Manuel Göttsching – "E2-E4" (Inteam GmbH – ID 20.004) 1984

Look backwards from any point in time up to 1970,and some clever dick will always find a long lost Krautrock classic waiting to be hauled up the flag poll as the inventor of any number of Influential,Seminal, or any amount of flattering  superlatives applied to heavily lauded albums such as this,which obviously was Trance before Trance.

Then again, sift backwards trough the marshlands of Kraut,and we can find tracks like the nine adorning this, on most of those Gate-folded Kosmische classics, like Klaus Schulz, Tangerine Dream, ,and various Ex-members of Tangerine Dream, like Klaus Schulz. In fact TD  could and should also be extremely guilty for thousands of British Ravers idiot dancing the week away in some obscure Cow field in Essex,near an exit off the M25 (aka The Magic Roundabout), back in 1988 before the UK Government made it highly illegal. What the Cows did during this process is a mystery, but there was a rumour that a Frisian and an Aberdeen Angus were seen dancing to the moozic, E'd Up, in front of the DJ on one occasion at least .

The difference between Manuel Göttsching and Edgar Froese is that Manuel had a drum machine, and Eddie didn't. Therefore  Göttsching Göt the prize....he,by logical elimination, was guilty of being Trance before Trance.Whether that's anything to brag about is another matter altogether. 

Tracklist:

1.Ruhige Nervosität 13:00
2.Gemäßigter Aufbruch 10:00
3....Und Mittelspiel 7:00
4.Ansatz 1:00
5.Damen-Eleganza 5:00
6.Ehrenvoller Kampf 3:00
7.Hoheit Weicht (Nicht Ohne Schwung...) 9:00
8....Und Souveränität 3:00
9.Remis 3:00

DOWNLOAD this opening gambit for chess and house music HERE!

Jimmy Smack – "Death Is Certain" - (Knekelhuis – KH040) 1982-83 / 2022

Hmmmm, Nice Arse.

Electric bagpipe drone weirdness from LA deathrock outsider Jimmy Smack. 'Death is Certain',aww and there's me thinking I was gonna live forever, is assembled from two self-released 7"s and a similarly self-released twelve incher from 1982/3.

Looking at him I sense he prefers a good 12 incher to a nice seven incher any day, but then again don't we all?
There aren't many records that can boast an electric Bagpipe, but this one does,so its already automatically good,never mind the Suicidal tendencies, as in that Rev and Vega kind of minimalism.

Always keep at least one hand on yer bagpipe kiddies.

Slapping on the corpse paint well before all those Scandinavian Death Metal drongos,Jim reminds one rather of a scotch Alien Sex Fiend,or Fad Gadget.

Is he trying to frighten us or something?....I really think he is!?

Although he was unhealthily obsessed with Death, he soon decided to quit after receiving an opportunity to find out what Death was really like when he received several Death Threats.Apparently he wasn't too popular with the LA Deathrock audience,regularly booed off and and a hate target.Worried for he and his families safety,....Yup, he had a wife and Kids!?.."he bailed right after the death threat thing. Stopped,and sold his pipes(how much did he get for them?)." Went back to his day job permanently,that's right he was a Ballet Dancer,and even more incredibly....NOT GAY!?

Smack, not his real name i'm guessing, was a multi-disciplined artist,so when he wasn't donning death mask war paint,he was preaching the gospel of Cold War nihilism; or channeling paranoia with great urgency through the howling banshee screams of electrified Celtic bagpipes.Or,doing The Nutcracker on Broadway?

At least we can now reassure ourselves with the knowledge that Smack never struggled for work,and I quote:"I was in the theatre all the time, my whole life. I had the Hollywood Free Theatre and then the Star Theatre. I was just always on stage doing something. Worked with all these clowns, we were all clowns so I became a clown — I was Jimbo the clown.”.....interestingly Not Smacko the Clown?

If only Johnny Rotten became Jimbo The Clown after Wobble left PiL, then the world would have been a marginally better place......if slightly creepier.

Tracklist: A1 Anguish 9:51 A2 Hating Life 3:12 A3 Depression 2:09 B1 Souls 1:26 B2 Cybernetic 1:38 B3 Death Is Certain 1:56 B4 The Scarlet Beast 1:38 B5 Batty 2:31 B6 Anguish (Instrumental) 8:51 DOWNLOAD smacko the clown HERE!

