August 2011
1 post
James Tenney - Music for Violin & Piano [Marc...
Do you find music that functions solely as a cold, academic exploration of sound boring and irritating? Good. That means you’re normal. Move on, and don’t let your life be troubled by these unpleasant sound-theorems. If, however, you’re like me, and have somehow become wrongheaded enough to think that sounds like a fun Friday night (or Thursday, whatever), then you probably...
July 2011
1 post
Prurient - Bermuda Drain
I am fucking blown away and you need to get this right now.
http://www.mediafire.com/?nufizyswrc4t22w
June 2011
1 post
Silvia Fässler & Billy Roisz - Skylla
Been a while since I listened to this but I think it was pretty good in the twitchy way these sort of things are.
http://www.mediafire.com/?eqzmnby71as4vtt
April 2011
4 posts
Jooklo Duo - High
Free jazz is dead, long live free jazz.
http://www.mediafire.com/?y1jbqcj5of5s6k1
The Rita - Sea Wolf Leviathan
Want to listen to low-pitched, gravelly rumbling and crackling for an hour? No, no, you probably don’t. Nevertheless, here is some of that.
http://www.mediafire.com/?6b1jftzwf2qxcvn
Tony Conrad - Fantastic Glissando
You say you like Minimalism? Prove it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?qgocx3tpnxsou2j
Comus - First Utterance
nou pda tes, perhaps, would also have been a suitable title for this blog. In any case, this album is a classic if there ever was one. The pinnacle of freak folk, in my book. You should already have it, but if you somehow don’t, prepare for a treat.
http://www.mediafire.com/?xk387g3k3aqh7dl
March 2011
6 posts
Hudson-Styrene - A Monster and the Devil
How this album hasn’t been canonized long ago and, in fact, remains painfully obscure, utterly baffles me. This is really something you have to hear for yourself, but I suppose I should at least try to give an impression of what it’s like. So, okay. Structurally, it’s an album of gritty, meandering, stories of the seedy side of Cleveland (although it could really be any large...
Brainbombs - Urge to Kill
Let’s wallow in filth a little longer thus. Brainbombs play sleazy, saxophone-accented garage punk through a haze of chloroform and this is their best album. Great to listen to the next time you go out at 4 a.m. looking for prostitutes to murder.
http://www.mediafire.com/?bxd85hc8eudethy
Confuse - Nuclear Addicts
An absolute undeniable classic, and also about the only thing I can bring myself to listen to on the cheap, shrill earbuds I’ve been stuck with the past couple days. Very appropriate, too, given recent events.
http://www.mediafire.com/?y69kysn4gy128nt
Total Abuse - Total Abuse
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Also glorious, in the same way a dismembered corpse rotting on a basement floor is glorious.
http://www.mediafire.com/?0m41zctt88p0pvz
AMM - Newfoundland
This, however, is an excellent place to start. Spectacular.
http://www.mediafire.com/?04xzjtbhlbsavb1
Tim Blechmann / Seijiro Murayama - 347
This is pretty much a fans-only sort of thing. If you aren’t already familiar with eai, or whatever it’s being called this week, here is a terrible place to start. If you are, though, this is worth checking out. Nothing spectacular, but a thoroughly enjoyable affair.
http://www.mediafire.com/?we6s4xd2cbftp2u
February 2011
25 posts
Maskull - Maskull
I don’t really want to say anything about this and ruin the surprise, but I will note that once you get past the initial shock, you’ll find these are legitimately memorable songs.
http://www.mediafire.com/?vcgws8b4qcogfle
Can't - New Secret
Someone described this as “librarian noise” and it is about as great as that sounds.
http://www.mediafire.com/?5y6u57q513igy94
Martin Küchen - The Lie & The Orphanage
44 minutes of belching, popping, spluttering saxophone improvisations. If you’re thinking of anyone you’re probably thinking of Evan Parker, but best put him out of your mind because this is a whole different beast. Much warmer, more organic. It’s also one of the best albums of 2010, incidentally.
http://www.mediafire.com/?cifdabbjo5ubev7
Reynols - Blank Tapes & 10.000 Chickens' Symphony
These are both exactly what they look like. That should be reason enough to check them out.
http://www.mediafire.com/?m9pblb7pomk7ec3
http://www.mediafire.com/?zeknz6yiac23zh8
Wasteland Jazz Unit - Solar Static Coves
One of my favorite album titles ever. Seriously, I just love it. The music inside is pretty great as well. Harsh noise as fire music, basically. Fucking loud.
http://www.mediafire.com/?3v9kr1csnt021ro
Cosmos - Tears
Switching gears entirely, here’s three tracks of the venerable Sachiko M jamming with Ami Yoshida, the least accesible vocalist on the planet. The results are, as expected, unyieldingly minimal and steely-eyed. If you are one of the four or so people on the planet who have both not heard this and could possibly care, here you go.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9vfd49r3g0rfxga
Eddie and the Showmen - Squad Car
Surf! A genre I have almost no knowledge about! I do know what I like, though, and I like this quite a bit. I think people forget how much rock and roll really could rock and roll.
http://www.mediafire.com/?o82v2uqga6a72g6
The Necks - Hanging Gardens
The best jazz album of 1999. Mind-bending and essential.
