Wednesday 30 April 2014

Ya Ho Wha 13 - "To The Principles For The Children" ( Higher Key Records ‎– KEY 001) 1974


Sort of disturbing this; all those kids on the cover are probably Father Yod's, fathered under the normal cult conditions of cynical brainwashing techniques on dysfunctional and naive teenage women.Classic paedophile outfit on the rear sleeve photo,with the band worshipping a Yod on earth; disgusting.
That said, and although I can't listen to Gary Glitter anymore (The Glitter Band excepted), this insane spontaneous outsider DIY acid rock drivel is up there with evolution and the creation of the cosmos, as one of the greatest but inevitable accidents ever to stumble into existence.
And yes, he really did die in a bizarre hang gliding accident!!!!

Track Listing:
1. Side A (16:58)
2. Side B (10:37)

Personnel:
- Father Yod / vocals, kettle drum, gong
- Djinn / guitars
- Sunflower / bass
- Octavius / drums

DOWNLOAD some twisted principles for yourself HERE!



Tuesday 29 April 2014

Ya Ho Wha 13 - "I'm Gonna Take You Home" (Higher Key Records ‎– HKR 3309) 1974



The UK had Jimmy Saville, but the USA had father Yod. At least his deflowering of children was done on some hippie commune,hid away on Hawaii, rather than on national Television!? Outsider DIY hippie monolith of a record.Note standard cult leader pose with teenage victim.......i think i'm gonna be sick.Displaying those pure hippie values of shagging as many girls as possible,as young as possible,in the name of "Free Love"; and grabbing as much money as possible from the idiots who think your ideas are 'Right On Maaaan'.
But i am prepared to put that aside, because this music is definitely "OUT THERE"! Contains some of the best acid guitar playing that transcends incompetence that you are ever likely to hear.This record is an audio record of a group of minds being flushed away.Are there really people like this, or are they just as manufactured as the kids from fame? What i wanna know is did the kids from Ya Ho Wha 13 go to a entertainment training facility to do this?..........i'm not totally sure but i probably think........not!
Operation Yewtree international anyone?

Track Listing:

1. One (7:46)
2. Two (7:14)
3. Three (5:27)
4. Four (16:33)
5. Five (12:55)

Personnel:
- Father Yod / Vocals
- Djin / Guitar
- Sunflower / Bass
- Octavius / Drums
- Zinuru / Sound

DOWNLOAD this sickening hippie cock rock HERE!

Ya Ho Wha 13 - "Penetration - An Aquarian Symphony" (Higher Key Records ‎– HKR3307) 1974

Peace ,Love, and Understanding?... my Arse!.....All those hippies were about was how to invent some pseudo-philosophy that will seduce young women into bed......and what happens then is pretty well summed up in the title of this lp.
As awful as these misguided sexual predators and their victims were, they made grade "A" aural lunacy that is a shear delight......no-one is allllll bad. This record should have made history as the first music to be sectioned.
The Gong sounds alone on "Ho" should be presented with an award for the best aural experience since Godzilla screeched his(or was it a her?) first gut scraping vowel sound."Yodzilla" seems an appropriate noun for that gong.
'Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony' was intended to be Ya Ho Wha 13's masterwork, acting as a Merkabah of sorts to elevate its listeners to a heightened state of consciousness - & I must say, it does the trick!
Take your meds and revel in the Outsider DIY joy that is "Penetration - an aquarian symphony"! (That Title!!!....ugh!.....Shudder!!!!)

Track Listing:

1. Yod He Vau He (11:25)
2. Ho (5:32)
3. Journey Thru An Elemental Kingdom (9:23)
4. Ya Ho Wha (13:24)

Personnel:
- Father Yod / Vocals
- Djin / Guitar
- Sunflower / Bass
- Octavius / Drums
- Zinuru / Sound

DOWNLOAD some hippie cult leader penetration HERE!

