Loren Mazzacane Connors – "Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1-9 1979-1980" (Ecstatic Yod – E#101/FYCD#11-14) 1999

Whoops, I spy Thurston Moore and Jim O'Rourke being name-checked in the credits, but don't let that put you off? This really does sound like the music one plays on your girlfriends acoustic after a night down the pub before collapsing in an armchair with your knob out,dangling in a cold portion of unfinished curry and chips. I dunno if Loren had his knob out when playing these improvisations,but he sure does sound drunk or stoned.All tracks....tracks?... recorded in the famous Daggett Street period...remember that?....Nah, nor I,and it sounds as if Loren doesn't either?...but trust record collector bore Thurston Moore(avant-garde than you) to feel the need for one-upmanship in the 'I'm Moore Avant Garde Than You' obscure acoustic guitar improv stakes.Okay, Thurst, you win....the medal's in the post.

This compilation features selections from more than fifty album sessions,thats at least fifty less than me, recorded by Loren Mazzacane Connors during those infamous,or rather un-famous Daggett Street sessions. Most of the original self-released LPs were destroyed when the distributor went out of business after,surprisingly, failing to sell any copies(?).That means even Connors' Mum didn't even buy one,not even Connors himself,or,apparently,that harbinger of good taste,Thurston H. Moore? Mazza,had to collect them,not in the record collector sense, but had no way of transporting or storing them, so he ended up leaving them in a dumpster......Hmmmm maybe that would have made a fitting punchline?

Derek Bailey he ain't,but his other,more considered works, are rather wonderful. However, I would rather hear this stuff played at partys than that of the guitar player who ruins everything by whipping out his acoustic and playing 'American Pie',then getting his curly haired mustachioed way with all those fickle young ladies lookin' fer an alpha male with trimmings. 

This release is for that massive mob of Loren Mazzacane Connors completists out there,come on, put your hands up, I know who you are,and where you live...Nutdale Funny Farm awaits thee....singular.

Tracklist:

1-1 Vol. 1 32:40
1-2 Vol. 2 35:06
2-1 Vol. 3 (Edited) 33:31
2-2 Vol. 4 37:46
3-1 Vol. 5 32:34
3-2 Vol. 6 35:06
4-1 Vol. 7 (Edited) 13:24
4-2 Vol. 8 34:54
4-3 Vol. 9 (Unissued) 24:51

DOWNLOAD four hours,yes FOUR hours of the busker outside nutdale funny farm on meds HERE!

Keiji Haino / Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "Live At Downtown Music Gallery, New York City, August 1, 1992" (Persona Non Grata) 1995

Another of my favourite guitar abusers,as if anyone cares, is, obviously, Keiji Haino, late of Fushitsusha.
So, when this improv performance with Loren Mazzacane Connors came into existence, one had to hear it. Two guitarists with intrinsically opposite styles don't make obvious bedfellows,and in this case, it shows. Haino seems to struggle to adapt himself to the quieter understated style of Connors, rather than do what he does best,ie making a soul shattering racket,inbetween the quiet patches,with the odd death rattling scream.
Nah, doesn't work, for me anyway;Despite what it says on the sleeve notes ,but well worth a try.
There's a second record apparently,maybe thats better?

DOWNLOAD this downtown improv dynamic duo HERE!

Haunted House ‎– "Blue Ghost Blues" (Northern Spy ‎– NSCD 012) 2011

Ten years elapsed between Haunted Houses first and second albums, but nothing much changed,as didn't in the world of pop music in general,except that it probably got more lost in its own stasis.
Loren Connors' attempt at alt rock I suppose,but, as opposed to this very american genre, the emphasis is put on the 'alternative' rather than the 'Rock' bit.
Lets face it, a record recorded at any studio called "Seizures Palace" has to be, at least, good?

Tracklist:

1 Millie's Not Afraid 9:56
2 Blue Ghost Blues 12:29
3 Grip My Hand 3:42
4 Thomas Paine 9:13
5 Hard Roads 3:06

DOWNLOAD some good house music HERE!