http://www.mediafire.com/?tgajcv1ydb18852
GOD - Anti-Sex Anti-Wiretapping (Made In Taiwan)
Circuit-bent electronics improvisation. Hard, lucid and engrossing.
http://www.mediafire.com/?626rjrgwd3izk14
Torturing Nurse - Groundfloor Noiz
Torturing Nurse are like Hijokaidan, only Chinese and even more decrepit. Obviously, it is absolutely necessary to hear as much by them as possible. This is about their standard level of amazing, which is to say, very. 45 minutes of guitar mangling and turntable abuse, live in Shanghai, 11/11/06.
http://www.mediafire.com/?2trlflh52urq9g0
Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place & Remain
These are, as expected, a couple more absolutely wonderful ambient specimens. Download them if you like slow, pretty sounds with real ideas behind them.
http://www.mediafire.com/?1a768b7co3qnzbc
http://www.mediafire.com/?n29981cvz9tatmt
Pedestrian Deposit - Fatale
One of the best arguments for harsh noise in the past decade. Intricately constructed, minutely detailed, wonderfully textured, and, of course, merciless.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9f8iaq4uo7kd4h2
The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle
The fact of the matter is, I’m not opposed to a little entertainment every now and then, provided it’s quality entertainment. For example, this album, a truly classic slab of psychedelic pop. Just great track after great track. Download it if you don’t have it. If you do, listen to it again.
http://www.mediafire.com/?6zmwe7607x011x3
Michael Pisaro and Greg Stuart - July Mountain
Intricately woven structure of field recordings and percussion. It took me a few listens for this to click, but then it did, big time. Even if this doesn’t look like your thing, it’s only 21 minutes. Try it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?369vddvygge99z3
Li Jianhong - San Sheng Shi
The cover is apt. This album is the soundtrack to awe-inspiring feats of nature, created by one man and his heavily-processed guitar. Amazing.
http://www.mediafire.com/?d8trp9zend5218r
Stephan Mathieu - Wurmloch Variationen
Ostensibly reworkings of Mathieu performing an 11-minute piano composition, this album ends up working more as an investigation of the recoding process itself. The pieces are built mostly out of hisses and clicks that found their way into the recording. Vary rarely is an actual strike of a key heard. I don’t mean to suggest by this it’s at all difficult to listen to, because it...
Orthrelm - OV
Here is what OV is: a single 45 minute track in which a series of metal riffs are played, one after the other, by a drum/guitar duo. Each riff is repeated without alteration for several minutes, then the duo shift immediately into the next with no attempt made at connecting the two. So, basically, it’s thrash metal crossed with the most rigid sort of minimalism. You already know weather or...
Les Rallizes Denudes - Heavier Than A Death In The...
Beautiful and obliterating. After Fushitsusha this is definitely my favorite Japanese noise/psych-rock outfit. I particularly adore Night of the Assassins and Enter the Mirror. Essential listening for anyone with the slightest interest in good music.
http://www.mediafire.com/?dw1sn7ddaj1zx83
Stéphane Rives - Much Remains to Be Heard
Some more ultra-minimal free improvisation for you fine people, this time entirely acoustic. Stéphane Rives plays saxophone, but it sounds more like some some sort of insect flying in small circles, making a steady, high-pitched whine. That’s mostly what you get here, a barely audible whine punctuated by long gaps of silence and occasional intakes of air. It’s honestly been a bit...
Glenn Branca - Lesson No. 1 & The Ascension
You should already have both of these. If, somehow, you don’t please click the below immediately.
http://www.mediafire.com/?rjay5jppq1d84lx
Koboku Senjû - Selektiv hogst
Selektiv hogst is one of the best electro-acoustic improvisation albums of 2010, and if you’ve never heard of electro-acoustic improvisation, this is a great place to start!
Koboku Senjû is a quintet made up of Japanese eai superstars Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama with Scandinavian wind players Espen Reinertsen, Eivind Lønning and Martin Taxt, whose work outside of this album...
Abner Jay - The Backbone of America is a Mule and...
People should already be familiar with the crazy one-man-blues-band that is Abner Jay, but, despite Mississippi Records’ best efforts, he remains sadly under-appreciated. Here are a few facts about him:
In his later years he carried drank from a half-gallon fruit jar filled with water from the Swanee river, to which he attributes his deep and low voice.
Among the several instruments he...
Deep Jew - Ugliest Man / Dog Blood
Now here’s some real unpleasant listening. 31 minutes of hardcore punk being played in a blast furnace with broken instruments. Utter filth. I mostly love this for the last track, Master, which takes up more than half the running time and allows the band to stretch out and actually develop their ideas fully. Obviously, very few people would consider this a pleasant listen, but it’s...
Flower-Corsano Duo - You'll Never Work In This...
And now for something much more accessible! I’ve been sort of in love with this album as of late, mostly because it’s such a lovely album. Three tracks of kaleidoscopic free improvisation courtesy of Chris Corsano, manning the drums like an insane genius monkey, and Mick Flower, who plays “Japanese banjo,” an instrument I am almost totally unfamiliar with, but it...
Sachiko M - Bar さちこ
Right then. If we’re gonna be doing this I can’t imagine anything better to start with. This is as near as we’ve yet gotten to the sonic end of music, folks. 60 minutes of one tone, then another, then that first one again, then a slight increase in volume, then the end. I guess you could call it the most hardcore drone album ever. This certainly isn’t her best work, but...