Father Yod and the Spirit of '76 - "Anthology" (Higher Key records) 1973-74


DIY music ,i'll admit did not exist only between 1978 and 1983.......the hippies (spit!), were very adept at self producing their own releases too.My favourite of which was the various releases by cult leader Father Yod and his hippie followers.
Father Yod was really James Edward Baker ,born on July 4, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Baker earned the Silver Star as United States Marine in WWII and became an expert in Jujitsu. He moved to California to become a Hollywood stuntman and became influenced by the Nature Boys, a Los Angeles-based group of beatniks who lived a natural lifestyle, maintained vegetarian diets, and lived "according to Nature's Laws."Baker also studied philosophy, religion, and esoteric spiritual teachings, even becoming a Vedantic monk for a time. He later became a devoted follower of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and teacher of Kundalini Yoga.
In 1969, Baker founded the Source Restaurant in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles, on the Sunset Strip. The restaurant served organic vegetarian food, with such celebrity regulars as John Lennon, Julie Christie, and Marlon Brando.Founded in 1973 in the Los Angeles area, Ya Ho Wha 13, otherwise known Yahowha 13 is a psychedelic rock band fronted by Father Yod, spiritual leader of a religious cult/commune called the Source Family. Ya Ho Wha without the vowels and spaces reduces to YHWH, the tetragrammaton. The band recorded nine LPs full of their broken down and deranged psychedelic nonsense with tribal drums and crackling guitars, some of which were completely improvised jam sessions, others which contained more conventional rock songs.
Members of The Source Family, who lived in the Hollywood Hills in the early 1970s, had decided to fuse their musical 'talents' and 'spirituality' by forming an improvisational, psychedelic group. They began to press LPs in 1973, most of which were recorded after hours of meditation between 3:00-6:00 a.m. in a soundproofed garage that served as the musicians’ studio at the family's communal residence. All of the records with Father Yod’s participation were completely improvised, with no rehearsals or overdubs. Most of the albums were pressed in small runs of only 500 to 1000 copies on the Higher Key label. They were sold to the general public in Father Yod’s popular vegetarian Source Restaurant for $10 each. Though only nine LPs were produced and released, it is rumored that more than 65 albums were recorded by the group but were lost over the years.
The band changed members occasionally, morphing into various incarnations, from Father Yod and the Spirit of ’76 to Ya Ho Wha 13 to The Savage Sons of Ya Ho Wha, Yodship, and Fire Water Air; but the key players were always the same: (Djin Aquarian on guitar, Octavious Aquarian on drums, and Sunflower Aquarian on bass). Father Yod does not appear on all their album releases, but for those on which he participates, he handles lead vocals and percussion, via a kettle drum. Former pop star Sky Saxon of The Seeds had joined the Source Family in 1973 and occasionally appeared on the band's recordings.
Yod had established a council of 13 women and later sealed these women as his wives. On August 25, 1975, despite having no previous hang-gliding experience, YaHoWha used a hang glider to leap off a 1300-foot cliff on the eastern shore of Oahu.He crash-landed on the beach and died nine hours later.After three days of vigil, YaHoWha was cremated.

The albums from the first incarnation of the father yod nutters was, Father Yod And The Spirit Of 76(Ironic as he never made it beyond 1975?). The downloads of which can be found below.
BUT, I would recommend the Yo Ha Wha 13 records following this post, namely "Penetration- an aquarian symphony" and "I'm Gonna Take You Home", being the places to start.They being far superior and weirder than any of the others.
The Covers are interesting enough,"Kohoutek" is like a manson family slogan scrawled on a wall with a hollywood starlet's freshly spilled blood.
"Contraction" features Yod as creepy cross between(in)sanity claus and Chuck manson,surrounded by his blood crazed followers.
Then aptly following Contraction, we see a proud sexual predator/cult leader holding one of his progeny, on the cover of "Expansion".......quite sickening; but the music kicks ass in an "out there" kind of way.



















"Kohoutek" (1973) download


















"Contraction" (1974) download



















"Expansion" (1974) download

Monday 28 April 2014

Sun City Girls - "Hatchet Rain" - (Cloaven Cassettes - 03 ) 1987


The Sun City Girls released a skip load of records and tapes from the early eighties to the present day. The main area of interest for this site are the 23 cassettes released between 1987 and 1990, on their own "Cloaven Cassettes" imprint.
Hatchet Rain being the third such release,from 1987.
The Sun City Girls sound not too dissimilar to a lounge jazz trio who've been slipped a mickey of LSD-25 and Peyote in their cocktails at the interval, and this is the resultant performance thereafter.
This happens to be my favourite Cloaven release;full of completely unhinged improvisation, and some glorious stream of consciousness guitar vandalism.The Amuck Theory in Full Bloom a la twisted Jihad, served on a platter of chopped Goat hooves. Crystallized excerpts from the revolution of guitar, bass, and drums. A very satisfying racket,with some of the best visceral unlogick guitar abuse this side of Keiji Haino.
"Let's Just Lounge" was written by Clear Bob. "Immortal Gods" was written by Eddie Detroit. Recorded between March 1983 and November 1983.

"The Sun City Girls were an American experimental rock band, formed in 1979 in Phoenix, Arizona. From 1981 the group consisted of Alan Bishop (bass guitar, vocals), his brother Richard Bishop (guitar, piano, vocals), and the late Charles Gocher (drums, vocals). Their name was inspired by Sun City, Arizona, an Arizona retirement community. Charles Gocher died after a long battle with cancer on February 19, 2007, bringing an end to the group.[1]"
(Wikipedia)

Track Listing:

Side A:
  1. Let's Just Lounge
  2. Caravan of Scars
  3. Black Tent
  4. Emuqidanse
  5. Komodo
  6. TNTNT
  7. Levitating Orchards
  8. Gun Cum
Side B:
  1. Circus Hassam
  2. Immortal Gods
  3. Trippin on Krupa
  4. El Mirage
  5. Hitman Boy
  6. Don't...
DOWNLOAD some Hatchet Rain HERE!

