Math & Noise

Shorty

2010-09-10T09:39:00.003-05:00

Shorty
Last One In My Mouth Is A Jerk 7"

WorryBird Disk

I don't remember where I got this vinyl rip, but I stumbled across it in my files a few weeks ago and can't seem to stop playing it. I'm ordered the vinyl for myself this morning, and will be on the hunt for any of their 7" still outstanding from my collection. Shorty was, of course, the preamble to U.S. Maple, and the best I can describe them is as a much noisier and US Maplier version of Chicago noise rock bands from the early 90's. They are not nearly as popular as they should be, but they did it right before I knew what right even was.

d/l

Red X Red M

2010-06-12T19:54:00.004-05:00

Red X Red M
Australian Cattle God Records
Austin, TX

Just got this in the mail.

Listen.

Trunks

2010-03-26T16:32:00.002-05:00

I just got this in an email.

Still Here.

2010-03-19T01:28:00.003-05:00

Hastas
Migration To The Magenta Pond

I've been meaning to get to some cassette uploads from an assortment of noisy artists but can't seem to find a free hour as I am GD strapped for time with several other debilitatingly consumptive obsessions. This post happens to be about a project related to one of those artists, but dude's already set up an mp3 all ready to go in the provided link.

I've been running this SOB on repeat since I first heard it. Do your brain and whatever exists beyond the brain a favor and check it out.

Listen and D/L.

Couch

2009-07-11T14:14:00.010-05:00

Couch

7" (1996)

Kollaps

Munich, Germany

These homies are german homies, and they released a full length in 1997, Etwas Benutzen, which I always found awesomely minimalist, before modernizing their sound and thereby diluting their attractiveness substantially. I haven't met a lot of people who feel the same way, but what I usually do is give them the crazy eyes, drag my finger across my throat, and then mouth the words, "I am gonna slit your throat with my index finger" and then they usually change their minds and agree with me.

This 7" was the harbinger to that LP, and it is pretty rad. Checkity check check it:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qeqwuu

Buyity buy buy it.
http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?release_id=857500&ev=r2

Gorge Trio

2009-07-11T13:55:00.005-05:00

Gorge Trio

He bringeth me Low 7" (1995)

Forces in Motion Records

Here's these guys, just doin' it.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8i2llc

Haberdasher

2009-07-11T13:25:00.006-05:00

Haberdasher

Quarry 7"

Reptillian Records

Bodymore, Murderland

Put your tounge on it!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/sc7v6z

Oxes

2009-07-11T12:28:00.005-05:00

Oxes

Arab on Radar 'Split' (2000)

Wantage (USA)

This is another vinyl rip of mine.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ybptan

BSC

2009-05-12T19:50:00.006-05:00

Burning Star Core

The Very Heart of the World (2005)

Thin Wrist

You'll want to buy this HERE, after listening.

Antlers

2009-04-19T17:06:00.003-05:00

Bastro

Antlers Live: 1991

Blue Chopsticks

Chicago, IL

Dudes, you guys know that I love John McEntire and Tortoise and Bastro and a lot of the things he's done but just listen to this, from the liner notes:

I would argue that our interpretations of these songs and the performances contained herein exist in a disembodied, ahistorical world; a world whose origins and possible future destinations seem wonderfully disconnected from our own, verifiable musical history.

Uh, what?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qasq57

Buy

Listen

Interstellar Space

2009-02-18T20:01:00.008-06:00

John Coltrane

Interstellar Space (1967)

Impulse!

Why Not? Why not up this record? It is after all the greatest record of all time. I just upped the original four tracks, just to keep you from getting side-tracked.

These are mp3's from my CD copy, but if you ever get the chance pick up the Vinyl.

The Radiant Mirror

2009-01-18T18:19:00.005-06:00

Flower-Corsano Duo

The Radiant Mirror

Textile Records (2007)

I bought this a while back and things being as they are, it sat on my right speaker for a long fucking time. Why? None of your fucking business thats why.

But, water under the bridge, here it is tonight, blaring through that same right speaker, appropriately living up to it's description as psyche/drone/free-jazz. A beautiful change of pace for our favorite free drummer Chris Corsano. Michael Flower uses what he calls a 'Japan Banjo' described as a "giant unwieldy instrument fed through effects pedals and an amplifier played with fingers and bows" to deliver his sound. (Look here for the quote, and some MP3's.)

Safe travels, kids.

Buy.

Listen.

Zing!

2009-01-14T14:22:00.007-06:00

Zing!

Magnetic Flux

ears & eyes

Chicago, IL

Caught these guys at the Empty Bottle a week or two back. Exactly right in our wheelhouse. They had that jazz/rock merger attack pinned, that ol' tightrope. I enjoy that the group is not afraid to delve deep into noisy rants and still create plenty of opportunities to declare themselves prim and proper 'musicians'. That's a respectable thing these days. I found the guitarist after the show and jawed his ear for what he seemed to think was way too long about his influences, objectives, contemporaries, things like that. And i just kept saying more words and he just kept staring at me all freaked-out looking. Some people don't like to talk all that much shop I suppose.

Definitely listen in, here.

And buy the shit, here.

new link for the CD!^

Suite: Bittersweet

2008-11-21T20:43:00.003-06:00

Nels Cline/ Wally Shoup/ Greg Campbell

Suite: Bittersweet (2007)

Strange Attractors

There's a good amount of records out there that are of Suite: Bittersweet's brand of modern free-jazz. Most of this brand involves the participation of names like Flaherty, Corsano, Shoup and Cline (and a host of others in this revolving door of worthy improvisers). These are the best of the best of our day, to be sure, but it's strange how these records now have a particular, unique set of expectations attached to them. You could not safely call these improvisations 'ground-breaking', or 'cutting-edge' as they seemed to have evolved into their own sub-genre, their own classification. But saying that does not intend to take anything from the unforeseen landscapes welded in these sessions. Nor do I intend to imply that they are premeditated. What in fact we have is a sort of controlled apocalypse. Like a C.I.A. experiment in which they remove a small town from all contact with the outside world in order to simulate Armageddon. It's real. The hysteria is real. But you can be assured knowing that it will not spread into some sort of John Zorn debacle.

This particular album has gotten quite a bit of playing time recently. I wouldn't rate it any better or any worse then any of it's contemporaries, if such a comparison is even possible. It does score a 100% for genuineness, which is probably the ony requisite we should have on improvised music. This is guitar, sax, drums, from 2007, and it is in print at SAAH. but assuming you'll hear this and immediately go out and buy the full record and the multitude of others of it's kind, I'll be willing to post the B side only to this record temporarily, and by request. Enjoy.

Updater

2008-11-17T19:37:00.005-06:00

Not to get off-topic, but Summer is the most wretched of the seasons; an egregiously long string of unnecessarily hot days defined by excess, idleness, and reckless hedonism. A time in which everything of importance seems to dilute - 0ur convictions, our focus, our passions. It takes a disparate and cruel drop in temperature to remind us that our primary function is still simply to survive in an unforgiving planet. And that some things need to be explored before we're gone. Back to work.
.
By virtue of a welcome but inexplicable surge in email requests here are some re-ups:

.
The Music Improvisation Company
Instant Composers Pool 006
Haberdasher
Lynx
Guitar Solos 2
The Made-Ups
.

The Futurist

2008-11-17T19:07:00.003-06:00

Shellac of North America
The Futurist (1997)
Self-Released
Chicago, IL

Ah, yes, the not so super secret Shellac album. I'm not going to go into what this record was, you can google all that. But I will tell you that it is my favorite Shellac work. All the expert minimalism and math, none of the doo-doo and feces talk.

I know posting a Shellac record may be breaching the sort of obscurity standard we've established here at M&N, but I just happened to have upped it for a friend last night and thought, some young kid out there in the vast reaches of our universe hasn't heard Shellac yet. And here it will be a bright morning for some new student of the non-song.

