Melvins – "A Tribute To Throbbing Gristle" (Amphetamine Reptile Records – Scale 142) 2015

You know what? I'm sick to my back teeth of hearing about Throbbing Gristle ,writing about Throbbing Gristle, and playing Throbbing Gristle. They are by far the most popular band on this Blog,so my instinct is to go in the opposite direction, which is exactly what,well, at least G-PO (Neil Megson) and Sleazy would do. I strongly suspect that Chris and Cosey would have loved a hit,as well as getting everything TG deleted from these pages.Its people like us wot cost them all that dough they would never get. Actually, i think they made a huge packet of cash from Industrial Records,such was topsy turvy times that they existed in. Regularly DIY bands...of which TG were definitely one, made upwards of 30 grand for every self-release back on the cusp of the 80's.

Well,If i'm so sick of 'em, then why am i writing about 'em again(?) ,you may justifiably ask.

"I don't have to explain myself to you" was one of Rotten's better ripostes to similar questions,and I maintain the right to invoke that clause right now.

Of course TG are one of those very rare beasts in the world of art ,totally original, who invented their own genre, Industrial music,and remain highly influential to this day. "Seminal" as the music press would have described them. Music with no chords...who'd have believed it?

The Melvins do a good job of recreating the feel of our gloomy chums,without succumbing to the temptation of Rocking it up a tad, this is down,and it stays Down. TG never even made a track called Heathen Earth, but Buzz and the gang reanimates the album of the same name, and transfers the feel into four dark minutes.

"Hamburger Lady" has to be one of the best song (song?) titles in the modern Idiom or wot?

Yeah I love 'em,threats or no threats.

ps. do us a favor and sign this petition will ya?

Tracklist:

A Subhuman

B Heathen Earth

C Hamburger Lady(Flexi)

DOWNLOAD your order to hamburger lady king HERE!

Melvins – "A Tribute To The Jam" (Amphetamine Reptile Records – Scale 137) 2015

A Sludge Metal tribute to punky mod-revivalists,The Jam,from the days when they were rather good....ie 1977.

Fertile ground for American Sludgers to marvel at the British ability to say the word 'Fuck' and frighten the pure living shite out of ya.

Buzz Melvin has obviously studied the culture of the British Hooligan to a level where he,and fellow Melvins, can Satirise this alien Yob rock to a point that would convince any american,and most members of Rancid, that they were listening to some unknown versions by The Cockney Rejects.Oi!Oi!

Of course its merely an impression,rather than a facsimile of Paul Wellers' thuggish threesome,and pulled off with not a small amount of fahkin humour.

The Jam, not previously known for infiltrating any part of the United States,must have leeched through the intransigence and miscomprehension onto the young Buzz's record player at some formative stage of the young Osbourne's musical miseducation.And one must agree that the Jam's Debut,"In The City",was particularly brutal,and was not too far removed from experiencing and receiving a damn good kicking from rival gangs of "Bovver Boys" and skin'eads after a relaxing saturday afternoon's violence on the crumbling football terraces of crumbling seventies Britain....as portrayed  in the medium of song.

Just like pop music,it took the rest of the world decades to catch up with Bovver Culture,long after it had died in the motherland.

Ahhh! the fear crackled and fizzed in the charged atmosphere like rogue power cables twisting like Fahkin Eels in the winter evening sky. Without the malevolent influence of English Association Football,British Bovver-Rock would never have put the boot into the staid music factory of the early seventies,and give us the most over-looked roots of yer Punk Rock.....no Footy, No Slade,...No Slade...No Ramones and No Jam....No Jam, No Melvins?????....maybe not, but, as it seems...Maybe?

No football in Woking,birthplace of the Modfather himself, though,so Weller must have got it all from watching Match of the Day and News at Ten?

This single is but one of nine released under the name of "Thee 9 Clowns Of The Apocalypse" series of tribute singles,which included many of their and our own fav groups of yesteryear, such as Queen, Roxy Music and, oh no not them again!... Throbbing Gristle.

One of the better covers collection one might say?...Oi!


Tracklist:

A1 Art School

B1 Modern World
B2 Batman

DOWNLOAD a toast to the jam on toast HERE!

K.K. Null – "Plasmagma" (Video Nasties – MMXV AD #NINE) 2015

Some highly nuanced experimental noise from our ol' mate K.K.

Allowing plenty good space at the red end of the VU meter spectrum. This allows the inevitable Noise fatigue heavily associated with the purveyors of Harsh Noise to be dissipated until well into side two.Lots of attractive noises lull one into a sense of willing exploration,rather than turning it off to listen to the B-52's first,and far weirder than this, album. This is what Industrial Noise should be.Something that wasn't knocked off inside an hour and passed off as something subversive. Maybe forty years ago yes,but not in 2015.The kids who'd shock mum and dad with their Marilyn Manson fixation, are now more likely to produce a K.K.Null cassette to further confuse their Grungy parents somewhat....or Not? All that shits long dead.I shit yee not!