Haunted House ‎– "Up In Flames" (Erstwhile Records ‎– erstwhile 002) 1999

Loren Mazzacane Connors wasn't always alone,or in a short lived duo with various scenesters,he was also,occasionally, in a group. Haunted House was the appropriate moniker for LMC's ghostly guitar apparitions, but this time enhanced by some slow motion Psychedelic whig outs. Its kinda like My Bloody Valentine or Loop played at 16 rpm,over the more sublime moments from that This Mortal Coil LP,but improvised.This could have been on Creation Records if they had a less nebulous singer,or a drummer, and the Label owner wasn't such a ginger twat.

DOWNLOAD these haunting tunes HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "Red Mars" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV69) 2011

Not only is Mars red, its dead also. Its been probed,and explored by robotic vehicles for decades now,and the best they can find is the odd jet of Methane escaping from the deeply frozen martian dust.
Lets face it, there is no life anywhere in the observable universe,well, at least within a few light years of our blue oasis floating in a very narrow goldilocks zone,and an endless series of good fortune.Our little Earth, you know,the one that we're destroying? And the inhospitability of our dead twin further emphasises that there is NO planet 'B'. We're fucked, and there's Fuck all we can do about it because the ,major cause of our demise is capitalism,the unsustainable manifestation of our own greed and short-sighted stupidity.
In extra-terrestrial life terms we are,supposedly, in the 'Intelligent' bracket,but, if there was 'Intelligent life surviving on any exo-planet within 50 light years in any direction we would know about it. There have been no, zero, alien transmissions detected from any of our neighbouring star systems.And none of the closest exo-planets that have been spectrum analysed, have any polluting or unantural elements. like CFC's, in their atmospheres.Suggesting that if there is any intelligent life on these bodies,they haven't yet achieved any equivalent of the Industrial revolution as of yet.....lucky for them.Of course, there is a very real prospect that there is a natural limit of tecnological advancement that if reached, leads to the inevitable self-anihilation of the incumbant species.A process that seems to have been triggered on our planet,and is currently advancing like a runaway train with no-one manning the brakes.
The odds of the Human race being alone ,at least in this Galaxy, have been slashed to odds-on favorite. And nobody can encapsulate that stark reality better than Loren Mazzacane Connors.
In space there's no-one to hear you scream, or anybody else screaming that we can hear to give us hope we're not alone after all.

Tracklist:

1 On Our Way 10:24
2 Red Mars I 1:56
3 Red Mars II 10:46
4 Showers Of Meteors 6:52
5 Little Earth 4:34

DOWNLOAD some bad news from tne red planet HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "The Departing Of A Dream Vol. III: Juliet" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV34) 2004

I'm world renowned for my incisive insight and i'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say that the Juliet mentioned in the title is none other than Juliet Capulet?.....I'm on safe ground there methinks?
Like an insurance advertisement, the fictional life of the prettier half of the star crossed lovers, whizzes by, leaving her wishing that she had taken out adequate life insurance to cover her funeral expenses for loved ones left behind. Still a teenager, I doubt that such responsibilities, post-mortem, had crossed her love addled mind.......but then again her family were loaded weren't they, so no problems there then. This was undoubtedly the whole point behind Bill's most famous play.Not unrequainted love doomed by prejudice.....it was to get youngsters planning for retirement and unexpected funeral expenses. She would have got the famed 'free Pen' and some argos vouchers just for inquiring.....although back in elizabethan times it would have been a free Quill and Ink, plus a token for a sack of turnips.
There are actually thousands of romantically inclined fuckwits who actually write to Juliet in Verona every year, for advise on affairs of the heart.There's even a person employed by the city of Verona, to write agony aunt style replies to these sad individuals!?
These people must not be the sharpest tool in the box,and can't have read the play to its tragic conclusion, then they'd know that Juliet killed herself and in no known circumstances could she give out advise on how Donna can persuade her 58 year old lover, Cedric, to leave his wife.
Loren Connors, manages to en'capulet' (sic) the tragedy of these doomed lovers, while at the same time reminding us that our life is speeding past us before our eyes, in thirty minutes of minimal guitar atmospherics.Drenched in lo-fi amp reverberation and tape hiss.
"Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O, happy dagger,
This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die." (Not a quote from 'Sid and Nancy' by William Shakespeares smarter brother).