OOP.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xkix56

Big'N

2008-07-31T16:40:00.005-05:00

Well obviously it's been a while since the last post and I could blame that on a number of things, any of which would seem terribly irrelevant. So I will spare you the excuses and instead implore what few of you there are left to grab this CD.

Six weeks ago the "Prison City", IL band Big'N got together for their drummer's birthday in an effort to demonstrate how vulnerable the skull actually is to fierce emissions of noise. Their shows are rare and celebrated events , so I was quick to seize the night.

I'm fairly certain such a night is a primarily regional delicacy at best, so for all those unfortunate and innocently out-of-the-know, here is a site link, and a buy link. You should know, though, that after listening you'll prob be like, "woah man, like where'd my balls go? This music totally just ripped them off."

Myspace.

Amazon.

The Music Improvisation Company

2008-04-19T21:34:00.003-05:00

The Music Improvisation Co.

Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Hugh Davies, Jamie Muir, Christene Jeffrey

ECM Records

If you're like me than the Gorge Trio's Madeups really left a hole in your brain when you first heard it. Mostly due to the amount of restraint the Trio showed. For Noise, or Free-Noise this is a quality that is largely overlooked. The players will typically opt instead to compact as many layers of sound possible into each recorded second. The Madeups was patient, poised, minimalist, somethings I thought to be quite revolutionary.

So imagine my surprise when I found they've been doing it since the seventies.

Gorge Trio

2008-03-25T21:07:00.004-05:00

The Madeups (2002)

Self-Released

OOP

The paradox of free-music is that you can never achieve a wholly free improvisation. Your ideas have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is a cesspool of idioms and cliche. So naturally what you try to do is something which I call multiple fragmented perspective amalgamation. Imagine a portrait of a man's face, painted from all sides, all combined into one image. Space does not allow you to have all perspectives represented equally so thus each perspective compromises itself and becomes fragmented. The result is something nearly unrecognizable, it is a mural of familiar images cut into such tiny pieces and rearranged so that it becomes nearly totally unfamiliar. And nearly totally unfamiliar is the best free-music can aspire to as well. But it also represents reality much better than anything we're used too.

I recently read a quote defining good art as "that which reflects the viewers perspective most accurately back at him." Now take that same man, and make a painfully thorough documentary on his character. Make sure you interview everyone, and leave out the boring crap that everyone feels they have to say. The result is a mural of details ranging from his deepest, darkest secrets, to pure, unsubstantiated rumor, perhaps a man nearly totally unrecognizable to his own family. That's what you really see, isn't it? Things are actually phantoms of what they're supposed to be. Even those trusted, sacred things. You see, Rhythm and Melody are lies, trying to smuggle into your brain a poisonous, false world of trite, cookie-cutter lyrical and musical cliches.

Free music is the Truth!

The F and The C

2008-03-19T16:55:00.004-05:00

The F and The C

S/T

Austin, TX

This here is a three-piece of guitar/bass/drums from Austin, that plays a self-described brand of noise/freerock/absurdist improvisations that might seem obviously comparable to the rattle of disassembled engine parts, individually mutilated and then pieced back together. But it actually sounds nothing like that at all. But I won't blame you for thinking that because it's terribly easy to overthink these things.
-

Case in point: When you're hearing these individually mutilated parts, you can't help but ache to know which parts were mutilated artfully, and which parts recklessly, right? And you can't help but ache to know what's the difference between the two. I mean, certainly you can bang on your instrument for an hour and call it a 'noise/freerock/absurdist improvisation', right? What's so hard about that? But is that all that they are doing? Are you sure? Then why do people like me eat this shit up? Maybe you're missing something. Maybe you should listen again.

Listen here.

Blue Humans

2008-03-02T20:56:00.008-06:00

Blue Humans

Clear to Higher Time (1993)

New Alliance Records

NYC

This past week I decided to tie up a few loose ends in my Alan Licht collection, finally finding, among other things, that The Evan Dando of Noise? release from '97, which I just find too funny not to mention here. Anyway, his solo works are all very interesting and I'd recommend them in particular if it were not for his part in this beautiful studio racket from '93.

The recording is two guitars panned hard to the left and right channels respectively. The drums are centered, maybe a bit back in the mix. Someone once described this to me as free-noise, and I've always enjoyed that characterization. The drums splatter around very much in the vein of free-jazz, maybe like a belligerent imitation of Rashied Ali, while the guitars seem to be a wild mess, just raging on separate rants, noteless, unrestrained. But I have a suspicion that if one were to travel in time and sit in on this recording, that the level of coordination observed between the players, whether by design, or improvised, would be surprising. Because there is some quality in these noisy rampages that makes it outstanding, one that I can't quite pin down. Something went terribly right for these three in the August of 1991.

I'll throw up a link to a file with the five tracks later tonight or tomorrow, because I'm pretty sure it's out of print, but I'd like to check first.In the mean time here's one track, "Movement" from another blog. Here's the ZIP.

The CD goes for $.01 used, and under two bucks new, so just buy it already.

Febuary Releases

2008-02-24T12:05:00.010-06:00

These are a few records released this month that I have not heard yet, but am excited to get my hands on.

L'ocelle Mare is the newest project of avant guitarist Thomas Bonvalet, formerly one half of France's excellent Cheval De Frise. After the tray time Frenetic Record's Fresques Sur les Parois Secrètes du Cråne received, it would be a sin not to pick up Thomas's solo record. But if that alone wasn't enough, the tracks provided on his website point towards a braver, more complex, fascinating direction for the classically trained guitar man. I've had tracks "9" and "2" in my head for weeks now, trying to decode the narratives hidden within them. You have to wonder about the writing process that led to these songs, because they seem to grow naturally, as if improvised, but retain a flawlessness and a precision that suggests design. Very impressive.

CD available at Sickroom Records. Plays Chicago on Mar. 1st in store at Permanent Records.

My Disco also releases their second record this month, and based on the tracks provided here, it seems likely to be even stronger than their first. I'm basing this mostly from the tracks "You Came to Me Like A" and "Paradise" which boast an impressive understanding of restraint and minimalism in structure which I thought was long dead. If the rest of the album meets the standard reached in these two tracks, then we're in the runnings for the best of year. My Disco hail from Australia and it doesn't look like they have any immediate plans to visit Chicago or the States which is too bad for us, and too bad for the dying genre.

The new record, Paradise, is available at Stomp Entertainment.

Derek Bailey

2008-02-18T16:25:00.002-06:00

Experimental etc. has more D. Bailey improvisations available for download (I mean, like, all of them). Including the link to this amazing video, and others. The timing of Etc's post is uncannily serendipitous, because I've fallen into a deep and incurable obsession with Mr. Bailey's works over the last few weeks. It's really out of control. I haven't seen the sun in days. My friends stopped trying to call me. I don't know who I am anymore.

Damsel

2008-02-11T18:55:00.000-06:00

Damsel

Distressed (2006)

Temporary Residence

Nels Cline, guitar; Zach Hill, drums; Jonathan Hischke, bass, bass synths; Matt Zivich, synths

I bought this early last year but it seems lately I've been giving it a ridiculous amount of playing time. I'm not too familiar with any other Z. Hill projects beside Hella, so I'm not sure if he often ventures outside of his metal comfort zone, but he certainly ought to. This album could certainly be defined as avant garde, and I'm not sure that the genre sees drumming like this very often. Nels is at his best on this record, leading the tangents, with his trademark and refined union of free-jazz and free-noise guitar stylings. And Matt Zivich's intelligent noise-making is particularly impressive with it's display of subtlety and restraint, all the while remaining a powerful presence in the quartet. (Apparently he's Wilco's live sound engineer (?), but he ought to do this type of thing more often as well.) And the bass winds around Nels guitar like a true professional. All the elements are in place, here. It is a refreshingly unique improvisational exhibition, a cut above the sort of improvised-noise recording one might be expecting. Recorded in one day.