One chose this tape to end my recent pregnant silence because i spied that this label was called Video Nasties, promising me an opportunity to delve into the fascinating world of the 1980's VHS Video Nasty. "Driller Killer" being my most favouritest Punk Rock Movie in that very sorry sub-genre of Punk Rock movies,not to mention Punk Rock Video Nasties.In fact "Driller Killer" could actually be the only Rock'n'Roll movie that doesn't suck ass completely in fact?

Other great Nasties would have to include female exploitation Nasty, "I Spit On Your Grave"...(as mentioned in the UK Parliament's notorious 'Video Nasty debate'.......they do tend to have great titles one must admit. The plot of "ISOYG" is basically ,Chick gets gang raped,Chick walks around naked in the jungle for half an hour, then chick gets bloody and violent revenge on the perps. there may be some clumsy Feminist angle somewhere in there, but I'm struggling to see it?

Only the Daily Mail's balanced mature arguments on the rise of the Video Nasty can really express  the mind of the true Igoramus

The original found footage film "Cannibal Holocaust" is rather notorious for being a suspected Snuff Flick as the chopping up and torture scenes are somewhat realistic? The Italian director was actually tried in court for murder to determine if it was or not....it wasn't!.

Having attempted to watch this all the way through several times,inevitably falling asleep each time......maybe because I was invariably Drunk,this being, along with "Godzilla vrs Mechagodzilla", one's preferred viewing post-kicking out time at the Pub. One has the hazy recollection of a very realistic castration performed upon one of the white guys hung upside down on some bamboo construction.....a most disturbing image to have a hangover enhance in the morning after the night before?

"Texas Chainsaw massacre" was also mentioned in Parliament, although I would contest that this is not a Nasty,just another in a long line of Hillbilly schlock-horror epics started off by John Boorman's great "Deliverence"........others in the Hill Billy Horror genre are "Southern Comfort" and......this is stretching it a bit....."The Hills Have Eyes"?........has anyone seen that documentary on the USA'a most in-bred family yet?.....The Whittakers?.......oooya fookah.......click here.

Sadly I never got to see that Scandalous spaghetti-Nasty,or comedy(?) "SS Experiment Love Camp".....i may right this wrong very soon...or maybe, wrong that Right is more appropriate?

Sci-Fi Nasties aren't too common, but Sick Brit-Flick Nasty "Xtro",has to be one of the finest examples of the motion picture artform ever made.....forget Citizen Kane.

What effect these films could have on your mental well-being is still up for debate.....personally I err on the side of absolutely fucking nothing....but then again I would say that wouldn't I?....Look at the music I play and write about with such pulchritudinous abandon! 

After-all the Margate Police (Daily Mirror 1984) did explain away a violent youths' savage behaviour,as, and I quote, "Influenced by Video nasties or a New Moon"????.....sometimes, maybe its best just to give up completely on the eradication of stupidity?

Maybe there's some troubled youth out there whose behavior is influenced by a K.K.Null cassette or, the next appearance of a Gibbous moon?.

We may never know....or care?

Tracklist:

A1 Plasmagma 01 8:25
A2 Plasmagma 02 9:02
B Plasmagma 03 17:40

DOWNLOAD this SS experimental music camp HERE!

Duplo Chat – "Duplo Chat" (Moon Mist Music- mmm) 2015

 Ahhhh, a piece for that old standard of the DIY experimental underground.......The badly tuned Radio.

This was probably the first electronic instrument I owned.Short wave was a favourite,but this one sounds more on the Long Wave spectrum,accompanied by a rather oxidated tuning knob.

There may also be either some evidence of cutlery use or a couple of kitchen pans,with stapler in subtle use here too,plus the odd isolated cough among the foggy room ambiance on offer.

The knob handler here is none other than Robert Ridley-Shackleton,capturing 30 minutes of time that would have otherwise gone un-noticed if no-one had bothered to record it. Of course there will be some people,if can call them 'people', out there, who will wish that he hadn't bothered;but they need to realise that there was a moment that doesn't even have a noun, or even a pro-noun, when Time didn't exist,as it still doesn't somewhere beyond the event horizon of a super massive black hole.This is in fact a recording of the microwave background left behind by the singularity which we now call 'the Big Bang',an echo of a time before time if you will.

There is some doubt as to the uniqueness of this singularity,so there may be plenty,if not infinite, versions of this C-30 cassette existing in places that neither light nor time will ever reach us as we accelerate,expanding into the vast darkness of space/time.A mystery we will only understand on our death beds......if you're lucky enough to die in bed that is.Be also aware that the laws of quantum Physics also suggest that in at least one of these realities, there will be a 'God',so let's hope it's not this one,or we're all fucked by his/her pathetic need for vengeance, and there will be a whole bunch of unspeakably awful Red Necks taunting us smart arses from behind the pearly gates as we get channeled, by a laughing Putin and Trump kicking our arses towards the 'other place'.Which I guess does have its own rewards.At least the only bible bashers we will encounter in this imaginary Hell would be peadophile priests,and and followers of non mono-theistic religions such as Hunduism,celebrity-ism,and Paganism.Non-Mono's we will call them.

