Friday 31 October 2014

Des Duyvels Doedelsack - "De Brug Der Zuchten" (Pidoewa Cassettes P7) 1983


Those liberal layabouts from the Benelux countries also get high marks when it comes to understanding and producing good clued up product fit for your record players.
Hans 'Boogieman' Boogmans, Anthony Blokdijk and friends, recorded lots of improvised post-punk stylings in and around Den Haag, Holland, between 1982 and 1984.Pretty typical commune dwelling type free rock, framed by a lack of technical ability. Some would call this "Hippie Music", and I can`t disagree;but hippie doesn`t always mean fake peace and love, sexual repression of women, lazy middle class dropouts, soap dodgers,(this list could go on).....etc.
Lots of hippie culture was punk as fuck, and an awful lot of punk was more hippie than hippie (Crass and their legion of washed out black clad clones).
On continental Europe, the hippie stuck around, and Punk Rock was generally absorbed into this smelly morass(no matter what the European "punks" tell you) so change never really filtered through in the rock world; although euro-electronics were a different matter entirely. This tape is a prime example of the resulting cross fertilisation; and an intriguing mess it is too.
We love hippies really.

Tracklist:


A1 Neem Me Mee
A2 Als De Zon Ondergaat
A3 Buiten Spelen
A4 Improvisatie Nr Twee
A5 Het Licht Van De Maan
A6 La La La
B1 Praagse Lente
B2 De Gorillaas
B3 In Jou Wit Met Gele Keuken
B4 Macaroni
B5 Warm En Zacht
B6 Pippi Langkous

DOWNLOAD  sound of dutch commune dwelling HERE!

Thursday 30 October 2014

Various Artists ‎– "Kassettentäter Vol.2 - Deutscher-Kassetten-Untergrund 1980-1983"


Unlike France, our old chums in Germany sure know how to this modern music thing. Not having once visited the place, I cannot spew the same vitriol I have for the country I am trapped in.Even though,my Father was force marched in circles there at gun point by the Volksturm,and witnessed the Dresden bombing atrocity at first hand, I cannot hold anything but affection for Germans.Yes, they have the worst table manners of any nation state,and the dress sense of an Albanian with a Versace voucher, I quite like their tortured arrogance. One of my German acquaintances once ,like Harry Enfields character Jurgen the German, apologised to me for his country's conduct during the war (no joke!).

Kassettentäter vol. 2 reveals one of the favourite German pastimes (resists war reference),mucking about with technology. A panzer full of synths , like a squadron of Stuka's ,dive bombing their lo-fi analogue beauty onto a Telefunken cassette deck loaded with a BASF ferric C-60.(sorry, I couldn't resist ,”I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!”). The result is a clutch of a bizarre, fuzzy,minimal tunes straight from some murky U-Bahn to Kassette Himmel.

Apology's for my German,it was all learnt from the hundreds of War magazines my father bought me as a child,so its pretty limited.This is why I was always the German when we played War games as a kid........well they had the best uniforms didn't they; designed by Hugo Boss. Sartorially, all downhill from there I’m afraid.

(Check out Volume 1 Here!)

Tracklist

A1 Vexierende Textur Industrie-Tanz
A2 Bill Bo Plitsch Platsch
A3 Frauen Von Avignon Meine Liebe Mit Den Gelben Haaren
A4 Hans Kim + Die Schwarze Hand Moped Fahren
A5 Inex Tremis Kukuxklan
A6 Bodenpersonal Tote Räume
A7 Die Unerträglichen Zerstörung
B1 Tic, Tric & Trac Bewustseinstörung
B2 Heute Kinder Der Ohnmacht
B3 Kanalwasserspaziergänger Turbo (Formel1)
B4 Treibeis Vinylbabies (Die Telefonpüppchen)
B5 Ich Letzte Gedanken
B6 Säurekeller Amerika Führt Krieg

DOWNLOAD der ubermensch of the untergrund HERE!