Listen to this mp3, "Deathwatch on the American Empire". Or at a myspace.
Buy the record here.

'008.003

2008-02-07T18:20:00.001-06:00

Three by ZU

One of the many terrible things about being obsessed with noise happens when you find a great record by a band you've never heard of before. Instanly you need everything they've done. The thought of that one great record, just collecting dust out there. You vow to find their every release, and wrangle them in like helpless, lost steer. And then the nightmare thickens as one by one the steer turn up rare, expensive, out of print, or worse, Italian. Zu have such a history of rapid-fire releases and collaborations that I imagine are half-improvised and pressed so fast they themselves forgot about them. That's not even a joke, you think Nels Cline remembers all of his collaborations? Bullshit. Because I know that motherfucker, and I know that motherfucker doesn't!

Here are three OOP by Zu I can't find anywhere.

http://theshapeofchaostocome.blogspot.com/2007/08/zu-discography-1999-2007-12-albums_12.html
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Listen to Zu here. Buy their stuff here.

And I've never met Nels Cline in my life.

'008.002

2008-02-01T17:42:00.000-06:00

Here are two more releases that I've had some trouble finding, which the blogosphere has recently, graciously provided.

Derek Bailey
Aida (1981)
Incus
England

Found here:

http://experimentaletc.blogspot.com/2008/01/derek-bailey.html

This sort of instrumentation knocks you upside the head and proves that the music you have been listening to all your life has been boring and colorless and without dimension. I don't think there will ever be a time where I will say I'm done finding Derek Bailey releases, so I can't necessarily say it's my favorite, but this is the best I've heard yet. There are moments in this record that are super-human. And because Art is social, by listening to it, by proxy, you are traversing the new plane right beside him.

-

A Short Apnea

Illu Ogod Ellat Rhagedia (Ustrainhustri) -2000
Wallace
Italy

Found here:

http://jizzrelics.blogspot.com/2007/06/short-apnea-illu-ogod-ellat-rhagedia.html

Not as mature or self-assured as the Gorge Trio collaboration, or even the excellent Indigo Ballad, Illu Ogod is the A Short Apnea's, wilder, untamed, uncertain adolescence. It is loaded with daring, unexplored ideas which shift gears at random, refusing to be locked down, shoveling new sounds and combinations of sounds one after the other. If this group wrote the book on artistry in noise-making, then this record is chapter one.

Winter '008

2008-01-25T16:05:00.001-06:00

The benefit of so many of these consecutive snowed-in and sub-zero nights is that there's not alot to do besides getting really, really acquainted with your record collection. These sorts of musical benders usually induce an unnatural lust for new sounds, an insurgence of mail orders, and misguided, impulsive, frozen trips to the corner record shop. It seems the ear grows more acute this time of year. This winter I've decided the season's frontier I need to tackle should be the blogosphere. I went out and bought one of those gargantuan hard-drives and I plan on scraping the barrel clean of all sorts of nutso, obscure, rare and out of print gems. Some of my favorite finds so far:

ICP Orchestra

Group Composing, ICP006

Recorded in Rotterdam, 15/5/1970

OOP

Peter Brotzmann: tenor sax, Paul Rutherford: trombone, Han Bennink: percussion, Misha Mengelberg: piano, Evan Parker: tenor and soprano sax, Peter Bennink: alto sax, bagpipes Derek Bailey: guitar.

I can't say enough about this, but I have a suspicion that the more I write, the less people will read. Nevertheless, this is amazing. I really want to say something regarding the 'deep textures' that are improvised by this all-star line-up, but I fear it will sound cliche. But there is depth or some such quality in this recording that I haven't heard in any other to date. My knowledge of such things is still in it's infancy, but I believe that ICP006 is what we should talk about, when we talk about free-jazz.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/so14ws

Acoustic Guitar Trio

s/t (2001)

Recorded in Los Angeles, CA

Incus Records

Nels Cline, Rod Poole, and Jim Mcauley

Another bout of improvisation, though this one substantially less aggressive. I spent most of my life trying to convince myself that heart trumps skill, but this type of collaboration makes that brand of idealism hard to sell. The players tread delicately, and are remarkably respectful to the agenda, that is to say, no one at no point monopolizes the music. What most interests me in this recording is the unlikeliness of the partnered guitar lines. Unlikeliness is difficult to intend, and it sounds great here. I found this at Audial Forensics.

http://audialforensics.blogspot.com/2007/12/improvised-glory.html
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Moreland Audio

Turbogold (2003)
54-40 or Fight Records

Atl., GA

Well, not this album specifically, but the motherload of Moreland Audio live sets has been made available here. If nothing else, download one set. I assure you that you've not heard composition like this before. Two parts guitar, one part drums. For me, these are the tracks that launched an entire collection, I've spent good dollar after bad trying to find music like this, and at some point just gave up and went onto noise and free-jazz. Salut, Atlanta's finest! Uploads found at Master of None. Buy it proper.

http://bendavismusic.blogspot.com/2008/01/omnibus-edition-one.html
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Guitar Solos 2

2008-01-18T21:03:00.000-06:00

Bailey Frith Fitzgerald Reichel
Guitar Solos 2 (1976)
Caroline Records

So the first Frith upload got me thinking about the second Frith sider, and it occurred to me, that it's never been officially digitalized, and that moreover, it's out of print. So why not rip it for the two or three people who drop in from time to time? I've made a couple of vinyl rips for personal use, and have been sufficiently pleased, but this being the first of it's kind for M&N, I'm open to technical advice or criticism. This particular record is in grade A condition, but understand, it's also thirty plus years old. Ripped with a Rega P1.

Side one
Water/ Struggle/ The North (Frith) 11:05
Only Reflect (Frith) 4:00
Brixton Winter 1976 (G.F. Fitzgerald) 9:40

Side two
Avantlore (Reichel) 3:05
Vain Yookts (Reichel) 3:00
Donnerkuhle (Reichel) 5:05
Virginal (Bailey) 6:20
Praxis (Bailey) 4:00
The Lost Chord (Bailey) 1:50

http://www.sendspace.com/file/7iwvn5

Laddio Bolocko

2008-01-14T20:27:00.000-06:00

Laddio Bolocko
The Life and Times of Laddio Bolocko (2002)
No Quarter Records
New York, NY

This is the entire discography of one of the premier noise rock groups of all time. It compiles their three releases from 97, 98 and 2000. The flagship of the Bolocko Armada is undoubtedly the 97 debut, Strange Warmings of, which features six blistering, hypnotic tracks of guitar/bass/drums/sax, among them the profound and mind-splitting opener, 'Goat Lips', which has within it, that stuff of gods, that rarely found, life-changing, metamorphosizing stuff. But you're nuts if you think I'm going to upload it here, because that would be too easy for you. This is serious, man. We're trying to build something here; a transcendental state. And that takes hard work. Only Discipline creates Excellence. Go find it.

In the meantime:

This video came from here.
No Quarter seems to have sold out.
Try Amazon. Music Stack. Ebay.

MMVII

2008-01-13T11:19:00.000-06:00

I meant to put this up before the new year, but didn't get around to it-
Tracks from this blog's 2007 picks.

1. 'B is for Burning' - Zs (Arms)
2. '37501' - 37500 Yens (Astero)
3. 'I Hate Clowns' - Black Engine (Klu Klux Klowns)
4. 'Tax Reduction' - The Conformists (Three Hundred)
5. 'James Spader' - Sleeping People (Growing)
6. 'Bump' - Zs (Buck)
7. 'Crime Story' - Home of the Wildcats (Sing Puerto Rican Love Songs)
8. 'Sting Ray and the Beginning of Time' - Exploding Star Orchestra (We are All From Somewhere Else)
9. 'Caved-in Heart Blues' - Nels Cline Singers (Draw Breath)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xp11hd

Fred Frith

2008-01-10T17:14:00.000-06:00

Fred Frith

Guitar Solos (1974)

Caroline Records

London, England

I just uploaded a fraction of this for someone, and thought why not throw it in here. I remember a while back making a resolution to seek out music that sounded as alien or unearthly as I could find it- or rather, music that sounded completely detached from tradition, and lacking the fingerprints of history. This record is one that genuinely sounds like it was written on Mars. It's still music, but it's using no scales you've ever heard of. It's as though the album is trying really hard to speak your language, but the culture barrier is far too wide to effectively communicate. The first few tracks, which I've packaged here, are a perfect example of this beautiful blend of the other-worldly and the familiar. Frith has way too many projects to keep track of, so if you've any favorites, let me know so I can track them down.