All this and more, captured within the static and oxidized rheostats of a transistor radio...who'd have thought it?

Tracklist:

1.Side A

2.Side B 

DOWNLOAD some digital duplo bricks of radio static HERE!

Various Artists - "Soviet Ukrainian Funk" (Goat Goat Grooves – GG02) 2015

Steaming Hot Cold War Caucasian Jazzy funk from the Caucasus Back from the days before every Ukrainian band was a metal act,and Vladimir Putin was a joyless Stasi clerk Twat in Dresden. They were secretly Funky Mo-fo's;but,Funky as in Elevator's,libraries, and shopping centres, but nonetheless Funky.

Rather than try to work out whether these hieroglyphically named Soviet era musicians were actually Unkrainian and not Russian, or more commonly when it comes to music, Estonian.Here is a handy mixtape that has done the hard work for us,concentrating solely on our Ukrainian chums,gettin' the groove on, albeit in a TV cop-show library music kind of way,from the 70's and 80's.

Just to make it even more amusing for us Anglo-Saxon types, I have translated the Ukrainian tracklist into Chinese restaurant English,giving us such titles as "Let me, father, at the wedding","Oh, I will throw a beech on the pit", and the probably illegal in CCCP..."You Smiled?".

The Vladikavkaz peoples ministry of democratic Funk released a statement back in 1975 forwarded to the British gutter press:

"You Anglo-Saxon Western Pigdogs think you have a monopoly on 'The Funk'don't you with your arrogance? Well,we morose Eastern fuckers have got the funky rhythms too,bigger and better funky sheet than your capitalist freedoms could ever hope to equal.You have this James Brown agent, we have Nazariy Yaremchuk, you have zis secret Bootsy Collins weapon, we have Tatyana Kochergina, and Nile Rogers is no Yuri Bogatykov by any stretch of your western propganda's imagination.Directly as we speak,the Sofiya Rotaru Ensemble have been super-glued to a nuclear missile and sent to our Moon to perform a seriously funky version of her 'Hero of the Democratic Socialist Peoples Republic' award winning number "Ballad of two violins".We have fully loaded Kalashnikov's that say we're funkier than you,and are prepares to use everything at our disposals to prove it....we are NOT bluffinks!

Thank you for your time....what you have left, that is."

Back in the day,these records were the go-to place to find obscure beatz to sample the fuck out of. Luckily I have a couple of these, courtesy of the Ultima Thule record shop bargain bin section in the mid-nineties.....comin' up. 

Tracklist:

SIDE A:

Intro - MC Alex Pervin (aka Sahlim Quick)
01. Viburnum - Three trembitas
02. Nazariy Yaremchuk - Ozovysya
03. Arnika - Let me, father, at the wedding
04. Sofiya Rotaru - "Chervona Ruta" - Ballad of two violins
05. Kobza - Vodogray
06. Smerichka - Vodogray
07. Ensemble "Vodogray" - Three trembitas
08. Sofiya Rotaru,"Chervona Ruta"-Pisnya will be a part of us
09. Smerichka - Two Rings
10. Sofiya Rotaru, ensemble "Chervona Ruta" - Fairy Tale
11. Kobza - Na Ivana Kupala
12. Sofiya Rotaru, ensemble "Chervona Ruta" - Two rings
13. Nazariy Yaremchuk - You smiled?
14. Kobza - Oh, I will throw a beech on the pit
15. Kobza - Dudaryk
16. Nazariy Yaremchuk - When the blue mountains fell asleep

SIDE B:

Intro - MC Alex Pervin (aka Sahlim Quick)

01. Tatyana Kochergina - Play, Violin, Play (cut)
02. Patterns of the Ways - Circle of the Kalina Mill
03. Vodogray - Maiden Mila
04. Kobza - Wait
05. Arnika - Spring (fragment)
06. Vatra - How I Slept on the Seine
07. Arnica - How I Slept on the Seine
08. Vodogray - Puteshestvye
09. Kobza - Ishov Kobzar Clean Field
10. Vodogray - Vospominanie
11. Patterns of the Paths - Guajira
12. Yuri Bogatykov - Quiet Water
13. Arnika - Silver Ships
14. Vatra - Verkhovyna Lullaby
15. Arnika - Lviv Evening

DOWNLOAD these dirty ass-kickin caucasian elevator muzak classics HERE!.....or be shot!

Wарм сс (Charm SS) - "р​е​п​е​т​и​ц​и​о​н​н​а​я х​у​й​н​я" (2015

 

Stoopid and Proud

They describe themselves as Stupid Punks from Yakutsk, which is in Siberia,about 500 kms from the Mongolian border,and comfortably an ever shrinking eight and a half thousand kilometers from the bastards in Moscow.

