells you more about the tracklist

From the ongoing podcasts regularly posted at the EXCEPTER website, but i'll probably post some more just for the lazy people.

(for more Excepter go back in the 'archive...' and i totally recommend Tank Tapes by the way)

November 19, 2008

IRON MONKEY!...


IRON MONKEY formed in (Nottingham, u.k.) 1994...

As n-a-s-t-y and hate filled as the U.S. and British Governments combined. Highly influential to alot of todays sludge/doom bands. The debut is corrosive in tempo and stomp whilst the follow up 'Our Problem' rolls forth like a stoners whiteE.

Iron Monkey (Earache, 1997)
HERE

Our Problem (Earache, 1998)
HERE

RIP Johnny Morrow (vocals) - 2 foot high kickflip melons back in Newcastle, 1990. Huge pop.
"boat drinks"

November 14, 2008

Thrones Demo Tape (Punk In My Vitamins, 1996)...


First release from Joe Preston's (High On Fire, Earth, Harvey Milk, Melvins) one man band of low-end sludge and electronics. All tracks on the cassette are untitled.


HERE

The Nels Cline Singers - Instrumentals (Cryptogramophone, 2002)...


INSTRUMENTALS was recorded in 15 hours - about a day and a half of work, including setup. As such (and like every record I've ever done), it is full of last-minute decisions, mistakes, and dilemmas both resolved and unresolved. I am of the opinion that many of these things are best left unmentioned - why give you info. that colors your experience? After we make the music and you listen to it, it's yours as far as I'm concerned. That said, I sense an insatiable thirst for tiny bits of info out there.
So here goes....

Truth be known, I rarely consider the reaction to a recording of mine before or during its making. But after - oh man! Then I start wondering! And then it's basically too late. So, "too bad", I say to myself. "It is what it is". Plus, I rely on more objective persons to help me get through the whole thing efficiently and without too much self-conscious agonizing. This is where people like Jeff Gauthier and my brother Alex become indispensible. Alex, for example, has had some effect on virtually every record I've done as a leader. Usually, I defer to him - at least in some measure - in matters of song sequencing. If I feel he just "doesn't get" something I naturally and callously blow off his astute observations! But usually his views are crucial. On INSTRUMENTALS, he seemed to like the song sequence, as did Mr. Gauthier.


But my dilemma on this record was its length - lengthened by the inclusion of the track "Lowered Boom", which I did not plan to record. Then we recorded it - "for fun" - and then both Jeff and Alex insisted on its inclusion. I really do think the thing's too long, but I didn't want to delete any of my originally intended program, so there it is: pure indulgence!

Reviews of the record have been very positive, but naturally I prefer to dwell on the tidbits of negative criticism. Downbeat reviewed the album rather favorably, but complained that the disc was too long. The nerve!! But then, they also compared us to Triumph, a Canadian band (I'm told) who my friends in-the-know tell me was "like a more metal-ish second-string Rush". Well well! Having never heard them, I trust their take on this. Other comparisons have been to: Bill Frisell (a constant one that's getting pretty off-the-mark, it seems to me.......I love you, Bill!), Prime Time, Sonic Youth, Mahavishnu Orchestra...but my favorite came from someone called Kevin Hainey in Toronto's Eye Weekly:

"Even though Cline incorporates some post-rock tricks and tones into his oeuvre, making his Al DiMeola-with-restraint style accessible to modern ears, it's not enough to save his new trio from resembling Return To Forever's late-period masturbation"

OUCH!!! He then goes on to say a few rather complimentary things, but OUCH!!!!! Hitting me where it hurts! I, a true survivor of 70s prog/jazzrock, am not sure what "late-period" RTF refers to, but I'm sure that it refers to music I always HATED. Sorry! You all know that I prefer to keep things positive, but....sheesh! As you will read, some things I/we do are constructed with a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun in mind - a playfulness, if you will. But sometimes I may indeed err.....as may our critics, I guess.
(Nels Cline)


HERE

INFORMATION

November 13, 2008

Wolfgang Düren - Eyeless Dreams (WPL,1980)

Wolfgang Düren became more widely known to people as the chairman of Waldorf Music. Before founding Waldorf Music he partnered with Wolfgang Palm, the man behind PPG, and distributed his synths in the late seventies till the fall of PPG in the mid eighties. Later Wolfgang distributed the synths of Waldorf, Access and Novation with his company TSI.
While he was distributing or later in charge of building synths, he was also a musician. In the late seventies he recorded the LP "Eyeless Dream". This record featured many sounds of the early PPG wavetable synths that had just become available to some musicians searching for a new kind of sound beyond the conventional synth sounds using filters and modulations as main building blocks to shape their sound. These very new sounds in electronic music made this LP an insiders favourite over the years.

HERE

Porest - Continental Revolt...

November 12, 2008

MASTER...


...Master s/t (Nuclear Blast, 1990)



...Master Unreleased 1985 Album (From Beyond, 2003)

Typical Master death metal is simple, especially on their first two albums. 3 or 4 simplistic Thrash Metal based shredding (but catchy!) riffs per song, supported by either polka beat drums or an up tempo double bass assault. Paul Speckmann’s vocals hover between raw thrash metal vocals and a death grunt.