Buy this here.

A Short Apnea

2007-12-18T16:11:00.000-06:00

A Short Apnea with Gorge Trio

...Just Arrived (2004)

Wallace Records

At some point, after listening to way too many hip records, you may began to over-think your relationship with music. Throughout your life (and you probably know what I mean, considering you're reading a noise-rock blog) you have acquired this reputation, intentionally or not, as a person who spends a ridiculous amount of time and money on records. And because of this, certain people, naturally, looking to break the ice a bit, will ask you if you've heard the new Radiohead (e.g.), and then tell you how mind-blowing it is. Especially these days, in indie-rock's golden age of sorts, assertions like these can become so profuse, for some of us it's hard to stomach. But it's not arrogance that causes the nausea. It's confusion, really. How is it that so many people still enjoy the same brand of chorus-and-verse lunchmeat every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner? And none of us here are saying that any new trend of indie-rock is indigestible, (it is after all just rhythm and melody, what's not to like about it?) but why dedicate forty minutes of your life to some formula you've heard a thousand times before, this time with mustard?

Naturally, in time, I convinced myself I simply hated music, and that what in fact I wanted to hear was blatant noise; anything with a complete disregard for conventional structures and formulas. But a regrettable series of 'ambient' record recommendations quickly changed my mind about this. The bulk of the genre is good enough for providing atmosphere, which has it's place in any record collection, granted, but it seems incredibly unwise to spend an album's length of your time on anything that fails to engage you, or fails to require your full attention. Good records are not a condiment to your environment, or something to set a mood. They are participatory events. They are not background. Nor are they, for that matter, anything similar to the shockingly ample supply of records that attempt to sound like random, chaotic noise. Because deliberately trying to appear random or chaotic invariably ends up sounding very forced and phony. What I was looking for was a synthesis. An alloy of nothing formulated, nothing dull, and nothing forced.

To find this rare harmony of noise and patterns you have to come to the fringes, the frontier. You have to find a place of natural, unforced lawlessness. In our case, this place is somewhere in Milan, Italy, where Just Arrived was recorded in just three days. The blend is made of guitars, both electric and table, drums, rhodes piano, organ, and tapes, and takes six of the avantiest musicians of the avant-garde to achieve the proper balance. It should really speak for itself, so I won't insult it with any further explanation. Here are tracks 1-3 . Or if you feel you're not quite ready to live outside the indie-rock police-state, then maybe you'll like this album instead. (I heard it's free.)

Buy the CD.

Lustre King

2007-12-14T16:14:00.001-06:00

Lustre King
The Money Shot (1996)
Divot/Action Boy
Chicago, IL

Tonight begins a series of six Shellac shows in four days at the Hideout here in Chicago. I'm going to try and catch as many as I can, but right now it's looking like only half of the six. Tonight's show, I've just found out, also happens to feature Mike Lust's Tight Phantomz as an opening act , which naturally has me harkening back to this elegantly scratchy EP from 1996.

Firstly, I have to admit that the Phantomz aren't really my thing. I have the one CD, and it kind of bitez. That being said, frontman Lust still puts on one hell of a live show. It's always plenty full of high leg kicks, jumps, flips, and sometimes that really cool swinging-the-guitar-around-the-waist thing. This standard was set way back in the day when he lead the Chicago three-piece Lustre King, in fact, any time you mention Lustre King to anyone here in the city, it is those antics that they recall first. They'll remember some crazy stunt one of them pulled or how smashed the bassist was one night. And it's all really a shame because beneath the ultra-scratchy guitar tone, and some street-tough shit-talking tin-can vocals, the band played some secretly intelligent music that normally tends to fall by the wayside when the band is discussed.

Listen to the details of this record. Don't let it fool you. It runs past you in just thirteen and a half minutes, so you'll probably have to flip it over and play it again. It's five tracks have a tendency to shift gears mid-way through and become something else. While the guitar is alternating between math-drenched riffage and some really raunchy spats of noise-making, the bass and drums are pulling off some pretty fancy rhythms, some that sputter and some that glide.

Epitonic has two tracks for download, 'Just Hit Town' and 'Gigolo Swing'.
Here is a fansite that has on it some of 1999's Shoot the Messenger, which might interest you, too. Look for the record or CD at Amazon or Music Stack, because I'm pretty sure it's OOP. Or just ask me and I'll upload it.

Home of the Wildcats

2007-12-02T18:46:00.000-06:00

Atlanta, Ga
You know, the real purpose of this site is in the links to the music, and the rest is just sort of unnecessary nonsense. But if I just posted the links by themselves it would just seem rather lazy, so I usually just piece together a morsel or two of relevant information and move on. But every now and then I get these ridiculous ideas. And when drafting a post about the aforementioned Home of the Wildcats, the paragraph quickly morphed into an ineloquent rant comparing the band to a frankensteined Beast with an identity crisis and an unsatisfiable hunger that ultimately eats itself. I'm not sure how that happened, but I've decided to just stick to giving relevant facts from now on.

HOTW was 2/3 of Purkinje Shift and 1/2 of Copa Vance. They're from Atlanta. They're a quartet that seemed to intend to incorporate elements of their prior avant/math projects into a more conventional delivery, with simpler structures and added vocals. The result was phenomenal. It seemed like the band had the capacity to reach into that sort of 1990's Touch & Go terrain, give it new life and bridge it to the present. Last winter I first heard of the band's plans to release a full-length, and I must admit, waited very excitedly for many months. The few live tracks that were uploaded to the band's site were all excellent but really only served to exacerbate the waiting period. This past week it has come to my attention that the band has decided to call it quits and shelve the album. Fortunately, bassist Benjamin Davis has made the mastered recordings available free of charge at his blog, Master of None. Tonight I've downloaded it, one full winter later, and have plans to listen to it over a few ales. So here's to the self-eating Beast that almost was.

The record is here.

Knot Feeder

2007-12-02T11:28:00.000-06:00

Pittsburgh, PA
Banfield Takes the Lead?
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When we first heard Don Caballero we all thought it was pretty amazing, even if you weren't necessarily hip to it you were able at least to be amazed by it. By '95-'97 they had a major hand in popularizing 'math-rock' and introducing the genre's unconventional elements to a broader audience. So much so that today I'd estimate having heard maybe 4 billion or so Don Cab rip-off bands. And although I believe the American Don to be the band's masterpiece, it was the prior records Don Cab 2 and What Burns that were the real ambassadors to the music world. At this time, the lineup was Ian Williams and Mike Banfield on guitar, Eric Emm on bass, and Damon Che on drums. It's interesting to see where each of these four, as a sort of revolutionary coalition, headed after the band's ugly collapse in 2000.
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Che went on to Bellini, where he continued to compete against the music with his unnecessary, flashy, self-involved drumming. Despite Che, Bellini was still mildly tolerable, Speaking Canaries not so much, but it was the gross concoction of Non Caballero's World Class Listening Problem in 2006, that solidifies Che's place at the bottom of our tournament bracket. Emm, now mostly does production work but gets accolades for his involvement with the venerable Storm & Stress (listen here), which released two records on Touch & Go and pushed beyond the new frontiers Don Cab had helped colonize. The real force behind S&S, however, was Ian Williams, whose post Caballero resume is by far the strongest of the three. After the follow-up Under the Fluorescent Lights (listen here), seemed to indicate the band had achieved all it could, Williams wisely called an end to Storm and Stress, and upped the ante again as co-author to a series of superb EP's with supergroup Battles. In 2007 Battles switched gears and released its first full-length, Mirrored, which is a whole separate can of worms we won't discuss here. But regardless of your feelings on Mirrored, it is clear Williams chooses to consistently move forward in his career rather than remain stagnant and you can't argue with the logic in that. But if you believe Mirrored is in fact a stumble, as I do, then you should know that the time is ripe for a rally.
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2008 has plans to be the year the long-silent Mike Banfield returns to music with his new project, Knot Feeder. Based out of Pittsburgh, Banfields crew includes an Andy Curl on bass, Andrew Grossmann and Rob Spagiare of Tabula Rasa, with the possible opening for a vocalist (though I'm praying they opt to remain instrumental). They've begun recording tracks for a debut using material with some two years of reworking. Not to jump the gun or anything, but listen to these three tracks available for streaming here, and then try convincing me this isn't going to be in the runnings for our best record of 2008.
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Seriously.