Fall Of Saigon – "Fall Of Saigon 1981-1984" (Gazul Records – GA8851) 2011

No its not a North Vietnamese Fall tribute band!

It's frenchy Minimalist composer Pascal Comelade,moonlighting with his minimalist pop trio named after a This Heat tune. 

Harboring a knowing glance in the direction of Young Marble Giants,and maybe even..... Weekend? 

Pascal is not shy of wearing his influences on his sleeve....that's him on the right there,with influenced sleeves rolled up,trendily, to the elbows.I remember when the Style Council used to do self-consciously french things like that,such as wearing,(or rather NOT wearing) a cardigan tossed stylishly over the shoulders and tying the sleeves into a loose knot atop a Breton inspired polo shirt.You can take the boy out of Woking,but you can't take the Woking out of the boy.....but you do have to leave Woking if you wanna wear a Breton top....fact!

There also a version of my funeral theme tune on here, The TV Personalities' classic "Part-Time Punks",further emphasizing Pascal's fondness for "les Rostbif pop",especially it seems Kevin Ayers too....which i think stems largely from the fact that posh Boy Kevin had a handy grasp of French thanks to the British Public school system. And as we all know,if you slot anything French or in French into an English pop tune you have a career for life..... in France!...just ask Sting.

However, similarly, the Brit's love to hear a French bird singing in Engleesh, which surprisingly didn't lead to Indie success in grey old foggy Albion.They could have stuck to it a bit longer, but i think Pascal had other things in mind for himself,embarking on a prolific solo career that continues to this day.

The other French musical commandment that has been observed here on this compilation,is the obligatory Doors homage.Every household in France has a Doors Album, or Zer Doorsss as they call them.They all think Morrison was a poet....in fact Morrison thought he was a poet too,maybe even a great poet?So as he died and was buried in Paris,this means that their hero is now French,so Zer Doorsss are forever enshrined in marble and stone among the elect of French art and culture......Would i be out of order to suggest that they can flaming well have him...slash...them? Plenty more where he came from.

Nonetheless, this version of "The End" is actually rather good?

The End!

Track Listing:

1.Visions 2:21

2.Blue Eyes 2:08

3.She Leaves Me All Alone 4:22

4.So Long 2:28

5.On The Beach At Fontana 3:22

6.The Swimmer 2:15

7.The Model 3:21

8.Part Time Punks3:12

9.The End 9:43

10.Andalucia 2:02

11.I'll Never Be Back 4:54

12.Sha La La La 2:58

13.Let It Go 2:41

DOWNLOAD the rise of hoh chi minh city HERE!

Pascal Comelade – "Slow Musics" (Eurock – EDC06) 1981

Pascal Comelade likes his piano's upright,recorded ambiently by two mikes in a room,and accompanied by an array of toy instruments

,something that Steve Beresford was well known for at the time,and probably someone Pascal would have come into contact with through his association with David Cunningham,and the London Musician's Collective. Mix that with an obvious Erik Satie influence,and splashes of This Heat's quieter moments and you've got Slow Music.

Pascal has an obvious talent for a minimal melancholic tune,which also reminds one of those Daniel Johnston tapes,but without the awful whining. Lots of recognisable influences indeed,but blended together Comelade has created a distinctive style that verges on the sad but beautiful side of 'tings.

This didn't go unnoticed in This Heat HQ, as Gareth Williams' solo album sounds unerringly similar to that of Pascal Comelade's early work.

A lot of these tunes have that 'previously heard before' quality such is the direct simplicity of them.Why I could star at an empty wall for hours listening to these,dare I say 'Sad'(?)mini sonata's.The music of introspective loneliness.  

Tracklist:

Face A:
1. Le vérolé de Babel - 2’50
2. Ritmos del fedayin - 4’23
3. Harley-Davidson - 2’16
4. Music for sanatorium - 1’46
5. Gary Cooper, always here - 1’38
6. Distorsion molle (to K. Leimer) - 1’37
7. John Cage descendant un escalier - 1’50
8. Morena fatal (mambo) - 2’54
Face B : 

1. Fragmentes della Kairos - 2’00
2. Les partisans - 2’27
3. Justine - 2’00
4. Souvenir from diagonal - 2’25
5. La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques ? - 2’46
6. Nicaragua arumbaya - 2’31

DOWNLOAD slow music quickly HERE!