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Various Artists ‎– "Skydog Commando" (Skydog ‎– SGSC 0018) 1978



To keep up the tentative French theme I was going to post a Zoviet france tape,"Garista"; but i remember them throwing a geordie hissy fit the last time I posted their stuff.This is a rare thing, with only Psyclones,Dog As Master,Noh Mercy,and Crawling Chaos,whinging about it(all americans,with a little 'a'and geordies with a little 'g' I notice!).
You can check out what that prick from the awful crawling chaos(two little 'c's) has to say about me here!
As Zoviet France are banned from the free publicity of try before you buy, from bands you haven't heard of,thanks to this blog.I will have to stoop to this fine example of French cluelessness when it comes to La Musique Moderne.
Please excuse my thinly veiled venom ce soir,especially if you are French (they can't help it y'know);but i'm feeling particularly bitter and twisted and I wanna vent it,because I can....and France is the victim.

Yup, I live in France.A land with a great past of great military defeats,boring unadventurous food, bland dress sense, and pubs that look like train station waiting rooms. Then rock'n'roll happened and it was downhill from there!

A place such as this, with entrenched behavioural patterns,where the cops don't work between 12 and 2pm, where the shops shut just when you need them,and no-one ever leaves their region, never mind the country. Got left standing by “les Anglo-Saxons” at the starting line, with Johnny Halliday (who every Frenchman thinks is a Global Megastar,and even he is now Belgian!?) their only incredibly naff contribution. A population who are obsessed with apple based desserts,chocolate flavoured everything, and tuck their sweaters into their trouser tops,tightly tethered by a shiny belt, could not compete. The language didn't fit into a standard rock song,with its monotonous one note delivery, and over syllabled spittle scattering words. France is famous for its cheeses, of which it proudly boasts of 500 plus varieties, of which French Pop music is one. The post 1956 era was about modernisation,from film, to music,to food; the French can't see why something as perfect as frenchness needs to be modernised or even changed at all. I can think of a thousand reasons,and I can't wait to get out of this creative cul de sac(literal translation 'arse of the bag') of a has been land.

There, of course ,were some good Frog Bands......er........Magma......er........Magma......well ,I like Stinky Toys anyway.

This compilation of French 'Punk Rock', is a fairly standard example of how they usually find a way of making anything from the modern world sound fairly atrocious. Lets face it, they made a better attempt at Punk Rock than they did any other genre from the modern idiom of Pop, especially Reggae (They still think Bob Marley is alive and serving Ratatouille in some shit provincial restaurant, that thinks its food is the best in the world, like all of them do.)

Its a uninspiring serving (Like in their deluded restaurants), of weedy pub rock, retro-rock'n'roll,Schlager and swarthy,anaemic punk-a-like bands,in loafers, and C&A leather jackets, with tassles. The French's inability to shout without sounding like a cheese grater on your teeth, is also a big drawback in the world of Punk rock;and are arrogant enough to claim inventing the genre,they did after all contribute he typically pretentious nonsense that is Situationism into the mix

Yes, I hate this crap country, but there is something charming about the music on this compilation; like watching your children playing a instrument in the school symphony orchestra. Ah Diddums, bless their little white stockinged feet,and their rancid B.O. Problem (who says racial stereotypes aren't true?).

I do have some sympathy for them, even though they laugh and point at every other country, race, and disability , but cannot take any joke about themselves in return. Arrogant to the point of self-deifying, they are human too.....even though they think Napoleon is a national hero(Hitler mark 1 or what?), and enthusiastically collaborated in the Holocaust; you gotta be glad that this place is around. If only to show everyone else how NOT to do it. One of the greatest living museums on the planet. And this record is a fine example of one of its exhibits.

Tracklist:
A1 –Rockin' Rebels Water Wheel 2:37
A2 –Puravida The Last Night 3:08
A3 –Electric Callas Kill Me Two Times 4:10
A4 –Calcinator Electrifié 2:00
A5 –Asphalt Jungle Money 2:55
B1 –Dogs Here Comes My Baby 1:58
B2 –Kalfon Rock Chaud Camion 3:05
B3 –Controle Depression 4:32
B4 –Lou's Back In The Street 2:32
B5 –Scooters Hygiène 3:40