Year End Notes

2007-11-28T17:00:00.000-06:00

The Top
Well the top tier of 2007 records has pretty much been covered here in earlier posts. I'm certain there is a very large number of equally worthy candidates out there, sadly it just seems to take a while for records of the type to rear their heads above the sea of mediocrity we've come to call indie-rock. Of the few gems I was able to scavenge, here are my top five:

Naturally, a band's debut record it's less likely to be discovered and this year only 37500 Yens' Astero was the only debut piece of music that found it's way into my stereo, and only by chance, and left an indelible impression. If forced, I'd have to say I enjoyed this collection of songs more than any other in 2007. It probably wasn't the most groundbreaking, but it seems to have selected all the finest elements from a diverse pool of admirable influences. The Conformist's 300 has to be a close second for sort of inventing their own bizarro hybrid genre that will launch a thousand records in the future. It brings me much happiness knowing that there is such a band called the Conformists out there, on tour, probably inspiring a bunch of warped-minded kids to think differently about their hackneyed punkrock. I was surprised at the strength of Z's Arms, and it's ability to maintain agression within such strict discipline. Their new album explores a range of textures, or dynamics, you might say, which their previous efforts hadn't. And it almost seems too easy to throw in Black Engine's Klu Klux Klowns but it's irresistible. It is basically a Zu record, and it sounds like a Zu record, which is to say it sounds like a beautiful, bludgeoning racket, so it makes for #4. And I gotta round it off with Ahleuchatista's Even in the Midst simply because no one else can do what they do for the fourth time over and still make it interesting, let alone their finest work. Plus they seem like a bunch of stand up guys and probably deserve it. I've never met them or anything but just look at them.

Ringer
The Psychic Paramount released this wonderful LP, The Gamelan into the Mink Supernatural, which was originally released in 2005 but only as a compact disc. Available in 2007 on vinyl it sounds almost like a completely new album and at the very least worth mentioning again. The record was mixed in the red, as it were, to carry a sort of hypnotic feel, which turns some people off, but I didn't mind. The Psychic Paramount includes members of Laddio Bolocko, the legendary ever-inspiring noise-rock torch bearers of yesterday. No Quarter Records.
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Sleeper
I'm somewhat taken aback by how much I'm enjoying Sleeping People's Growing. Their first release was interesting and worthwhile in that it felt like a logical extension of Rumah Sakit's work, but I can't quite determine weather in fact the band has taken a huge leap forward with it's darker, dronier, slintier tangents and sci-fi soundtrack synth tracks or if I'm just in a good mood. Temporary Residence.

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Bulk

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Upsilon Acrux released it's fifth full-length this year, Galapagos Momentum, and while UA never disappoints it never quite blows you away the way it probably should. Considering the level of technical skill of which the band is capable, their records, while impressive, always seem to underwhelm just slightly. On tape anyhow. I caught the band's live set in a dingy unmentionable bar here in Chicago this October and decided that's how the band was meant to be heard.
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Contrariwise, I saw Wilco in Chicago's new and ornate Millennium Park, and what I fail to understand about Jeff Tweedy is after assembling a lethal team of avant-garde professionals including On Filmore's Glenn Kotche, noise-specialist Jim O'Rourke of our favorite Brise-Glace, and the untouchable guitarist Nels Cline, the Wilco frontman puts out his blandest, most conventional record to date. The Nels Cline Singers on the other hand proved they are still capable of some interesting things on Draw Breath, while it may not have the fire of Nels' earlier works, it is still a fine record that includes a profoundly introspective opening track that feels like a summary of your life's experiences to date.
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And in order to sustain your necessary Tortoise fill for the year you picked up the Exploding Star Orchestra's We Are All From Somewhere Else, which allowed you to hear Herndon and Mcentire's drums and Jeff Parkers guitar under the direction of Rob Mazurek. But if you were really lucky then you showed up to the Chicago Symphony Center on the 13th of October...

Here are selected tracks from some of the aforementioned records.

Live
I saw a number of good shows this year but without a doubt the most radically interesting was Tortoise at the CSC. They played the musical accompaniment to F. W. Murnau's 1922 silent horror classic Nosferatu, which, I had no idea, is surprisingly terrifying. Add to that some spooky noises and ambiance from Tortoise's deep bag of electronic tricks and a dizzying view atop the fifth floor balcony-- very cool. I tried to keep track of the handful of musical 'themes' that recurred throughout the film, but Nosferatu himself was quite distracting and engaging, (props to that guy, honestly, he creeped me out), but I do recall the opening credits were accompanied by a reworked version of 'Salt the Skies', one of my favorite tracks of off 2004's It's All Around You. Beyond that all the music was unrecorded I'm pretty sure, and I particularly remember the music in the travelling sequences having a noteworthy quality to them. Somewhere I've read that Tortoise plans to use pieces written for that night's performance in a new record in'08 or '09. So we've got that going for us. But what I would really like to see is a DVD of the music score and the film, only because I very much want to show people what I saw that night- it was that good, but I'm pretty sure that is not likely to happen. But I'll settle for a youtube clip, or any sort of video from that evening. If anyone finds anything, let us know.

We might as well take this moment to plug another local act, Voltage, which played in front of Battles at the Empty Bottle, in March of this year. They're a two piece that very much caught me off-guard live, and as a bonus played in full-on knight's armour and chain mail. The two-piece also sell these home made synth-sets, and give you a soldering tutorial on their website. I believe their record does not do their live set justice, but it's still worth your dime.
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And finally I wouldn't feel right if I didn't mention that 2007 saw the first new Slint material since the posthumous EP release of 1994. Slint played Spiderland front to back on a beautiful summer day in Union Park, and afterwards we met 'King's Approach' for the first time. Video here. Song here.

Mechakucha

2007-11-20T16:30:00.000-06:00

Mechakucha

One Million Safe Hours (1999)

Portland, OR

Frenetic Records

Before we get to talking about the best records of 2007 I'd like to honor a piece of music I hadn't heard until this year, but was released in way back in '99. In the old days, before the internets, the only way to hear of new music was by word of mouth. I suppose there were mailing lists and that one guy who works at the record store, but those dudes try to sell you everything. You tell them, "I'm really mostly into, like, angular, abrasive stuff but, you know, in a smart way." He says, "O sure try this- " and hands you some tech-metal virtuoso bullshit. You always needed a reliable filter, a trustworthy kindred spirit. And those were a rare type, I think I knew one or two. And how many like-minded ears did they know? Prolly only two too, and I was one of them. So news traveled slow. Like really slow. And in this case of Mechakucha, about Eight years slow. But it is still here, now, and that's what's important.