Sun City Girls - " Cloaven Theatre 1 " (Cloaven Cassettes 14) 1987


If this was the first Sun City Girls record I heard, then it would probably have been my last. It sounds like one of those local council sponsored 'Art' events put on in their latest architecturally cutting edge theatre that the local tax payers paid for; meanwhile outside the foyer doors sits a homeless youth begging the black polo neck wearing punters for loose change.
I can cope with and even enjoy improv rock,it has its feet rooted in reality, but improv theatre is the stuff of the art establishment which wouldn't exist without arbitrarily granted subsidies. State funded pretentiousness for the swollen bourgeois masses, aka (more french words) The Nouveau Riche. Don't get me wrong, I ain't no philistine, but this belongs in some kind of degenerate art exhibition, and suppressed. Give us some Real theatre.
Musically this bizarrely seems less 'out there' than almost all of the other SCG releases, almost unadventurish, and recorded in glorious hi-fidelity, which is a crime in itself.Although,granted, some of the surreal dialogue is excellent.
Recorded live on KASR Radio (at ASU) on Oct. 1, 1986. Try to imagine sitting in your dormroom reality tunnel listening to the campus radio when all of a sudden a renegade illuminati sect hijacks the station... THIS IS IT!. But ultimately an irritating experience, but if you like the chin stroking atmosphere of avant garde theatre, then this is for you. Unfortunately I hate this record.Link
Side A:
  1. Introduction
  2. I Protect You From Me
  3. I Deal a Stick
  4. Professor
  5. Eyeball in a Quart Jar of Snot
  6. Left Side
  7. Ritual
  8. Voice of America
Side B:
  1. Beelzebub Visits West Virginia
  2. Right Side
  3. Jonestown
  4. Mirage
  5. Spaceman
  6. The Men in Black
DOWNLOAD some cloaven theatre HERE

Sun City Girls - "Tibetian Jazz 666" (Cloaven Cassettes 17) 1988


As someone who knows a lot of tibetian buddhists( who are largely descent chaps), and their counterparts, the dysfunctional western bourgeois buddists, looking for an answer for their meaningless existence, and mental problems/ addictions; I can recommend this C-60 as an accurate portrayal of the sound of a western buddists mind, before and after indoctrination in the 'cult' environment of the modern Buddist temple. Lost souls with lost bank accounts, buying a stairway to Nirvana.Willing to sell their children in the race to see who gets there first! I have never met such a bunch of morally bankrupt hypocrites in my sad little existence.(exhale!)
As for the music, it has obvious Jazz elements, from the awful 50's muzaky jazz trio merged with a slice of Ornette Coleman, to complete Free Jazz abandon, but with guitars and Drums.Nobody sounds like this! Arrogance is a virtue and patience is a curfew... listen to it as loud as possible and then you shall agree. Nobody has or ever will sound like this!
Side A recorded 4-9-88. First four cuts from Side B recorded Mar. 27, 1988; last two cuts recorded Jan. 16, 1987.
Side A:
  1. El Mahdi
Side B:
  1. A Thrones Stow
  2. (sic) six sicks
  3. Cocktail Jesuit
  4. Duke of Alcohol
  5. Dirty Old Cec
  6. Imperial Handgun
DOWNLOAD some Tibetian Jazz HERE!

Sunday 27 April 2014

Sun City Girls - "God is my Solar System" (Cloaven Cassettes 01) 1987

A collection of early Sun City Girls recordings, mostly improv-diverse.... a sign of things to follow although unique in comparison to later works.On God Is My Solar System, the title track sounds a bit like listening to a recording of that same drunk jazz trio on LSD-25 with a trigger finger on the mute button. Gaping pauses separate staccato bass notes and guitar squawks before the song settles into a messy, improvisational groove.
Some of God’s material is slightly more meditative, like “Mosquito” with its buzzing, nominal drone underpinned by tabla-styled percussion, but at heart it’s all pretty art-damaged and coarsely messy. There’s a heap of novice spazz-rock (“Komodo”, “561B”), and “Invocation,” marks the first track that includes a style that would later become a hallmark; – a sing/speak narrative style – rages atypically before evolving into a skewed 'carnival barker' growling over a drunken merry-go-round melody. The chant morphs across 14 dream logic minutes, and its bloated irreverence marks the tentative, though not unsuccessful, beginnings of the SCG epic poem.