Tuesday 28 October 2014

O'Nancy In French ‎– "O'Nancy In French" (AQM ‎– AQM104) 1984



Like my mother used to pick which Race Horse to bet on by virtue of its name, and what possible family connection it could have.I was drawn to this cassette because my Daughter is called Nancy, and she is a French Speaking Brit in France (Check her blog and do me a favour and leave some encouraging comment,without mentioning me please?). So , as my mother always won on the horses, it was no surprise when this tape turned out to be fantastic!
O' the beautiful noise that is scraping steel, feedbacking rice storage containers,and Oil Drums! As if played by a sabre toothed violin bow,these everyday objects emit a wild variety of sustainable grating tones only previously available from a Cello with razor wire for strings. Imagine the rim of a giant wine glass rubbed by a giant calloused finger,then feed the resulting racket through a distortion unit; what a party trick that could have been.
The bizarrely named, O'Nancy in French, are in fact Japanese duo Yasunori Taniguchi, and Katzu Mizumachi, under the LAFMS auspices of John Duncan in the producers chair. They appeared a few times on other John Duncan related releases,but never again as O'Nancy in French!? Leave 'em wanting more I suppose, as the old showbiz saying goes?

Tracklist:

A Untitled
B Untitled

DOWNLOAD thankfully not in fucking french HERE!

Sunday 26 October 2014

Various Artists ‎– "Power Electronics" (Tellus #13) 1986




From the same magazine as “All Guitars” we have the Tellus #13 compilation,and the theme is “Power Electronics”. An Industrial sub-genre that, unfortunately, Americans were spectacularly shit at. Most of this tape can just about fit in the Old School Industrial bracket,which by 1986 was pretty old hat. Either that or its just plain old experimental soundscape’s. Cassette culture never really established itself in the USA until '86,and highlights the difficulties of that country to advance artistically due to the isolation of the various inspired communities across that great vast landscape landscape that sadly suggests Country music rather than Power Electronics. Even though the prototype of Punk first started gestating in downtown New York, it needed to be imported into Washington DC,and Los Angeles from the UK,and the rest of America from MTV. The same happened with Industrial Music,although that was almost completely 100% British; the second Industrial Revolution if you will? This of course causes a time delay of around 6 or 7 years,and explains why Americans still prefer just to 'Rock Out',as they like to scream from time to time.

Merzbow is about the only genuine Power Electronic track on here, and he's Japanese. Controlled Bleeding is sort of battery Powered electronics Lite, Rhys Chatham isn't even in the Industrial camp at all,and Joseph Nechvatal, is intellectualised Plunderphonia!....check his other tapes here!


Tracklisting:


A1 Maybe Mental Look At The Clown 3:50
A2 Merzbow Gamma-Titan 6:05
A3 Amor Fati Will To Live 3:40
A4 If, Bwana Umm... 2:35
A5 Rhys Chatham Excerpt From XS 2:20
A6 Psyclones Excerpt From Between Space 5:00
A7 Blackhouse One Nation Under God 3:00
A8 Joseph Nechvatal How To Kill 0:50
A9 Master/Slave Relationship The Heaviest 3:30
B1 Maybe Mental Memories Of My Birth 4:37
B2 Architects Office AD 301.5 1:00
B3 Controlled Bleeding Clotage 5:15
B4 Mojo (3) The Fighters Distance (Excerpt) 2:40
B5 Coup De Grace Your Children 2:40
B6 Le Syndicat Putrefied Brain (Excerpt) 2:10
B7 Mitch Corber The Sirens 4:50
B8 F/i On Off 9:30


You have the power to DOWNLOAD HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "All Guitars!" (Tellus #10) 1985



Glenn Branca makes another appearance on Tellus number 10 compilation tape called “All Guitars” from 1985. As you may guess, it features no end of Guitar abuse,displaying the endless versatility of this wonderful tool. Plenty of Sonic Youth members inhabit this area ,also occupied by No Wave legends Arto Lindsey with his stratchy, scrape-y guitar stylee,and Lydia Lunch trys her best to mimic a DNA solo, when she would have been better to stick to her unique slide approach.Nirvana producer ,Steve Albini, does a bit of pre-Rapeman shock rock,mentioning Niggers and Fags,while playing some funky noise rock.Joseph Nechvatal makes his obligatory appearance,amongst much,much, more guitar jiggery-pokery that would empty any matinee performance of Cats on Broadway in five seconds. Leaving several bouffanted out of towners trampled to death in the aisles in the blind panic to escape the danger of having to use their brains;long pickled by I Love Lucy Re-runs and endless tours of the mid-west by Paul Macartney's Wings. Not for fans of Eric Clapton.