If I ever describe a record as "disciplined" and you need a reference, this is it. The meat of One Million is a vast supply of off-beat and atonal riffs bolted to even more unlikely riffage on either side. And then submerge it in thick growl. Technical achievements normally fail to impress me unless they are accompanied by superior achievements of Tone, as Mechakucha does here.

Next to nothing is available on Mechakucha. I've done searches on it's members and and only a handful of results showed them to be involved individually in ensemble live projects, possibly jazz-based. So if you know of any information, please let me know. It's difficult to accept One Million Safe Hours as a sort of singular event, with no evolution, a fluke project Mechakucha as a trio created and then walked away from without consequence. Maybe another eight years and we'll know.

Listen to the opener, "Episodic De Ja Vu"

Only five bucks at Frenetic Records.

Zs and Zu

2007-11-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

So I spent this October primarily listening to just these two bands, Zs and Zu. Both are tirelessly described as Avant-Rock or Avant-jazz or Avant-jazz-rock or some such combination around the internets. But I've found they fit in nicely with the bands covered here. They are entirely unrelated, but are very much similar to one another. Both are very much drenched in the saxophone, both are terribly innovative and make for a very refreshing listen. One's from New York, one's from Rome.

Buck (2007)

Brooklyn, NY

Gilgongo Records

In addition to releasing a new album Arms on Planaria records this year, Zs have also released Buck, a compilation of two live sets. I'm still waiting on Arms, so I can not vouch for it, but I have listened extensively to the Karate Bump EP and Zs, the 2003 self-titled. Both of these releases are excellent examples of what the band is capable of, and parts of both are featured in Buck, which is why it deserves a special highlighting here.

Part of what most allured me to Zs initially was the rhythms they create by lightly blowing into the reeds. That a band would accent this nearly inaudible effect and put it into the forefront of their sound was very exciting to me. But that it works so well in the live recording is what really blew me away. The tracks are all very complicated, have no obvious patterns, are by no means brief, and somehow are all performed flawlessly. Website. Myspace

Zu

Igneo (2002)

Rome, Italy

Frenetic Records

You could probably compare Zu to the Gorge Trio in the sense that they're a trio that's 'gone collaborative' over the years in pursuit of forever pushing the barriers their sound. I've heard a handful of these collaborations that are readily available here in the US, but it is the earlier Igneo, that is most easily found this side of the Atlantic, and seems to be the most popular of their releases. Igneo finds the group as it began, a three-piece of sax, bass, and drums, and special guests Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop and Fred Lomberg-Holm. They all play part to an intelligent, heavy, clamorous mess. Website.Myspace.

For 2007 Zu is operating under another moniker, Black Engine. This is a collaboration with Eraldo Bercocchi. The album Klu Klux Klowns is likely to be one of my favorites of the year. You can order the CD at this great site- Wallace Records. Listen to 4 tracks here or at the official website.

The Conformists

2007-09-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

The Conformists
Three Hundred (2007)
St. Louis, MO
54-40 or Fight Records

I was fortunate enough to catch The Conformists at a midnight show here in Chicago a few months back, part of their 'world tour' supporting the new record, Three Hundred, on 54-40. The band had been on my bands-to-check-out list for some time, cheaply defined in the margins as a 'spooky U.S. Maple'. I suppose an unfairly small snapshot of Three Hundred might fit that description, but the whole experience of a Conformist's live set is what really transformed my understanding of the band.

Aside from the opening to the sixth track, the album might give the impression of a band that is gravely bound to a morose set of artsy-creepy themes. It is 9 tracks packed with quiet, dark, 'minimalist' moments like the skeletal guitar dawdling and gentle tapping of the drumkit's frame on 'Tax Deduction', heavy-breathing, panting and slurping throughout, plenty of tinkering and noise-making, and a half minute of an amp's hum to open the album. But in the flesh The Conformists blend their unique musical ideas with sarcasm, dry humor, and a brand of bizarre showmanship that could be compared to The Jesus Lizard. They do make use of the vocalist as an instrument ala U.S. Maple, that is to say that the vocals aren't just melodies to sing over the instruments, but an assortment of nutso personalities assumed by the frontman. This is done nicely on record and in the live set is performed by a shirtless schizophrenic crawling through the crowd, grabbing limbs, mumbling nonsense, generally trying to freak people out.

As much as the band may or may not like to hear it, 300 is going to be called 'deconstructionist', which to me is a perfectly apt description. (For their own reasons U.S. Maple has taken issue with the term.) But however you want to say it, The Conformists have found a way to forge Trout Mask Replica's structural demolitions with the vigor of TJL's Goat and Liar records. If I worked at 54-40 I'd put a little sticker on the CD, "Deconstrutionist music you can mosh to!"

In addition to being excellent musicians all, guitar, drums and bass, the band seems pretty young too, as near as I can tell. This is only their second full-length, aside from that they have a 12" of noises, and a 7". So we're hoping there is a long future ahead of them.

The website.

The Myspace.

A Video:

Ahleuchatistas

2007-09-11T17:16:00.000-05:00

Ahleuchatistas

Even in the Midst... (2007)

Asheville, NC

Cuneiform Records

Ahleuchatistas are scheduled to officially release their fourth record next week some time. But it is now available by mail order. I've only had this album for a couple of days, so I have yet to really wrap my head around it, but the first impression is that it holds up to all that one would expect from an Ahleuchatistas record, and may even surpass What You Will and all it's Ahleu-glory. If you've never heard them, Ahleuchatistas is a guitar-bass-drums trio that plays a type of mathrock that is as loose as it is disciplined. (Some call it jazzy, or free-jazz, or jazz-core, but I try to avoid that lazy adjective.) By 'loose' we might say it sounds as though the three instruments are all telling the same story at once, but each account offers a version of events that disagrees slightly from the others. It all makes for a positively refreshing dichotomy. The band primarily blends it's own 'randomized notes' techniques and it's own kind of bizarro riffage assaults into wayward tangents that hardly look back toward their roots. At times these tangents move in such organic and natural ways while just as often they seem to be lawless and savage or even beautifully misplaced.

Woah. That came out pretty fast.

It really does make sense, though.

Really.

Listen to the record Here.

And Here.

Blame Game

2007-09-06T16:32:00.000-05:00

Blame Game
Ask Someone (2006)
Atlanta, GA
Stickfigure Records

It was only a little over a year ago when I first heard Blame Game's "Clear Change", the opening track from their final LP. Within a matter of hours I made sure that I had their entire catalogue in the mail and on it's way. Sadly, not but a few weeks later the band decided to call it quits. It's not very often you feel so compelled to reunite a band that you might not stop short of bribery or even entrapment. Well, maybe you might have that feeling often, but I certainly would never push beyond extortion. Like waterboarding or something. Thats taking things a little bit too far.

What I received in the mail a week later was a 2004 self-titled CD (a twenty-seven track collection of early hardcore-based material), Honey and Salt (an excellent and fluid 2005 full length, and milemarker of the band's evolution ), and the Ask Someone 12". The three releases, all profoundly different, each still proudly bare the unmistakable tattoo that is the Blame Game's uniquely amalgamated sound. I've never spoken to a member of this band, or come across a an interview dealing with the subject, but if I did I'd love to ask them what led to the dumping of two guitar players, and this deliberate evolution in only a few short years. I can only imagine that their youth played a factor in all of it, they'd gotten to write clever and innovative music, refreshingly devoid of conventional composition, before the world's stink of cliche was allowed to settle.

On this LP, two guitars "churn and weave" with one another, cutting and tearing into unexpected directions at impractical moments, synchronized so wonderfully that the two seem to be of one mind. One bass reigns them in like two comets on kite strings, and one drumkit will achieve just about anything any drumkit could ever hope to achieve for about 30 minutes and change.

I am sure there were influences, hidden somewhere deep beneath the surface, and they may reveal themselves one day. But as it was, in 2006, no band produced a finer blend of just such mysterious influences. Ask Someone is four tracks. Available on vinyl only.