Side A:
  1. Invocation
  2. Glass Globe
  3. Demon on the Beach
  4. Suck Suntown
  5. Improv Murder
Side B:
  1. Sun City Girls from Ipanema
  2. Mosquito
  3. Three Blind Dice
  4. Golden Cage
  5. God is my Solar System (GIMSS)
  6. Way Left North Out
  7. 561B... for Alexis
  8. Over the Rainbow
DOWNLOAD God as your solar system HERE!

Sun City Girls - "Fruit of the Womb" (Cloaven Cassettes 08) 1987


More noisy improv at a tangent to what is 'normal' made up stuff. Scratchy, scrapy, atonal mania, recorded in 1984–85 between the first and second Sun City Girls LP's in glorious mono. The performances on this tape are beyond superb. Near (far) Eastern (bloc) instrumentals, extended improvisation, ostracised jazz diffracted through a sound prism; scattering its light on abstracted versions of Sun City Girls 'standards', as if channelled from some demonic wormhole. Repetition is not on the agenda, as the music twists and turns in a desperate attempt to escape from your expectations; and for the most part succeeds with an unerring predictability. This is music made for explorers, and not for those who exist purely for the squishy home comforts of such absurd relics as, a beat, or a melody,or even a song? Mr and Mrs Henry Normal (or Simon Cowell) would label this music as 'self -indulgent rubbish' , but what is more self-indulgent than slouching in your 'lazy-boy' ,absorbing the latest easy-on-the-ear 'pop' purely for your entertainment. 'Thought' is a much under-rated process, and one which brings great rewards for those willing to train the brain to accept such wonderful sounds as these.

Track Listing:

Side A:
  1. When Will It End?
  2. Blue Mamba
  3. Damcar
  4. When the Jewels Roll Out of Yer Eye
Side B:
  1. Envy Leaves Home
  2. Mystery of Death
  3. Mamas Milk
  4. Abydos
  5. F and F
  6. Nites in Tetuan
  7. Trippin on Krupa
  8. Rappin
  9. Jokers on a Waltz
DOWNLOAD this Fruit of the Womb HERE!

Sun City Girls - "Polite Deception" (Cloaven Cassettes 09) 1987


The art of falling apart, music as applied to the Brion Gysin cut-up technique.At times the group appears to be listening to each other, this only serves to lure the listener into a dream logic trip out of their third eye, where everything that makes sense doesn't and the pop charts are full of field recordings of collapsing buildings.
side two was described by an Albanian diplomat as: "An industrial Mesopotamian Environmental piece followed by Egyptian Trance Jazz." Of course, we all know that this description is false.This is only a Polite Deception.
Side 1 recorded 1985. Side 2 recorded 1985–86. "Scam David 77" features Eddy Detroit on congas and Brian Brannon on organ.
Side A:
  1. Sev Acher
  2. Hitman Boy
  3. Twilight
  4. Eternal Investigations
  5. Black Weather Shoes
  6. Jellyfish
  7. My Painted Tomb
  8. Sun of Talisman
Side B:
  1. Gulfcon 79
  2. Scam David 77
DOWNLOAD this Polite Deception HERE!

Saturday 26 April 2014

Sun City Girls - "Superpower" (Cloaven Cassettes 02) 1987

An equatorial collective improvisation recorded live in 1982(at Merlins?) and informative disinformation financed by short-wave overload with text excerpts from Myron Fagen circa 1967. Superpower shows the Girls better getting the hang of never getting the hang of it. “Alien Freedom” is psychic jazz extemporization, featuring Alan Bishop and J. Akkari on dueling alto saxophones. Not complete without Eddie Detroit’s “goat calls and troubled conga play,” it’s a very enjoyable and a considerably palatable mess .
The pretzel logic of Sun City Girls un-compositional style, is something to admire in its total lack of commercial potential, and the Girls obvious lack of interest in compromising their own musical explorations in search of an......Gulp!"....audience?
Who wants an audience?...those toe tapping ,head nodding, chin stroking bunch of under achievers. You shouldn't be standing there watching someone else for your shallow entertainment; you should be getting out there and doing it yourself (DIY). Or is this a dividing line that is as necessary as the division between intelligent life(Humans?) and the rest of the animal kingdom, left to squirm in the mud for stray plankton whilest we (the Humans!) enjoy the easy livin' of the supermarket. Yes, Audiences are necessary after all, or there'd be nothing special left in this crumbling planet to want to stroke your chin at. We need audiences/consumers like we need factory fodder to do the shit jobs. You music consumers out there are nothing more than glorified shit shovellers.......and U2 love you for it.
Oh, and 'The Illuminati?' is pretty good too.

Side A:
  1. Alien Freedom
Side B:
  1. The Illuminati?
DOWNLOAD a superpower HERE!