It seems that 2015 was the year that punk broke for this isolated community. Free from the sophisticated western aware boredom of the distant capital,this frozen wasteland has to make its own entertainment, with its own brutal style of punk rock untainted by the seen it all heard it all sophisticated urbanites of the western sphere of influence.

Here Bevis and Butthead hold more respect than boasting of how many times you had to play Trout Mask Replica before you..."Got It!".

If you've ever been beaten up by a musclebound grunting imbecile wearing a united Russia T-shirt,this is what it would sound like.

Every last one of these very oriental looking inhabitants are seen as Russian, especially when it comes to signing them up for a one way ticket to the Donbas.Except, it seems like its the ones who are slightly less Russian (not white) who get the privilege of being first in the queue.

The man who puts the 'Cunt' in Country,mad Vlad, would deny this western propaganda of course;but if he heard these Siberian Russians expressing their disillusionment,they would be ordered into the cattle trucks at gunpoint,to be taken to the non-existent 'Training' they won't receive before they take a bullet for the Motherland (putin).

Again, I wish the members of Wapm SS luck in avoiding the mobilization,and make for the welcoming arms of Mongolia as quickly as possible....and take your instruments with you.

Anyway, the Charm SS are rather...er...charming.....and brutally good.

Tracklist:

"р​е​п​е​т​и​ц​и​о​н​н​а​я х​у​й​н​я" :

1. кальвица 00:24
2. парад 01:05
3. гори, гори моя двухэтажка 01:00

п​а​р​а​л​л​е​л​ь​» tape' 14:

1.петин мир 00:45
2.мао 01:46
3.прозаик 01:07
4.чаща 00:54
5.все прекрасно 02:10

ш​а​р​м сс / milisi kecoa - split tape' 15:

1.шарм сс 01:25
2.парад 01:40
3.гори, гори моя двухэтажка 02:03
4.я тебя обосру 00:32
5.август муран 02:11
6.зря (2015) 00:57

DOWNLOAD it all here,or

Wapm CC Bandcamp page 

женская дисгармония (Female Disharmony) - "«62 п​а​р​а​л​л​е​л​ь​» tape ' 14" (Bandcamp) 2015

 
Zhenskayadisgarmoniya, or Female Disharmony, from the punk rock hinterland of Yakutsk in sunny Siberia show us spoilt brats in the western world, Moscow and beyond how to Rock like cro-magnon womens libbers from a violent stone age from around the early days after the creation of the Earth 3000 years ago. This music's brutality is personally responsible for the enormous melting sinkholes in the Siberian permafrost. The only nearest western equivalents of this sound i can think of is maybe Noh Mercy,only straight.

Gay cavewomen didn't exist until well into the 1600's,and were often seen dying their breast hair blue before the annual Morris dance.They sadly had a difficult time convincing the Witchfynder General of their lack of satanic cred,and many succumbed to the ducking stool before the survivors escaped on the Mayflower to form, what we call today, The Republican Party.

Tracklist:

1. что мы ненавидим 00:37
2. дом 01:20
3. киска кот 01:34
4. ласточка 01:11

ANNEX for free from a part of the motherfuckerland that putin never knew existed HERE!

John Carpenter - "Lost Themes" - (Sacred Bones Records SBR-123) 2015

Anyone who made a movie called "They Live" is alright by me. This is the chap who did Halloween for christ's sake! Not to mention "The Thing",the greatest argument against CGI graphics I can think of,with it's state of the art,1982, 'Animatronics'.Real stuff happening on screen,which avoids your movie looking like a playstation game.
Carpenter,also, had a talent for minimal electronic soundtracks,like "Assault On Precinct 13", and here he gets to live out his fantasy as a 70 year old frustrated Gary Numan,unleashing nine minimal synth themes for movies yet to be made.Sounds like a terrible Idea doesn't it?....but its rather good.This could have been made by a bunch of Belgian new beat bedroom dwellers in 1982...which was probably what John was listening to during the making of 'The Thing'?....the thing is, these are almost as good as the Main Theme from Precinct 13.
Good to see he's keeping busy.....never retire is my advice to all you early onset avoiders out there.Which is a choice you'll likely never have to make as all the state pensions are now fucked.I for one will have no choice but to work until i'm in my casket waiting to be scattered over the turf of the King Power Stadium.....which I now learn is 'Illegal'!?....those bastards fuck you over even when you're dead!!!...Glad to be gone in advance and FUCK YOU!


Tracklist:

1.Vortex 4:45
2.Obsidian 8:24
3.Fallen 4:45
4.Domain 6:34
5.Mystery 4:36
6.Abyss 6:07
7.Wraith 4:30
8.Purgatory 4:39
9.Night 3:38

DOWNLOAD this thing HERE!