Tracklist:

1 Her Love 20:39
2 Her Fate 4:54
3 Her Death 1:47
4 Juliet... 1:26
5 In Lovers Eyes 1:46

DOWNLOAD with emphasis on the 'down' HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV22) 2003

From this side of the barbed wire fence, we stand and watch the dream of our lost childhood trapped in a past.While we drift away into oblivion until those days before disappointment and experience become nothing more than a blurred dot viewed from the wrong side of the event horizon.
There's a moment in life,or an event, when innocence dies,and we are irreversably sucked into a black hole with no prospect of mercy.All that is left are foggy recollections of what it was once like to have hope.
This fuzzy minimalist classic evokes a series of black and white images that flash across your mind as one floats in a black and starless void waiting to cease existence.We are essentially alone with our own personal illusion,then without reason, it stops.
But, on a brighter note, at least we have music and football you cry!!??...no wait, football has been stolen by the elite, and music has been killed off as a creative and relevant force by....oh yeah...the fucking Elite again!!.....we certainly need some kind of Event Horizon! Something like reclaiming the wealth that has been stolen from 99.9% of the suffering population of the Earth, and jailing the perpetrators.
The politics of Envy they would label this while they flaunt their fleet of Bentlys in front of TV screens full of starving children advertising charity causes to further heap the guilt on their slaves.
The Politics of Envy?...I'm cool with that, as long as they don't mind the Politics Of Violence which will inevitably come in their direction.
I hear JayZee, has had discussions with survival experts on how to pay his security staff after the system collapses, and money is worthless.He already has a fully stocked bunker system under his mansion for his fat arsed wife and himself.
The answer is,Jay Zee....hang on isn't that my Initials too???....the answer is, that your security staff are gonna kill you and take your stuff.
In fact who wants to survive in a world where the only survivors are useless fools like Kanye West and I wanka Trump.
Well, I'm off to my Bunker now, to listen to Loren Mazzacane Connors, and await the arrival of Planet Niburu......and NO, I AINT GONNA LET YOU IN.....not even Jay Zee when he's screaming for his life.I'd have to think a few seconds about Beyoncé though....then, still say NO! Anarchy is a great leveller isn't it?
Oooooooh the basic thrill of power!(Tee Hee Hee Hee).....but alas, it is just a dream.Life is not a Disney movie after all,especially if you were sexually abused by the hosts of the Mickey Mouse Club,like mind-controlled trauma-bots Britney Spears and Justin Trousersnake.

Tracklist:

1 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 1 10:51
2 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 2 1:44
3 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 3 1:29
4 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 4 1:54
5 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 5 1:10
6 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 6 1:39
7 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 7 10:15
8 The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II, 8 2:24

DOWNLOAD the fast departing dream of your youth HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "The Departing Of A Dream" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV11) 2002

This maybe Loren Connors' best,most melancholic, work from a vast canon of unique nebulous guitar experimentation.
This is the sound of drowning, the sensation of falling, or recovering from an anaesthetic.A stark dream disappearing in a slowly swirling vortex of mist as reality pulls you away back into captivity after an all too brief escape.
The two requiems for the 9/11 attacks are particularly moving,shrouded in amplified tape hiss.
No need to mention the hundreds of thousands of post 9/11 victims that are rarely mourned to the tribute. As the lives of bankers,and stock traders seem to count for far more than any innocent muslim family vaporised by a Drone looking for 'Terrorists'.
I shall resist the temptation to go on a tiresome monologue about the 9/11 conspiracy,despite my earlier flirtations with the theory.I have looked into it a lot more, and all the paranoid theorums have been more than adequately deeeeee-bunked.....especially Tower fucking Seven!!!!
Yep, as unbelieveable as it may seem to an increasing number of persons under the spell of social media reverse mind control, a bunch of Islamic Terrorists....sorry...I mean terrorists!!!....flew some jets into some buildings, whose structural integrity was compromised, clearly, on live TV from many angles.....and, Collapsed into their own footprint, slightly slower than freefall speed.
No Hollograms,No free energy weapons, and above all absolutely NO controlled explosions.
The Paranoid Dream has definitely departed.
Feel free to argue otherwise in the comments section.