Sun City Girls - "Bleach Has Feelings Too!" (Cloaven Cassettes 07) 1987

The superbly titled, "Bleach Has Feelings Too" consists of eight very different recordings about sex and religion.... or should we say SEXXXY RELIGION.
Basically, a collection of Gus Coma style audio collages, lo-fi rock drone blasts, prank phone calls to a Redneck-Taliban radio broadcast, and a hilariously buffoonish on-air radio appearance by the band as young men. The collages are pieced together and piled up very nicely indeed, even when you can tell they put no effort into it at all . "Personal Blow Job," for example, is just a Throbbing Gristle-style synth drone with electronic drums laid atop a pathetic old "aural sex" wanking record that begins with the irresistable romantic come-on, "This is Wendy, and as soon as I swallow this mouthful of cum....gulp"...etc). I personally find this stuff entertainment personified, gimmie a formless racket atop a dialogue recording of purile porn or of neo-nazi religious idiots and i am in Heaven; even though Heaven doesn't and cannot exist philosophically, and/or logically. In my happy little Nietzchian dystopia, this record would be played at least once a year for allllll eternity as my constituent sub-atomic particles drift into an empty, hopeless, oblivion.

Recorded 1983–84 at the corner of Powell and Market, San Francisco, CA.

Side A:

  1. Don't
  2. Fog Hotel
  3. Personal Blow Job
  4. Billy Put That Bomb Away!
Side B:
  1. Laundry Room Satanist
  2. Local 98 Rock
  3. A homosexual Revelation
  4. Last Outpost
DOWNLOAD some emotional Bleach HERE!

Sun City Girls - "Famous Asthma" (Cloaven Cassettes 13) 1987

Another C-60 from the secure unit of improvised music.1987 was a prolific year for one of the most prolific groups this side of Narnia.
More variations of the SCG's patented Amuck theory,with lashings of Zen agriculture, and Astral ejaculation. Here we have the distinctive spontaneity of extra terrestrial fundamentalism.This music moves forward at ninety degrees.
Recorded live in studios or trailers 90-100% improvised circa 1985–87.
Side A:
  1. A Fast Stich Towards Oblivian
  2. Turned at the Bake
  3. Cad Walleder
  4. Voice of Leaves
Side B:
  1. Tone of Bark
  2. Water Lilly
  3. Shown of Dark
DOWNLOAD some Famous Asthma HERE!

Sun City Girls - "To Cover Up Your Right To Live" (Cloaven Cassettes 04) 1987

A C-60 of typically unhinged cover songs, that systematically de-construct the Rock'n Pop myth, and stuff the smoking shards into an old shoe box to be dismissively tossed into the dark recesses of the understairs cubby hole that you were frightened of as an affection starved infant. This is what progressive music is all about is it not? The version of the horrifically awful pomp stompers Led Zep's tragick classick, 'Rock and Roll', is an accurate rendition of what this atrocious drivle actually sounds like to those not hypnotised by the Nazi rally that is/was rock music.
"Summertime Blues", in its John Lydon on a cocktail of Benylin and Night Nurse, in place of the'Wizz', brilliance; actually manages to equal the majesty of the version by The Flying Lizards, and that is some praise.
"Rock is for Arse-lickers" (G. P-orridge 1977)
All vocals by Ted Koppel. Recorded 1983–85.

Side A :
  1. Rock and Roll
  2. Waiting for my man
  3. Headhunter
  4. Summertime Blues
  5. Psychedelic Shack
  6. TNTNT
Side B :
  1. Dark Eyes
  2. Spanish Caravan
  3. Back Stabbers
  4. Paris 1942
  5. Wild World of Animals
  6. Caravan
  7. It Never Rains in California
DOWNLOAD your right to live HERE!

Sun City Girls - "The Fresh Kill Of A Cape Hunting Dog" (Cloaven Cassettes 12) 1987


"We ain't gonna play sun citehhhhhhhh yeaaaaaayeahhaahhhhhh!" , so sang Little Steven and his 'right-on' rock chums sometime in the eighties, after having a problem with the mighty Queen playing the rich white man's playground in Apartheid era South Africa.
I have 2 problems with this noble political awareness single: - 1/ Queen could do anything they wanted in my eyes, as I've always admired their effrontery to good taste.This is a fine example of what art is,and should always strive to being.
and 2/, Yes we are gonna play Sun City, as in The Sun City Girls because they are brilliant, like Queen, challenging the listener to question his very existence, physically and mentally.
"The Fresh Kill of a Cape Hunting Dog" is a great sampler of the Sun City Girls colourful spectrum, from cut-ups to ambient genocide to Wagnerian trash to tropical hallucinations. This "music" was captured from a moving truck in a Sierra Vista on a cloudy day.Enjoy?!