Angus MacLise ‎– "Tapes" (Pleasure Editions ‎) 2015

OK,so now the challenge is to try and post something that's the polar opposite to Soviet Bloc Prog?
How about some middle class american avant-garde minimalism,with a splash of ethnological forgery?
American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher (it says here!),Angus MacLise;otherwise known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground,fits the bill nicely.
He appeared to not be bothered that his music was basically ignored outside of that Warholian clique,and seemed to play only for his own benefit,and that of the like-minded individuals that he hung out with.MacLise was a member of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, with Tony Conrad and John Cale, who described MacLise as "living on the Angus calendar", showing up to performances hours or even days after the band had finished.Mainly because he was drugged out of his 'avant-garde' brane!
During an Exploding Plastic Inevitable performance in 1966, MacLise showed up half an hour late and carried on drumming for half an hour after the set had finished to compensate for his late arrival;or rather thats what he said.the real money is on the possiblity that he was so stoned he didn't know the performance had finished.
Another doomed Aliester Crowley obsessive,his music has a tribal feel to it,abeit a tribe fucked up on peyote induced spirituality.
No official albums existed during his lifetime,and I doubt he even cared.Ambition is,after-all, the rocky cycle path to a creative cliff edge.This is a very posthumous 3-cassette compilation of unheard music from MacLise’s vast and wide-ranging reel-to-reel back catalogue. These recordings, produced between the mid-'60s and the late-'70s, consist of tribal trance workouts, spoken word, poetry, Brion Gysin-like tape cut-ups,minimalist droning and wacked out electronics—all animated by the remarkable spirits of MacLise and his beatniky cohorts.
He ,somehow, managed to die of malnutrition in Kathmandu in 1979!? Now that's certainly one of the more original Rock'n'Roll deaths.None of your cliched 'Choked on Vomit' nonsense when it came to Angus MacLise;it may not have been someone elses vomit, 
but it was definitely his own malnutrition,and,unfortunately, his own fault.

Tracklist:

Tape I
A SR8041
B1 DS8067
B2 SR8041
Tape II
A1 Trance
A2 SR8041-B
A3 DS8043
A4 Summer 1978
A5 DS8093
B1 DS8068-B
B2 TC8028
Tape III
A TC8017
B DS8045

DOWNLOAD some tapes for pleasure HERE!

Kosmischer Läufer ‎– "The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program 1972-83 - Volume Three" (Unknown Capability Records ‎– UCKL003V) 2015

I suspect that most of the DDR womens athletic team trod that fine line between being a male while still retaining enough of the female to be considered a woman.
Andreas Krieger,was once known as Heidi Krieger,and competed as a woman for the DDR, winning the gold medal for shot put in the 1986 European Athletic Championships.Trouble was that Krieger was dosed up with so much anabolic androgenic steroids that she changed sex.
At the trial of the leader of the East German sports program and East Germany's Olympic committee, Krieger testified that the drugs he had been given had contributed to his trans-sexuality;the doping deprived him of the right to "find out for myself which sex I wanted to be."

Maybe it was a combination of this training music and the drugs that tipped Heidi into manhood? So be attentive, do not listen to this gorgeous Kosmiche musik at the same time as downing a few doses of anabolic steroids,or you may just change gender type.

As it says in the liner notes:

This third collection of Martin Zeichnete's secret work for the DDR's athletic elite comes in two parts. First, a running program (Tracks 1-3) at 164BPM finds Zeichnete at his most hypnotic, particularly on the motorik, rolling 'Jenseits Des Horizonts'. This set ends with the elegiac 'Für Seelenbinder', a song dedicated to Olympic wrestler and communist hero Werner Seelenbinder.
Particularly exciting is the second part (Tracks 4-10), a soundtrack to a lost animated film UCR obtained only a few months ago.
In the spring of 1976 Zeichnete learnt that the NOK der DDR hoped to launch a bid to bring the 1984 Summer Games to East Berlin. Excited, he returned to DEFA in Dresden where he and an animator colleague conceived ‘Traum Von Der Goldenen Zukunft’ (Dream Of The Golden Future), a 20-minute cartoon they hoped could be used to promote the bid. An inspired Zeichnete composed the music in a week. The bid and thus the film were abandoned and the music was cast aside where it lay hidden and forgotten. Until now.

Tracklist:

A1 Zeit Zum Laufen 164 2:54
A2 Jenseits Des Horizonts 10:13
A3 Für Seelenbinder 4:14
B1 Traum Von Der Goldenen Zukunft (Theme) 1:32
B2 In Der Stadt Und Auf Dem Land 2:16
B3 Der Traum Des Mädchens 3:29
B4 Der Traum Des Jungen 3:42
B5 Unterwasser 1:11
B6 Ankunft Im Stadion / Das Rennen 2:31
B7 Die Turnerin 1:36
B8 Siegerehrung / Abschied Von Der Zukunft 5:32

DOWNLOAD some cosmic androgeny HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Brussels Saturday" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0817) 2015

As one is in the middle of doing all things Belgian,and Jandek Monday is looming once more;it's only too right to include some Jandek Improv from the European,and Belgian, capital of Brussels.
Recorded live at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, Belgium, April 19, 2014.