Tracklist:
 
A1 Lee Ranaldo The Bridge 3:12
A2 Arto Lindsay And Toni Nogueira Buy One 1:03
A3 Janice Sloane Blow Sounds On The Nail 2:25
A4 Butthole Surfers U.S.S.A. 1:58
A5 New Detroit Inc. Brown Dub 2:34
A6 Bob Mould Soundcheck 3:06
A7 Bond Bergland Moonlight Ride 3:25
A8 Joseph Nechvatal Dalychtocracy 2:03
A9 Elliott Sharp Solitons 1:45
A10 David Linton Ringo 2:20
A11 Jules Baptiste Four To Deuce 2:05
A12 Tim Schellenbaum El Baile De La Penitencia Dolorosa 3:06
A13 Bump I Am A Rat 1:59
A14 Rudolph Grey 1000 Luminous Flowers In The Red Pool 3:05
B1 Hahn Rowe Dust Bowl Dub 2:09
B2 John Myers Skatebike And Perdue 3:48
B3 Lydia Lunch Lucy's Lost Her Head Again                 1:30
B4 Sue Hanel Dupe 1:10
B5 Blixa Bargeld Untitled 2:15
B6 Andrew Nahem Insult 1:16
B7 Sandra Seymour Rock That Baby! 1:35
B8 Run Nigger Run Pray I Don't Kill You Faggot 5:30
B9 Thurston Moore Skrewer Boy 3:10
B10 Mark C. And Marnie Greenholz Bad Hospital 2:28
B11 Glenn Branca Acoustic Phenomena 3:45
B12 James Vidos Rudy Has Religion 1:33
B13 Angela Babin And Joe Dizney Work Song 1:10
B14 Frankenjerry Funhouse 1:50
 
this DOWNLOAD's all guitars!

Saturday 25 October 2014

Various ‎Artists – "Tellus # 1" (Tellus Audio Magazine - Tellus #1) 1983



Yeah Yeah Yeah, we know Rhys Chatham beat Glenn Branca to the punch with the detuned guitar minimal rock fusion thing.And i'll admit “Guitar Trio (1977) is a great piece of work.....dare I say,whilst using music journo cliché speak.....”Seminal”!? Alas, Chatham ventured off into less successful minimalist areas, leaving Branca to take it further. What we have here, on volume one of New York-ish audio magazine, Tellus; is our minimalist hero's banging out a live version of this classic tune in 1979! This one chord one note classic,is churned out in a slowed down version of indeterminable length,as its faded out while still in progress.
But, there's more on this great compilation,featuring plenty from the burgeoning East coast experimental music scene of 1983. There's some live Sonic Youth, some conventional alt-rock from Live Skull,and a great tune from former Static member Barbara Ess. Also we have sound collage legends like, Tellus magazine co-founder, Joseph Nechvatal and his Minoy like “Ego Masher”.All mixed in with a tinge of the prevalent Mutant Disco that was around downtown New York at the time. I may be wrong but this organisation is still going today!?

Track Listing:
  1. Jody Harris - Mr. Control (3:53)
  2. Jerry Lindahl - The Indian Elephant (4:23)
  3. Sonic Youth - Scream (Recorded Live, Rolle, Switzerland 6/83) (2:20)
  4. Brenda Hutchinson - Wordplay (2:53)
  5. Live Skull - Corpse (3:56)
  6. Tom Lopez/ZBS Productions - 30 Second Telephone Terror Theatre (2:06)
  7. Rat-at-Rat-R - Bloodshot (3:55)
  8. Bradley Eros - The Atom & Eve of Destruction (0:38)
  9. Bruce Tovsky - Re-Gender (Excerpt) (3:07)
  10. Gretchen Langheld - 666 (4:23)
  11. Mitch Corber - Reaganomics/Infinitessimus (1:57)
  12. Barbara Ess (with Barbara Barg) - You Who Know No Pain (7:07)
  13. Joseph Nechvatal - Ego Masher (7:05)
  14. Verge Piersoi - Come Sit (3:47)
  15. Tron Von Hollywood (with Raina Jane Sherry) - After Shakespeare (1:54)
  16. David Linton - Shattering Glass (2:39)
  17. Rhys Chatham (with Glenn Branca, Nina Canal, Wharton Tiers - Guitar Trio (1977) (Recorded Live, 5/79 NYC) (6:54)