Track Listing:

Side A:
  1. Amphitheatre of Pause
  2. Avoid the Hyenas
  3. Carri-On
  4. I Told You So
  5. Entrail-Littered Savannah
Side B:
  1. Diet-Blue Morbid Attraction Soda
  2. Ya Raitni
  3. Ajax Flood Lamp
  4. Casa Loma
  5. Poppies
  6. Nile Hilton Burning
  7. Dolores
  8. Atomic Jackals
DOWNLOAD some Fresh Kill HERE!

The Human Condition - “Live at Collegiate, London, 13.09.81” (self-released cassette THC1) 1981 & “Live in Europe, November 1981” (THC1) 1982



Ok, What's the greatest pop group of all time?.....Correct......Public Image Limited mk1 & 2. So that leads us neatly to: Who were the greatest rhythm section in all eternity?.......Correct again.......Jaki Liebezeit and Holgar Czukay; but a close second is Wobble and Walker from Pil mk.1 . (Feel free kids to supply your own nominations in the comments section below; although Wobble and Liebezeit won’t be accepted due to the only one entry per candidate rule).
The unequalled Supernova of “Out There” creativity that emanated from the constellation of PiL, inevitably burnt itself out, leaving a Black Hole (Lydon) from which no light so escapes; a black dwarf (Levine), and an expanding debris field that is the eclectic creative force of Wobble. A musical gravitational force that attracts any passing melodious asteroid shard, eventually forming an over populous planet with a distinct Wobble in its orbital ellipse. Eclecticism is NOT my cup of herbal tea! It takes the “better” bits of all the dodgiest musical genres, and squeezes them into something not quite as good, or bad, as the original.
John Wardle has been incredibly culpable in this heinous crime against good taste!....but, in the earliest days after departing the sinking ship of PiL, the celebrated mark one rhythm section of “First Issue” reunited for some live improvisational gigs around Europe. Walker showing off his Jazzy roots, accompanied by someone called Dave Animal on exploratory guitar, anchored by Wobbles’ repetitious, dub funk bass. This was ‘The Human Condition’.
‘Twas a brave stab at exploring and testing the boundaries of a post-punk audience, akin to the similar New York Mutant Jazz stuff that Bill Laswells’ various combos and chums were churning out at the same time.
“Live in Europe” being the superior set, with a more interesting direction, more funky with some decent Sax fleshing out the sound. Moving it towards the unstable ground of Jazz Fusion, but thankfully its Red Shift is more towards the Miles Davis end of the light spectrum, a la “On the Corner”.
What is relevant to these blog pages is that Wobble rushed out the recordings of these gigs, days after, on self-released cassettes.(Incidently for some reason both of these cassettes have the same serial number!?)
THC's recordings were only issued on cassette ("I like small, contained things - they're more refreshing"), recorded on a tight budget & knocked out so swiftly that Live In Europe, their second & final tape, was apparently on sale by the end of the gig(!)

"To my delight, I found that I could record an album in my bedroom for virtually zilch... spend another £100 cutting it before ordering 2,000 pressings at around 35p a shot. I'd pick up the records from the manufacturers & wholesalers & deliver them to various distributors, exporters & wholesalers, as well as specialist shops. I found that I'd come out of it with a good few quid". (J.Wobble)

These are the last vestiges of the great PiL line-up, preserved in all its hissy posterity on 4mm analogue tape. One can only yearn for the great Lydon caterwaul to finish these improv’s off. Rotten, we miss you.

Friday 25 April 2014

Metabolist – “Stagmanaut” (Cassette King CK2) 1981

The criminally overlooked Metabolist existed at the end of the seventies, occupying the harsh hinterland between prog and punk. A no-mans land where only the very bravest groups/ non-musicians had the courage to inhabit.
The exhumed ghost of French Zeuhl proggers Magma haunts this cassette; but the clinical intellectual sterility of Christian Vander’s outfit is replaced with a non-musicality and an earthy honesty or soul. This is brain music that is channelled from the realms of natural law. Their nearest peers can only be This Heat or Pere Ubu, and that is by far no insult, but a compliment of the highest order.
I assume that they sing, not in an invented language, a la their Zeuhl influence, but in an incomprehensible nonsense that had to be improvised, not thought about, a stream of consciousness that makes sense only to those open minded enough to accept it; which of course there were very few in 1979 where Sham 69 ruled the realm of the lumpen masses, with an iron major chord. (For the record I love Sham 69....that too is another form of soul music).
“Stagmanaut” is their début cassette release on the Dromm label, and opens with the repetitive industrial grind of “Cranes/Ymuzgo”. A bleak industrial electronic intro has one thinking Throbbing Gristle’s “2nd Annual Report” (I presume that’s the “Cranes” of the piece?!); which is then transformed into a space echoed Indian rain dance on lsd25, with accompanying cheapo synth and Clanging percussion.
“Pigface” follows with more extra-terrestrial Red Indian style chanting, guitar played by someone with claws, and somebody else beating relentlessly on a floor tom. I didn’t hear a chorus, or a middle eight, and No chords!.....so much for the “Here’s three chords, now go and start a band” quote from some punkzine in 1977. Real punkers should say “There’s NO chords, now make a record ”.
Basically, this cassette carries on in this very unique and strange way, nodding only once towards vague rock riffage on track 4, Glory, where a Drum Kit and some pop pastiche lyrics make an appearance. There’s even a hint of a stilted guitar solo!