Annelies Van Dinter is the lucky Belgian installed on the drum kit,and again we have suspected Jandek spouse, Shiela Smith, adding her multi-facetted skills to the mess.

In places it sounds like classic Jandek with accompaniment,at others it sounds like a Han Bennink album, with the poor mans Derek Bailey himself ,aka Live era Jandek, up front and smokin'.

You could play this album at a University Lecturers cheese and wine do and they'd all think it was an avant garde classic that they all pretend to know......no it ain't Evan Parker,Bennink and Bailey, its Jandek you pretentious berks!

Tracklisting:

1 In My Mind 8:17
2 Friday Morning 36:42
3 Phantom Touches 10:20
4 Maybe You've Died 8:05
5 The Blue Sky 9:21

DOWNLOAD some sprouting improv HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "The Underground Wave 7"s" (Walhalla Records ‎– WR010) 2015

Nobody's perfect are they?....well,so i've been told.Walhalla's near perfect track record in minimal wave compilations hits an iceberg.
It seems as soon as any Belgian underground Wave acts moved from cassette tape to vinyl they were infected with a dreadful need to be popular,which seems to equate with a need to be dreadful.
Even the normally faultless Bene Gesserit stoop to employing some white mans Rap,like Debbie Harry did in 'Rapture. Enunciated in English with a strong flemish accent;funny,but hardly an impressive tactic.
I can just hear the semi-serious jokes in the studio about how they're gonna be number one in Belgium. From where I come from, 'Having a Number One' means taking a Piss......a 'Number Two' is having a Shit.So with that in mind, and listening to most of these tunes, they should adjust their ambitions to having a number two in Belgium,especially as most of the tracks on this compilation seem to be solid number two material.Like Depeche Mode without the tunes or fashion sense.
These singles maybe be slightly Naff, but they do exude a certain charm that negates the lurch towards things commercial somewhat.
So it ain't all bad i guess? 

Tracklisting:

A1 –Tipical Me - Claustrofobian 3:04
A2 –Solid State - Recalling You 3:36
A3 –Van Lukas - The Riot 3:02
A4 –Karman - Poker 3:33
A5 –Silent Corner - Number One 3:18
A6 –Bene Gesserit - Kidnapping 3:36
A7 –Kloot Per W - L'Europe 4:01
B1 –Tipical Me - Pope No Hope 3:58
B2 –Rive Gauche - Friends Are Friends 2:56
B3 –Vitor Hublot - J'ai Perdu Mon Oiseau 4:05
B4 –Kaa Antilope - The Break Of Day 3:01
B5 –Ton Lebbink - Voetbalknieën 4:03
B6 –Marina Swingers - I'm A Swinger 3:26
B7 –701 Triangles - Esther 2:47

DOWNLOAD some belgian seven inchers from the underpants HERE!

Jandek ‎– "St. Louis Friday(Stamp Out Reality)" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0816) 2015

Its Jandek Monday and what the fuck is going on with this cover photo? Jandek was a 'Hippie'???...Nah!?
This might explain what happened to turn him into the dysfunctional outsider folk dour troubadour that we know and love today? Either a tab of bad acid taken during the "Lets levitate the Pentagon" protest from the late sixties, or, a badly photoshopped forgery of our man to make it look like he was an activist in the late sixties?
Either way, this double CD is a recording of the man himself, who was in his late sixties when it was recorded, live at the Billiken Club, St. Louis, Missouri, March 21, 2014......absolutely NOT thee late sixties at all.
However,this outing is a peculiar one from his 21st century 'come in from the outside' phase.
Apart from the first three tracks, which are classic solo Jandek with acoustic guitar, the album is Jandek with unamed backing musicians, playing an improvised set that sounds like they had never met before. A female singer,apparently called Shiela Smith, adds her confident and slightly deranged voice to the mix.
At times it sounds like the worst Bardo Pond album,at others its like a music therapy class for special needs kids.But utimately it don't sound at all like anything else.

Tracklist:

1-1 Wasted Body 5:29
1-2 The Capsized Boat 5:47
1-3 Fishing Blues 4:48
1-4 Above it All 10:30
1-5 Shadow Life 10:47
1-6 Where Were You Born 9:14
2-1 About That 13:42
2-2 Walmart Truck 6:32
2-3 Got My Dog 12:35
2-4 The Foregoing 4:12
2-5 The Times I Had to Wear Tuxedos 4:41
2-6 Lucky Stars 10:50
2-7 Weekends 6:13

DOWNLOAD some reality HERE!