Glenn Branca ‎– "Symphony No. 1 (Tonal Plexus)" (ROIR (Reachout International Records) ‎– A125) 1983




If Beethoven,Bach, and Bartok were around in the late twentieth century, they would have used the fashionable instruments of the day,and reflected the world around them in sound? I would have loved to see what Bach could have come up with when confronted with a Modular Moog system for example. Also of course they would have had to live their lives as a 20th century person,to absorb all the influences ,sophistications and neuroses of late modern man.

It would,of course , now read as Beethoven, Bach,Bartok and Branca. A kind of Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young of the neo-classical,except without the cocaine fuelled blandness of those Laurel Canyon numpties.

Branca,is a true modern classicist,using the symbolic instrumentation of his age, electricity,guitars and the drum kit, to recreate the dissonant noise of the city. The constant drone of the traffic,the rhythmic noise of the production line, and the Doppler effect of passing sirens. There are sequences that recreate the paranoia and fear of the Cold War era in which this was written, as massed electric guitars sound like a thousand approaching planes and missiles raining warheads on a doomed civilisation; if civilisation applies to what humanity has created for itself?

Symphony Number One,is the best Branca symphony in my humble opinion,featuring all his old chums, Lee Renaldo,Thurston Moore,Barbara Ess,and Wharton Teirs. It retains the excitement of his early work, holding onto the urgency of its rock roots,without becoming indulgent,as happens in later works. Also,its Lo-Fi recording quality adds to the authenticity of genuine classical music that has its roots on the streets rather than some stuffy conservatoire in Salzburg.

Notes:


Music in four movements for multiple guitars, keyboards, brass and percussion. This is a live set originally recorded July 18-19, 1981 at the Performing Garage, 33 Wooster Street, Soho, NYC.

Tracklist:


A1 Movement 1 11:45
A2 Movement 2 15:45
B1 Movement 3 17:29
B2 Movement 4 10:09
 
or

Friday 24 October 2014

Glenn Branca / John Giorno ‎– "Who You Staring At ?" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 025) 1982





You gotta love this album sleeve!?
Branca and Giorno looking hard on the cover has to be one of the better album covers. “Who You Staring At?”

“You!” we reply, knowing that one of these tuff guys is a poet,and the other a composer, “Now wotcha gonna doo about it?”

The answer is play an atonal ballet score for a modern dance troupe, and whine out some experimental poetry; guaranteed to make any sane tough guy turn and run.

The Branca piece is up to his usual high 1980's standards changing pace and intensity like a rollercoaster into tomorrows weather.

John Giorno bleats out some of his irritating poetry over a cool mud club house band backing track, with his trademark strained throaty whine. It would have been better if he rapped over a couple of Glenn Branca compositions instead,which is what I expected before I played this LP! It very rarely works, blending rock with poetry,it forces the complicated rhythms of the spoken word to be forces into a four/four time frame. The best example of this process of ruining a poet is John Cooper Clarke being forced to slow down his machine gun delivery to the speed of a pea shooter to fit in with the Invisible Girls medium paced funk. Still kinda like it though,especially when compared to the moronic garbage spewed out by the vast majority of so-called rappers,like that complete CUNT Kanye West,or that idiot Jay Zee (shit isn't that my initials?).

Tracklist:

A1 Glenn Branca Music For The Dance Bad Smells 16:25
B1 John Giorno Stretching It Wider 6:44
B2 John Giorno We Got Here Yesterday, We're Here Now, And I Can't Wait To Leave Tomorrow 10:30