Tracklist:
1 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 1
2 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 2
3 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 3
4 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 4
5 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 5
6 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 6
7 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 7
8 The Departing Of A Dream Pt. 8
9 The Silence (For NY 9/11/01)
10 And Sorrow (For NY 9/11/01)

DOWNLOAD an arriving dream HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors, Jean-Marc Montera, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo ‎– "MMMR" (Xeric ‎– x 99.5) 1997

Although the sight of the names of the two most prolific Sonic Yoof Bores emblazened across the cover would put anyone off this record, it's actually one of the better Mazzacane Connors collaborations.
The MMR vaccine scandal, in which one doctor said it gives your kids Autism, therfore no-one on the entire planet vaccinates their kids against anything anymore,has nothing to do with this record.But if you play it long enough to any 'Anti-Vaxxers', while forcing them to watch clear evidence that MMR has fuck all to do with Autism, it could well,potentially, save 1000's of kids lives every year. So this album is potentially an anti-MMR aural vaccine......lets call it the 'MMMR' vaccine.
Loren Mazzacane is probably over powered by the 'experimental tuning twins' Renaldo and Moore, so it's mo(o)re their album than his. Whereas Mazzacane's solo work is more Novacaine than Mazzacane, here we are treated to much scrapping and banging, and doubtless, the two eternal teenagers with record collections on the album, would have whipped out their drumsticks to abuse their wildly customised guitar collection,and show off to their avant garde chums.
The first track is the more tunful, and mannered of the three,and is ,by coincidence(not),the track where the Sonic Yoofs are strangely abscent!
I'm only jealous.....its a great record, and I love Sonic Youth really........I think!?
Lets ask John Fahey,Grammy award winner, guitarist, avant-folk legend from beyond the grave, what he thinks eh?

"This is great improvised music. It is beautiful and complex and, most importantly, it breathes. As good and as moving as anything you'll hear this year."
John Fahey
Tracklist:

A1 Mazzacane Connors / Montera 11:11
A2 Mazzacane Connors / Montera / Moore 10:07
B  Mazzacane Connors / Montera / Moore / Ranaldo 20:35

DOWNLOAD and vaccinate HERE!

Loren MazzaCane Connors ‎– "Lullaby" (Carbon Records ‎– CR045) 2001

Someone who evokes a similar atmosphere of isolation and loneliness as Jandek,but without the pain, and has indeed appeared on a couple of Jandek records; is Loren Mazzacane Connors.
He has even out-produced the revered corwood representative, by more than two to one, in terms of album production.
He seems to be motivated only by the need to make music in an endless desire to get something out of himself.Even though he has had Parkinsons syndrome since the late ninties.
This probably helps in creating his unique haunting style.
Undoubtedly Post-Rock before either Post,or Rock.He's one of those 'Guitarists Guitarist', with all and sundry scrambling to do a collaboration.....and yes, Thurston fucking Moore has done at least one with him!
These collaborations usually sound like someone else playing over the top of what Loren Mazzacane normally plays,like two records playing at once...sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't.So my recommendation is to stick to the ,very,solo works,like this one.
The title of this ethereally melancholic collection of guitar lullabies, gives it away.A very pleasant and relaxing way to fall asleep.....forever, if necessary.