PHILIP JOHNSON - "Ellis is Poofyman" (Year Zero Records YEAR035) 2015

As Twelve Cubic feet and Exhibit A main man Paul Platypus was in Doof with the legendary Philip Johnson;it is about time I plugged the last release on Year Zero records;- the excellent "Ellis Is Poofyman", EP? Mini album?....i dunno, but its rather good.
All together now...."I've Been farting On The Moon!"
I dunno how he does it? Another sing-a-long classic from a world reflected in a fairground mirror in an underwater House of Fun. More synthetic voice phrases assembled and rearranged to reveal the true meaning of language. Backed up with all the aural abstract expressionism of a DIY Willem de Kooning;.... before he developed Alzheimers!
You should know by now NOT to be disappointed by any Philip Johnson recording,and this definitely is no exception.
Made,originally, in the much maligned 3" CD format to further limit his audience.

DOWNLOAD ellis here you poofyman!

Flores Feias - "F .˙. F .˙." (Meia-Vida - Mv32) 2015

Moving on from Rapael Flores,how about segueing with some different flora, with Flores Feias? Which means 'Ugly Flowers' in Portuguese, a very accurate description of the music on this Blog methinks?
I do harbor a proud reputation of being stuck in the past, in fact hardly venturing past 1984, for good reason.However, every now and again I hear a modern recording that doesn't bore the living shit out of me! One of these very recordings is this limited edition C-40 from the Brazilian cassette label, Meia-Vida. A solo project by Aline Vieira, it has echo's of the good side of Lydia' lunch's "Queen of Siam" LP, and in equal measures, the more minimal scratchy elements of NY No Wave. It doesn't hinder none that the perpetrator is the very opposite to an ugly flower to complete the equation.Brains and Beauty is a rare combination,and here's evidence that it exists.
In my humble opinion, the best Record of 2015.

Tracks and Links:

A1 Fetiche

A2 Feitico

A3 Sensimesmado

A4 Flutuar

B1 Foice

B2 Flores Feias

B3 E a Faca

BUY a copy HERE if it hasn't sold out!

Digital Download HERE!

Tone Set - " VOD Box Set Promo's" (2015)

The very good theoretical combo from Arizona.Tone Set, have a box set thats just come out on Vinyl on Demand. Galen Herod, of said minimal synth legends, has kindly sent some rather entertaining promotional tracks to,hopefully, encourage you to purchase the aforementioned potential material possession.Which,if you're bourgeois enough,will cost you just a small percentage of your swollen wallet.But; if you're at the sharp end of the austerity measures from those fucking wankstains who call themselves politicians,then it will be unattainable....but these lovely Promo's are an example of that rare adjective in these grey days...FREE STUFF!

I'll let the great man, Mr Galen Herod himself, explain further in an e-mail i cut'n'pasted hither:

"hello again,

you (thats me.JZ) posted a bootleg tone set cd a few years back,

The only problem being it was a bad transfer. No bass.

vinyl on demand is reissuing the stuff on that cd as

well as 62 previously unreleased tracks in a 5LP box with bonus single.

We made new good transfers of everything.

i have made 3 promos for the box. The first is an overview featuring "cal's ranch"

so you can hear the quality difference. The other 2 feature the unreleased tracks.

They are done in tone set style with inbetween found clips."

DOWNLOAD these promotional items HERE!

BUY it HERE!

The Die or DIY? Christmas Mixtape 2015 - "Have You Been Naughty Or Nice? Or Will You Have To DIE Or DIY?"(30 Electronic Misses From The Pre-Midi Era)" (a Die or DIY? Mixtape No.8)

As the technology era progresses to the point where we all carry around our brains, now renamed as 'Smart hand Held devices' or 'Phones'. Tech took over pop Music's Brain, if it ever had one, years ago. Dancing to a machine was a rather intriguing Avant garde concept in the late seventies, but that is now music for the masses, thumping its hypnotic beat in every hideous meat market disco around our dying planet. Before MIDI,or Musical Instrument Digital Interface was standardised, so machines could talk to each other, we had the rather unstable Controlled Voltage and gate method of sequencing a synthesiser, or play it by hand. The result of which preserved the much missed human factor that is glaringly missing from today's disco tunes.Even the singer gets 'auto-tuned' on what seems like every record.
So, as you unwrap your new brain replacement device and government tracking and data collection system.....ie your new smart phone. Slip this years Xmas mixtape on your iPhone and marvel at the wobbly, unsyncopated  beats and melodies of these 30 ditties from a time when not being a primordial cyborg was normal.

Tracklisting:

1.Ausgang Verboten - "Consumer"
2.Unovidual & Tara Cross - "Comme Je Suis"
3.Les Yeux Interdit - "Prison"
4.Ptose - "Boule(Viens Ici!)
5.Etat des Stocks - "She's Got Big Tits"
6.Dark Day - "Nudes In The Forest"
7.Danton's Voice - "Magic Mushroom"
8.Andi Arroganti - "Hom-O-Hetero"
9.Das Kabinette - "Fudge It"
10.Deux - "Ministry Of Love"
11.Duotronic Synterror - "Liebe Auf Den Ersten Blick"
12.MAP - "You've Lost That Loving Feeling"
13.Years On Earth - "And I Dream"
14.Sympathy Nervous - "Khaki Cloud"
15.Nine Circles - "The Rose"
16. Das Ding - "Reassurance Ritual"
17.John Bender - "57-1/Dance"
18.Robert Lawrence - "Japanese Brain warning"
19.Sentimentale Jugend - "Tote Kammer"
20.AD - "Conspiracy"
21.Synthefall - "Abzahlreim"
22.Zirkel Junger Musiker - "Hochwasser"
23.Treibeis - "Vinylbabies"
24.The Klingons - "Temptation"
25.Machines At Last - "The Colony"
26.High Bias - "The Killing Of The Cats"
27.Gen Ken Montgomery - "When I'm walking"
28.Another View - "Power Station"
29.Suisse - "Live At Longbourn"
30.Modern Art - "Hello-Goodbye"