"Clear Change" can be heard here.
More here.
Buy this record.

Ativin

2007-08-23T18:22:00.001-05:00

Ativin
Summing the Approach (1998)
Secretly Canadian
Bloomington, IN

Originally I intended to write about German Water, the near perfect full-length and big brother to this remarkable EP. But I found Summing the Approach late last night wooing me like an old decadent habit.
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Cy
Riding and Roaming
Summing the Approach
My Eyes of Yours
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With only four tracks it still manages to capture the tension and spookiness of German Water. You could say it achieves this by kidnapping all of the bratty whiny children of Spiderland and in their place substituting a team of masked assassins with roboticly precise trigger fingers. You'll notice how well the EP has built upon it's influences in "Cy", the opener, almost immediately with it's stuttering rhythms, subtle howls, and stretches of quiet, quiet guitar. I've always looked upon "Riding and Roaming", the following track, as a masterpiece of composition and mood, and you can certainly hear elements of "For Dinner..." in it's final moments of non-crescendo. But I am definitely not one to tax a band for building on the ideas of Slint. If you are, it's probably because you're upset Ativin got there first. Sucker.

Recorded by S. Albini', two guitars, drums.

Listen to "Cy" from this EP and other tracks here. Or at Epitonic.

Brise-Glace

2007-08-19T19:25:00.000-05:00

Brise-Glace

When in Vanitas (1994)

Skin Graft Records

Only a few weeks ago Skingraft records found an old box of LP's that had been returned by a European distributor for having experienced some minor damage. The copies went quick but I was lucky enough to grab one. Since then I've been listening to it rather steadily, possibly appreciating it now a bit more as a record.

I'd say 3/5 of this record is noise, layered thickly but discriminately, to simulate perhaps some crudely industrial pre-apocolyptic offworld megalopolis. At least that's what I hear. Woven into Jim O'Rourke's craters and tunnels of sound is the unmatchable instrumentation of Darin Grey and Thymme Jones on bass and drums which propels this record beyond being just a supergroup project, but a definite trendsetter, the pioneering icon which all other noise-drenched records to come will imitate. Recorded by Steve Albini, it consists of five tracks at about fifty minutes.

Here is the opening track.

Colossamite

2007-08-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

Colossamite

Economy of Motion (1998)

Skin Graft Records

Dazzling Killmen are quite possibly responsible for creating music's greatest family tree of their decade. A sizable chunk of my favorite records are post-DK projects by bassist Darin Grey (Brise-Glace, Grand Ulena, You Fantastic!), while drummer Blake Flemming's Laddio Bolocko was also mind-blowing, and Nick Sakes' vocal and guitar performance on Colossamite's All Lingo's Clamor EP was certainly impressive. But perhaps the most surreal of all the Killmen's grandchildren is Colossamite's only full-length LP and wayward trip around the bend, Economy of Motion.

Not quite a total wreck, there are recognizable 'songs' with definite melodies, carved by an assault of three guitar's noisy ranting and a lawless drumkit. Yet the bulk of the record rests delicately on a sort of unstable precipice of sanity, and with each trip to this crackling threshold you are accompanied by an untamed vocal tour guide, who, even if completely mad, you must admit has an undeniable knack for The Word. And then suddenly, by the fourth track, you have veered off-course, and have found yourself on a slow and strange journey into the center of a massive pressure-cooker. (No doubt you are wondering what the fuck I am talking about, but hear the record and you shall be set free.) And then, just as suddenly, you're back in the heart some Spanish-Language Dadaist Word-Museum Civil War where the narrator implores you to "Make it simple. Like an Orange. Not like a toilet."

This toying with the boundaries takes place for under forty minutes, and perhaps reaches a climax of sorts on 'Tooth of Davinci", which can be downloaded here at Epitonic. Otherwise you can find the record's opener, "Hothouse", here, along with "Arkansas Halo". "Pee Dio" and "Busy Little Hands" off the record are also currently available, in addition to other downloads, at this fansite.

Skin Graft Records still has the CD and LP available.

Gorge Trio

2007-08-01T19:26:00.001-05:00

Gorge Trio
Dead Chicken Fear No Knife (1998)
Free Land Records
Out Of Print

Dead Chicken was put to tape by 3/4 of the band Colossamite in order to tread where that band would not, if you can imagine that. Gorge Trio would ultimately find even more bizarre things to do in the studio, with a series of improvised collaborations over the next decade, but Dead Chicken archives the trio creating their only record in which the songs were premeditated, rehearsed, and perhaps even replicated live.
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Recorded in the same year as Colossamite's pivotal masterpiece of insanity, the record naturally shares some likeness to Economy of Motion, but is somehow allowed to wander unlike it's counterpart. Whereas Colossamite seemed to have fully intended to create a particular album, Gorge Trio was not so protective of the outcome on Dead Chicken. It still champions that furiously clean Rodriguez/Dieterich guitar tone, along with that notoriously spastic clamour that is Chad Popple on the drumkit, but the song structures are wide-open, allowed to breathe, perhaps so much that they unravel, fall apart, or even lose their identities wholly. They may become rants of noise or evolve into unforeseen things. All in all, one of the finest examples of what can be done with a couple of guitars and a drumkit.
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Dead Chicken Fear No Knife is currently out of print. The CD occasionally pops up on Ebay for under 20 bones, or just email me and I'll upload it.
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Here are 5 tracks from the album.

37500 Yens

2007-07-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

37500 Yens

Astero (2007)

Reims, France

Distile Records

Still not entirely sure what I'm doing with this site, I began to think about what records I've been impressed with this year. A lot of what I've been drudging up recently is pretty dated. As far as 2007 goes, I'd be tempted to say there hasn't been a whole lot happening to my knowledge if it were not for this one outfit from across the Atlantic, 37500 Yens. France seems to be the burgeoning hotbed for interesting guitar and drums music as of late: Chevreuil, Cheval de Frise, Passe Montagne, Room 204, and Grumpf Quartet (for which I cannot find a label or a record if you can help), to name a few.

Astero, amongst all this greatness still, leads the pack. It is hyper-aggressive guitar and drums two piece, that puts most duos to shame. There are loop pedals I'm sure, but the dynamics here are an outstanding achievement for just two musicians. The range and depth of mood which this band is capable of is astounding. Sullen, then chaotic. Fierce, then droning. The tone, the recording, just the right amount of effects, Saxaphone, everything about this record is flawless.

37501

Astero

Microphonie

Chapitres

Canard Boiteaux

Interieur 1

Interieur 2

The Sullivan's Quartet

I'm just gonna link you to their MP3's for now.

37500 Yens at Myspace.

Buy this CD!

Del Rey

2007-07-11T18:17:00.001-05:00

Del Rey
A Pyramid For The Living (2006)
My Pal God Records
Chicago, IL

Each of Del Rey's four releases is worth it's own college thesis, but their latest, A Pyramid for the Living, is their finest example of sonically translating the epical. Damien Burke, Brendan Daly, Eben English and Michael Johnson (the North American Snare Drum Champion, by the way), released their first EP in 1997 and have managed two excellent LP's, Speak It Not Aloud, and Darkness & Distance, between then and this last year's release that clocks in at fifty minutes with only five tracks.

The record opens with the theatrical "Olympus Mons", a ten and a half minute classic tragedy that has all the elements of a Homer masterpiece. Sitars, choirs of Siren-like voices, it's like a civilization builds and then dies and then rebuilds and re-dies again. The rest of the album holds to the saga-like standard as well, with each mini-epic And all this while wisely and vigilantly eyeful of that hazy grey matter that separates fine instrumental story-telling from the histrionic and melodramatic black holes so rampant in today's "post-rock".