Track Listing:

Cranes

Ymuzgo

Pigface

Johnny Loves You

Glory mp3 (click her for sample track)

Quack Backwards

DOWNLOAD Stagmanaut HERE!

Metabolist - "Goatmanaut" (Drömm Records Cassette ) 1979


Sort of a mini-album/cassette filled with the trademark Metabolised Zeuhl Industrial Prog that Metabolist isn’t famous for. But given time, lots of it, they will be........won’t they?
I'm pleased to say that once upon a time Malcolm Lane, the main man in Metabolist, was once so kind as to praise my group, Scouts of Uzbekistan('s), track "Je M'en Fou", with this flattering critique: "I think I just Shit myself!". High praise indeed!?

Tracklist:

A1 Zordan Returns 11:00
B1 Chained 7:18
B2 Thru The Black Hole 6:00

DOWNLOAD goatmanaut and shit yourself HERE!

Metabolist ‎– "Identify" (Drömm Records ‎– drö-03) 1980


Excellently abrasive post-punk  krautrock groove from the magisterial Metabolist. Very like Tago-Mago era Can forced through a fine filter of Punk Rock,with an alien singing in a language from another galaxy; fine use of a harsh slapback echo on these unintelligible lyrics make for a great single,that wouldn't make the charts even on the planet where this language is spoken!
The B-side is one of those foggy distorted ambient pieces you got on This Heat's first LP. Yes, its that good.

Tracklist:

A Identify
B Tiz Hoz Nam

DOWNLOAD and identify HERE!

Metabolist - "Hansten Klork" (Drömm Records Drö 2) 1980




This is Metabolist’s “tubular bells” side 2 as produced by conny plank. Almost has accessible moments, with “Curly Wall”(click here for mp3 sample) being the ‘greatest hit’ in its sort of No Wave Krautrock funk kind of a way. And “Alien on Sunday” is a Neu-esque motorik sub-anthem for disaffected youth.
“Quack” is a sparse, Magma meets This Heat’s Horizontal Hold, repetitive ‘tour de force’, that ends too quickly; mainly due to the restrictions of vinyl in the pre-CD age. (Should have released this on cassette.....they are longer and they sound better).
A buried classic of what was basically nu-prog, which was labelled post-punk by the muzak media. A progressive music that was enriched by the lack of the public school/future leaders influence (Peter Hammill is excused from this harsh bracket and Joe Strummer is most definitely IN-cluded). Punk Rock made this all possible, problem was it made Duran Duran possible too, but you can’t win them all, a bird in the hand etc.....blah blah blah! Ah Fuck off!

Yximalloo -"Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Poor, Be Inconvenient !" (Sakura Records Y-6815) 1982


 Naofumi Ishimaru is the man behind this strange Japanese act. Naofumi most notably took Yximalloo to notoriety when they played a gig at the lavatory in Honda's factory in Japan.

He's probably most 'famous' for his collaborations with Jad Fair of Half Japanese (Oh,now i geddit!)...notably "Half Robot" and "Half Monster.Yximalloo.....pronounce that as you want....(i'm going for the silent 'Y',as in Zee-mall-oo!), have released many wrechords (sic) on Sakura Wrechords (note that this cassette is credited to Sakura Records) since the early eighties. The earliest dozen or so being cassette only releases. And I cannot find this one listed anywhere on the internet, appearing in no discography, and appears only here.

This sounds more structured than the stuff I’ve heard previously; Side especially reminds one of an unedited out-take from "Tago Mago", complete with Damo Suzuki-isms; or is that just because they are Japanese and I’m an ignorant European Brit who thinks that 'Johnny Foreigner' are all alike? If so, I apologise.

Their other stuff, needless to say, is very off the wall improv experimentalism, with a tad of The Residents thrown in. Which sounds good enough to me.

Side two, is more like normal....sorry wrong word.....the usual Yximalloo formula (or formulalessness), of zany experimentation, improvisation, and structureless exploration.