DOWNLOAD something naughty but nice HERE!

Esmectatons - "Bene Gesserit Science" (Year Zero Records YEAR034) 2015

Ah yes, Brazil, home to the mellow vibes of the Bossa Nova beat,scantily clad girls from Ipanema playing beach volleyball,immense shanty towns, showboating footballers,and the intense cultured prog noise of Esmectatons? 
This reminds one of the kind of European improv prog band from Bravaria  that you find on that list included with Nurse With Wounds first album.The  honking squealing of saxophones surf on a whitewater tumult of Swirling noise,and improvised drumming that just keeps its head above the surface.
There is more to Brazil than disappearing rain-forests and poncy footballers; Germany may have beaten them 7-1 in the last world cup,but now they are doing what our favourite disciplinarians did best in 1972, progressive improvised avant rock.
Somebody described this (from memory) as 'Post Everything Progressive Noise',with which I wholly concur!......and ,yes,as if you didn't guess,this is the sound of modern Brazil! 

Track Listing:

01 A Place Where Dreams Come From
02 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili or Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream

DOWNLOAD it scientifically HERE!

The Blind Man Who Walked Past The Supermarket - "(More) Jolly Green Giant Corn (2nd Can)" (Year Zero Records YEAR032) 2015

Yes, a second volume of  stream of consciousness, deranged,  DIY improv, from Leicester, in and around the golden era of 1978-80.Heavily abused Trombones,clash with scraping contrabass, tortured saxophone,and Eraserhead organ. Ten untitled decompositions,that fans of the The Good Missionaries, The Door and the Window, and other willfully amateurish free improv should enjoy heartily. Could even be better than the first helping. ?

Tracks;

1-One Blind man (3:02)
2-Two Blind man (3:14)
3-Three Blind man (1:55)
4-Four Blind man (Keith!) (3:28)
5-Five Blind man (1:31)
6-Six Blind man (3:40)
7-Seven Blind man (4:30)
8- Eight Blind man (3:09)
9-Nine Blind man (5:52)
10-Ten Blind man (15:30)

DOWNLOAD another can of juicy sweet corn not even approaching its sell-by date HERE!

THE BLIND MAN WHO WALKED PAST THE SUPERMARKET - "Jolly Green Giant Corn (The First Can Off The Shelf)" (Year Zero Records YEAR031) (1978/80) 2015

From the catacombs beneath the underground,and maybe even below that, we bring you the long lost sessions of Leicester DIY improv collective, The Blind man Who walked Past the Supermarket,who were active in the golden years of 1978 to 1980.
Digitally remastered from the original high quality Dixons ferric oxide master cassette,here is a rare chance to experience the madness from the bubbling cauldron of thee most creative period in British music.
Imagine The Alien Brains and The Door and the Window,merging with Sun Ra,Airway and The Residents, but drunk; then you'd be getting half way towards understanding the off kilter lunacy of this long buried sub-genius.
Just the stuff to encourage that person you hate to shout..."TURN THAT FUCKING SHIT OFF!"

The Blind Men in action

The Blind Man Who Walked Past The Supermarket
Personnel and instrumentation 1978-1980:

Phillip Allison - saxophone shouting, contents of the kitchen and shed, keyboards, prepared bass

Mark Warner - submerged trombone, more competent keyboards, tapes, electronics, contents of the etc, vocals and sneaky stage moves, prepared bass, mutilated keyboards

Gordon Nichols - airborne trombone, percussion, laughter, contents of the etc

Hoover Washing Machine - lead guitar, backing rhythms

Old Valve Radio - Radio Mars

Moot, Tony Pye(Lead Vocals*), Walid Marzouk - excessive drinking and occasional rude vocals

Track listing:

01 - Blind Man 01
02 - Blind Man 02
03 - Blind Man 03
04 - Blind Man 04
05 - Blind Man 05
06 - Blind Man 06
07 - Blind Man 07
08 - Blind Man 08
09 - Blind Man 09
10 - Blind Man 10
11 - Blind Man 11(Maria!)*
12 - Blind Man 12
13 - Blind Man 13

Ho Ho Hooooo!DOWNLOAD the first can of jolly green giant corn HERE!
in glorious 320k mp3 quality.