Olympus Mons

A Brief Strangle

Lamplighter

Stemrick

Euphrates

If their mastery of crescendo and timing don't kill you, what will kill you is the DOUBLE DRUMKITS. Holy fucking hell. It is unfortunate that this technique never quite translates as fiery in the studio as it does in the live performance. After seeing a number of bands that have recruited a second drummer for their shows, it is clear this is always the case. But of all those bands, Del Rey is undeniably at the forefront. The two kits work off one another, masterfully. Pay close attention to the overlapping rhythms from each channel. One snare will hit, and a split second later the other will hit. Always a wonder seeing it live.

Listen to a good chunk of this record's first track via Quicktime.

Or at their Myspace.

2007-07-11T17:54:00.000-05:00

My Music on RYM

The Purkinje Shift

2007-07-04T14:31:00.000-05:00

The Purkinje Shift
Atlanta, Ga
Samizdat Records

Nickel Waves And Carbon Stars
(1997)
Five for the Road and One for the Ditch
(1999)

In many ways I've always regarded these two albums as Volumes I and II of the same idea. They compliment each other nicely, and I suppose if you'd listened to them consecutively at length, you too might find them inseparable.
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The Purkinje Shift may not seem immediately ground-breaking or bold in any technical sense. But what I've found refreshing about their two albums is the mood. Their sound is reminiscent of a kind of sleepless, sinister dementia. (Somehow several hours ago you got this funny idea in your head and then you couldn't stop. And now look. What is that, blood? Where did that come from?)
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Wherever Purkinje Shift is going they are not in a hurry to get there. They take the long scenic routes. Their songs unfold like the traversal across myriad types of alien terrain, or like a Kaliedescope. It seems so natural as it's happening and then suddenly you look around and realize you are not anywhere near where you thought you were. You were suduced by curiosity, and now you have to find your way home. And yes, you're pretty sure that stuff is blood. But no, you're not so sure that it's yours. The Shift are a three piece, two guitars and drums, and for whatever reason they always remind me of some kind of demented backwoods occult blues band. Like a secret society in cloaks in the woods surrounded by fire. They look nothing like that, of course, but that's the impression I always get. ( I guess they wore suits.)
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The two guitarists went on without the drummer to form Moreland Audio. Their record Turbogold is also excellent and expands even further on the ideas established in Purkinje Shift. All three albums available on CD at 54'40' or Fight records.
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Here are some Mp3's on from a Myspace page.

Edit: Visit the Purkinje Shift's Ben Davis' blog, Master of None where you can find downloadable live sets from the Shift in '00 and Moreland Audio in '03. In addition to his other projects, definitely take the time to listen to the mastered tracks of the debut record that almost was from Home of the Wildcats.

Yowie

2007-06-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

Yowie
Cryptooology (2004)
Skin Graft Records
St. Louis, MO

Cryptooology is not only one of the strangest and greatest albums in my collection, but it is also exists as some kind of bizarre historical achievement fulfilled on behalf of mankind. Seconds into this half-hour long CD may seem like an incomprehensible mess of clangy guitars and close-mic drums. But by record's end the listener may in fact conclude that Cryptooology was created under the rules of another sort of civilization, one vastly different than the one we're used to, the one that includes, let's say, the Nuge or Rivers Cuomo.

It may at first feel like some nonsensical, improv free-jazz, but you will discover upon dissection that it is actually very precise and very deliberate. There are definite structures to the songs, though none of them at all are immediately recognizable. The two guitars are coordinating in some way, but that way is possibly not musical. It seems beyond musical. Perhaps meta-musical. You might think at points that there is no logic to any of it, but keep at it and the drummer will assure you, he knows exactly what is happening. He is so dead-on and so precise that you feel embarrassed to have ever attempted to tap your foot to anything audible in your life.

After a few listens you really begin to think about how the three-piece went about writing this album. Crafting it part by part, and then piecing it all together seems like an enormous task, and for that alone Cryptooology is admirable. But the record also boasts some more important qualities. It really conveys such a sense of other-worldliness and appears so devoid of human fingerprints that it must be some sort of milestone of creativity for the sub-genre at least, if not music as a whole. Perhaps that is egregious flattery, but until some new record convinces me otherwise, Cryptooology is as creative as it gets.

Here is the first track:
Trina

And a Myspace page.

Haberdasher

2007-06-11T17:41:00.000-05:00

Haberdasher

Songs on Love, nos. 48602-48608 (1997)

Reptilian Records

Baltimore, MD

Where ever it is that Haberdasher exists in space-time, it is at the onset, or Day 1, of my exposure to eclectic and innovative guitar/bass/drums music. I was 17 in 1997, still a very impressionable age, when I saw them live. And although it took years to fully ferment, it is clear now, that an incurable poisonous seed was sewn that night, a decade ago.

While still not entirely certain that I had understood what I had just seen, I remember finding the drummer after their set, caked in sweat and bleeding. His hands were shaking wildly, as I tossed some bills on the table and grabbed their CD. Songs on Love nos. 48602-48608. All the tracks were numbers:

48602

48603

48604

48605

48606

48607

48608

The record begins with drums that sound like the stumbling of a dying man from a pool of his own blood. It's a slow spooky burner that builds itself over the course of five minutes to resemble some sort of out-of-control machine that either must engulf or destroy everything in it's path before it erupts in it's final cacophonous seconds. The next few tracks have all the themes of a classic odyssey, enriched by cold, eerie, guitar structures (that perhaps owe a small debt to Spiderland), and hemmed with a bit of poetry. There are brief moments of light on this record that can often be found snaking between the darker things. But these rewards will only reveal themselves when the listener decides to listen vigilantly, as it seems the album relies on it's subtlety as much as it relies on it's drama. From beginning to end, the instrumentation on the record achieves a level of restraint where most albums fail. All the instruments are all equally focused on their common agenda and loyally march towards it as one.

Sadly, this was Haberdasher's only full length LP. There are still available a 7" (the 'Quarry' 7") and a few tracks off of some old compilations, but Songs on Love is clearly the desired intention of the brief project that was Haberdasher. The band split up not long after this release. 3/4 of this outfit went on to become the whole of More Dogs, while 1/4 went on to become 1/3 of OXES.

Tracks 1&2.

LYNX

2007-06-04T17:09:00.001-05:00

LYNX

S/T (2000)

Box Factory Records

Out of print.

Not too much information is available on Lynx. I've been able to establish that the band had it's origins in Boston and subsequently moved to Chicago possibly aspiring to latch on to the tail end of the area's Math-rock "scene". They released one self-titled album, recorded by Bob Weston, and an EP (though I've never seen it) on the now defunct label Box Factory Records, which put out material by the likes of Emperor Penguin, Oxes, and The 90 Day Men.

Dave Konopka, Paul Joyce, Dale Connolly, Mike Hutchins.

Lynx has experienced a mild resurgence of attention lately with the recent successes of Dave Konopka's newest project, Battles, alongside ex-Don Cab member Ian Williams. I've not been able to dig up any post-Lynx material by the other three.

The album is entirely instrumental, but retains a narrative throughout. Similar to a Don Cab record like American Don in the sense that it offers a pleasant mix of mathy elements and melody. Yet unlike Don Cab, Lynx never loses focus of its themes, and never becomes so cluttered. It is a clean math album. It is deliberate. There are angular and dissonant moments, but they are rare and brief. It is a math record mostly on it's creative and versatile use of rhythms, driven by excellent drumming. From beginning to end it is an ideal illustration of the limitless capacity of the guitar/bass/drum genre, composed with a vengeful sense of discipline to achieve epic ends. One of my favorite records.

This track "Mrs. Lynx" is featured both on the EP and the full-length. This recording is taken from the EP, and is a fair representative of the band's tone and mood. In the opening minutes, the instruments will flex their muscle, showing you what they are capable of. From there, the track begins its slow evolution into an anthemic climax.

Mrs. Lynx

Other Mp3's are available here. The CD is normally available at Amazon or Ebay. Sometimes as much as $50.00 sometimes as little as $2.50. Or if you email me I'll send you a link

Edit: A Myspace page.