HERE

INFORMATION HERE

November 10, 2008

Asphyx - The Rack (Century Media, 1991)...

In creating the oldest school of death metal, Americans turned toward punk song format with metal riffs, and Europeans adapted the riff salad of later death metal into simple narrative constructions that interrupted a verse-chorus tendency with discursive passages that returned to previous themes, often quoting them in basic counterpoint of rhythm or melody, in the style first seen on Hellhammer's "Triumph of Death." Asphyx labors within this style, creating music that is as much doom metal as it is death, with basic patterns wearing themselves into the listener through variations of repetition and layers of emphasis from bass and drums and keyboards, breaking up this meditative atmosphere with sudden rushing tremolo riffs and seizures of rhythmic motion into poised expectation.
Missing are the slamming conclusions common to much of death metal, as well as most use of percussive muffled strum to anchor phrases; where rigid sounds occur, they are in a riding rhythm that melds with percussion to form a cadence just ahead of itself, leading by consistent pattern instead of the predictable "unpredictable" offtime work of the jazzier death metal. Evenly-falling moribund rhythms, like an acceptance of inexorable death after exhaustion on the battlefield, lead into sudden changes of direction that once accepted as axiom, permute through intercessory riffs into a pattern that complements the original, even if at twice or half speed. Unlike many bands, Asphyx know the wisdom of reusing notes in the course of a phrase, and thus avoid the excesses of progressive bands; indeed, one amazing attribute of this death metal band is their outsiderness: songs are complex stories told through primitive musicianship that periodically breaks facade to reveal a facile ability underneath, and while an epic sound of doomy heavy music prevails it manages also to sound careless and spontaneous.
Problems abound, mostly from the mixed heritage of death metal, such as times when variations on heavy metal and punk hardcore cliches emerge and disrupt a flow of otherwise immaculate although rudimentary riffcraft. Vocals are hoarse barks whipping forward the mixture of percussion and rhythm guitars that, with double bass and flickering of high-hat, sounds almost like a team of stallions at full gallop. While this album has some highly visible flaws, and lacks the slickness of conceit ("unique" instrumentation, sound and concept) that adorned later bands, its honesty and evocative songwriting guarantee it a place in the legions of metal bands that shaped the underground. (ANUS)

HERE

Breadwinner - Burner (Merge Records, 1994)...


Formed in 1990. Breadwinner from Richmond, Virginia, with Pen Rollings - Guitar (Loincloth, Honor Role, Butterglove) Bobby Donne - Bass (Aix Em Klemm) and drummer extraordinaire Chris Farmer.

These days, Merge Records is probably best known for bringing us indie-rock abortions like The Arcade Fire. In the early 90s, Merge was best known for... uh... indie-rock abortions like Superchunk. Everything about Breadwinner's swan song "The Burner" looks and smells like your typical college rock arrangement: faux '60s art design, a dearth of biographical info, and oddball song titles. It's not until you actually pop in the disc that things start looking up, and you start to see why countless bands from countless genres cite this Virginia trio as a key influence.

There's a great deal of variation in Breadwinner's approach to what would soon be labeled "math rock" - from the skittery thrash-influenced riffing of "Kisses Men on the Mouth on the Mountain", to the sludgy doom of " ", to the quasi-funk metal of "Mac's Oranges." If there's a unifying element in all this, it's the spring-loaded rhythm session, as bass and drums mesh and interlock like a well-oiled machine. The punchy, snappy production on each instrument creates a superb sense of tension on every note. Each pulse explodes into the sparse, empty room, and each beat sounds like it'll be the one that bursts through and splits the drum heads. Pen Rollings' nervous, scratchy guitar work adds a white-hot counterpoint to the clockwork precision, propelling each track to its twisting, unexpected conclusion. Breadwinner understood that you can create maddeningly complex songs with an absolute economy of notes, in direct opposition to the shredding virtuosos, and this focus on pinpoint rhythm is what makes their music so memorable.

Sadly, this brief 9-song disc represents the entirety of Breadwinner's recorded output, culled from their earlier vinyl-only EPs. While it might have been interesting to see how their sound progressed - especially within an indie community that was gradually warming up to metal throughout the 90s - it's probably for the best that they simply left their mark and stepped aside. (Fulci)

HERE

Moss Icon - Greta Garbo (Vermin Scum, 1988)...


"Maryland", "D.C. Hardcore", "seminal", "pioneers", "Emo" ...i feel like The Fonz trying to say "sorry".

1. Hate In Me
2. What They Lack
3. I'm Back Sleeping or Fucking or Something
4. Kiss The Girls and Make Them Die

(Got this via my man in Uraguay, Mercenario. Go round his gaff and sneakily wipe snot on his chair arms)


HERE

November 07, 2008

90210 s/t (Pacific City/New Age, 2008)...


Another killer "stoner murk" release from James Ferraro (go get most shit by this guy over at Put Yer Shoes On(Get Sun Araw too!)
HERE