DOWNLOAD to fall asleep,but in a good way HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Manhattan Tuesday" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0788) 2007

Well, there's only six or so Jandek albums left to post, so fuck Jandek Monday, this is gonna be Jandek week. The day that Notre Dame in Paris lies smoldering, it seems fitting to mourn this classic of Gothic architecture with some classic Gothic outsider misery.
Lets face it, it was just a building, no-one died, but we're still gonna spend billions restoring it, with enough money to end child poverty in africa, or pay for enough subsidised solar panelling to make a large dent on greenhouse emissions.Normally frugal Billionaires have prized open their wallets to donate 100's of millions of Euro's, but remain unmoved when confronted by starving african kids, or even when made aware of the plight of my own personal pet project, Saving The Pangolin!(click here to donate a fiver).
Meanwhile,Grenfell Tower, a purposely sub-standard highrise block inconveniently housing ordinary people(scum) in an expensive part of London,which burned to the ground, with huge loss of life, is as nothing in real terms in comparison with that smoldering national symbol.The needle on the moral compass is spinning wildly,like the wheel of fortune,landing on 'Lose a Turn'for the poor, and 'Bankrupt' for Africa.
When Coventry Cathedral got destroyed by the Luftwaffe, they didn't rebuild it, they built a cost effective,and rather stylish, replacement, leaving the ruins next to it for posterity.They didn't do such a great job with the rest of Coventry sadly. Same thing happened to St Pauls in the 18th century. So should this be for Notre Dame. Nothing lasts forever, its time to move on. There's too much emphasis on 'Things' and not enough on people and suffering
This is why I wanna move on from Jandek Monday, and leave the ruins of Jandeks splintering personality on display, in full, here, for posterity. Alongside the majestic charred edifices of Our Lady in Paris, with this smoking appearence from our Corwood representative in New York.
This performance in Manhattan, at the Anthology Film Archives on sept 6th 2005, is enhanced by the inspiring fret work of Loren Mazzacane Connors on guitar, leaving the groaning and synth work to the Representative.
I know i say this a lot, but i think this is my favourite modern Jandek album;but then again maybe the best Jandek record is the last one you listened to? 

Tracklist:

Afternoon Of Insensitivity:
1-1 Part One 13:04
1-2 Part Two 20:44
1-3 Part Three 9:56
2-1 Part Four 11:24
2-2 Part Five 12:39
2-3 Part Six 7:06
2-4 Part Seven 18:25

DOWNLOAD with sensitivity in the afternoon HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Glasgow Sunday 2005" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0792) 2008

Jandek's set that included a second JFK assasination connection, was recorded live at The Arches, Glasgow, Scotland on October 16, 2005.

He had previously appeared at the Texas theater in Dallas that Oswald was arrested at, in 2016;a review of which(by 'moi') you can get HERE! During which one concluded that Jandek fired the fatal bullet from the 'Grassy Knoll'. So is the reference here a further indication of our Representatives guilt? Is he laughing at us, hiding in plain sight?.....probably not, but we all like a mystery don't we? That's the primary reason we like Jandek.

The spoken account of mass brainwashing, which is the track named after that infamous Knoll, seems to suggest a Sirhan Sirhan style Manchurian Candidate scenario, which involved the Representative 'losing his mind to them', and that '(he) knew that he must GO!?'.

Like Oswald he suggests he was the patsy, who didn't go along with the plan made by that 'God Man' Sterling refers to.

Like any conspiracy nut, one can make any piece fit the jigsaw puzzle,so please face up to the clear Facts that it was Jandek wot dunnit guvner!

The ethereal guitarwork backing up this admission from our favourite beneficiary of CIA identity protection, is provided by the magnificent Loren Mazzacane Conners, whose many albums are the epitome of melancholy.Probably another outsider guitarist on the CIA witness protection program, but far less moany than the Identity given to Jandek.

Things get a bit wilder for the second track, as Alan Licht takes over guitar duty, and Jandek moves to drums.Ending in wild applause from the Glaswegian crowd.

The J(andek)FK Conspiracy starts here!

Tracklisting:

The Grassy Knoll 25:26
Tribal Ether 24:47

DOWNLOAD from the grassy knoll of outsider music HERE!