If it reminds you of Can, it is an extremely lo-fi Can; there's no Holgar Czukay here to hold it together for the future public. Having said that, the first side's "Fela" manages to hold its distorted groove for a good,very good, 30+ minutes, without any funky Germans in view.( Yaa das ist Funky!)........(I'm not Racist honest, I love Funky Germans.......i'm just tortured by political correctness)

"The three R's.....Repetition, Repetition, Repetitionahhhhhh!"...in the words of 'Can Fan' Mark E. Smith, is an adequate summary for side one, and its great, was sorry when the 30 minutes were up.


LinkTape info:

Side one is a composite piece called ‘Fela’. It’s described as a

ceremony medley with a theme running though it, approximately 32

minutes long and seemingly made up of around 19 sections though not all

are listed. The insert details say it was recorded in September 1981

at Rooftop, Shibuya. Parts of this appear on The Worst of 1981 CD on

Sakura Wrechords.



Side two has five tracks: I hate morning rising/July Sky/Catholic

Ghetto/Just a couple of beers #17/ Just a couple of beers #16



Tracks 1 + 2 were recorded at Rooftop, Shibuya in February 1982.

Track 3 at Minami-Izu Studio, 6th February 1981, tracks 4 + 5 at 246

Aoyama on 17th April 1982.


DOWNLOAD This Absolute Classic of the Japanese Underground HERE!

Yximaloo - "New Classic" (Sakura Records Y-7409) 1986



Tape looping,knob twiddling,cut-up found sound collaged, crazed musique Concrete from one of our favourite Japanese nutters. You can try and follow the track listing if you want, but its better served as some kind of unhinged symphony in two parts; side one and side two. Great background music to that LSD spiked tupperware party you always wanted to host.

DOWNLOAD this old new classic HERE!

Yximalloo - "Fangs of Lucifer(1981-86)" (Old Gold Records) 1999

This gives a reasonable overview of Xyimalloo's career between 1981 to 1986. Jammed packed with dysfunctional left field experimentation, that verges on the weird for weird's sake; a heinous crime in the world of 'weird' music. But none the less, a very original sounding experience, if not totally original in content. His record collection surfaces at times, from the Faust- like sleeve art, to the Residents - alike opening track, and the many Krautrock musique concrete moments; but don't it with all artists? Its hard to be experimental with smart arsed idiots like me picking holes in it,comparing it to the legends of the past. I just gonna shut up, and recommend that you download it and form your own opinions; which you were gonna do anyway, so sorry for being a patronising malcontent with a computer keyboard in place of a sword.

And ,if you haven't already, check out the other Xyimalloo posts previous to this, ......click the links here! and here!


Track Listing:

A1
White House Reaction 1:46
A2
Why To Xmas 4:49
A3
Not So Easy No. 8 3:05
A4
One Hundred Colors Tribe 2:50
A5
Fiddler On The Skateboard With Chinese Hat 1:55
A6
A Wood 1:33
A7
Needle Anesthesia 2:19
A8
The Nude In The Kocacco River No. 3 2:13
B1
Hae 3:07
B2
I Have A Many Common Sense With Him 1:13
B3
Gureepufuruutsu Juusu 1:56
B4
Prefish 3:47
B5
Fr 15z (Korgo) 1:45
B6
July Sky 3:45
B7
China Pong 1:40
B8
Eel Fishing In Moon Night 2:42
B9
Jkimigayo (Traditional) 0:37

Download the Fangs of Lucifer HERE!

Thursday 24 April 2014

Volcano The Bear ‎– "Classic Erasmus Fusion" (Beta-lactam Ring Records ‎– mt092a) 2006

More Outsider avant garde folk hybridisms from Volcano the Bear's insiders from without,who used to be into Grunge when I first met 'em! Well they weren’t when they made this double CD, after consuming the experimental bowels of Leicesters european prog peddlers in the Ultima Thule platterie  en face de la gare du Leicester. Throughly digesting the minutia and regurgitating it as this wacky eclectic mishmash of aural tomfoolery. If "Inhazer Decline" was their 'Revolver', this was their 'White Album'.
Like most double albums, it could have made a fantastic EP.

Tracklist:

1-1 Classic Erasmus Fusion
1-2 Did You Ever Feel Like Jesus?
1-3 The Merry Potter
1-4 Ong Paté
1-5 Russian Milk
1-6 Baroque Sensation
1-7 Sharp As The Queens Teeth
1-8 Hey Judo
1-9 Baltic Minor
1-10 Lifetime
1-11 Classic Autumn Fusion
2-1 Hail The New Mephisto
2-2 The Last Song Of Norway
2-3 Shadowfishing
2-4 My Favourite Tongues
2-5 Erasmus, The Queens Dentist
2-6 See Me Now

DOWNLOAD 17 erasmus fusion classics HERE!