Pascal Comelade / David Cunningham – "Précis De Décomposition Bruitiste" (Parasite – PAR 006) 1983

Somehow we've found ourselves back in France thanks to David Cunningham's association with minimalist composer Pascal Comelade, and this cassette of decomposing noise. I don't know if this was decomposed at the Cold Storage Studio,but there is definitely a This Heat factor floating around here. Comelade did in fact have a minimal pop band named after a this Heat track as further evidence,"Fall Of Saigon",although how much they were actually an influence is up for debate. Comelade did go on to develop a very attractive minimal Satie-like method of tune writing,which reminds me of former This Heater Gareth Williams' fantastic solo album "Flaming Tunes" from 1985.....so one suspects the influence was indeed a two way street.

Comelade had a predilection for deconstructing pop tunes,sometimes slowing them down to a crawl,or reducing them to the barest of bones or, as in this case with ? and The Mysterians' garage classic "96 Tears",a slow decent into a fuzzy fog ,which i think was a consequence of another of Pascal's major influences 'Suicide' rather than Question Mark himself.

Coincidentally, it's apparently Pascal's 67th birthday tomorrow, how's about that for synchronicity?

Tracklist:

Face A: 1980/1981

Face B:
A Perfect Crime/96 Tears

DOWNLOAD another reason to forgive france for Johnny Hallyday HERE!

David Cunningham – "Grey Scale" (Piano – Piano 001) 1977

 

The first Piano release,made by cold storage recording studio main man, David 'Flying Lizard' Cunningham, was this minimal systems music offering in praise of the 'Error'. Without which nothing any good would have emerged from the primordial soup of music,slash, entertainment,slash everything.

Without error we would all still be banging drums in a cave in the south of France. Some people still are,mostly Hippies hiding away from having to get a job before the trust fund matures..

Without 'Error', mother nature would only have ever produced a rock,or a gas, or a Piers Morgan. There is an inherent need to mutate. Musical notes boast more than just a passing resemblance to the genetic code, so any note or gene in the wrong place can lead to the most horrific or exciting developments.Like evolution, if there's a need for this mutation, it will be used, but the mechanics remain in the background,....on the Grey Scale.

I'll let  David explain the Error System to you daft lot:

"Error System
The players play a repeating phrase. As soon as one player makes a mistake that mistake is made the basis of his repetition unless it is modified by a further mistake. Thus each player proceeds at his own rate to change the sound in an uncontrollable manner. On no account should 'mistakes' be made deliberately to introduce a change into a performance. In short - sustain your errors.
The water piece and the guitar piece are analogous to this process. However the process is automatic here, an inherent quality in the machinery used."

I found myself watching the hideous spectacle of Glastonbury 2022,last evening,with its endless reams of error-less meaning-less, middle class party music,absolute drivel.

I found myself weirdly enjoying Robert Plant and Alison Krause's rather splendid Folk renditions.....at the wrong festival i may suggest. While waiting for 'idles',whom i had priorly thought were 'not bad'.They bust a bloodvessel living up to the 'punk' band on the bill role they were assigned,and kept wheeling out a neo-hipster on a very expensive looking baritone sax,playing the same Free-Jazz squeal during the really 'Crazy' bits. I suspect the sax-hipster couldn't actually play his couple of grand's worth of brass,or understand what he had pretensions towards...for it was, was it not,Ornette Coleman who championed the erroneous note, as prioritizing the 'right wrong notes' over the 'wrong wrong notes'? This Idles guy got all the wrong wrong notes, but no-one had a single clue about what was wrong wrong or right right;one may as well play nothing nothing I thought.They formally stuck to the 'right' stuff that the massive sea of Billy Eilish fans from Surrey wanted to relay their 'Punk moment' and tell their children of the near-future about again and again....see, Mummy and Daddy really are the boring fucks you thought they were.Poor little sods, bored to sleep with endless tales of obscenely expensive festival exploits between the ages of 18 and 21,before they got their job in the city.As for the fuckers who are my age and their tiresome renditions of having an uncle who saw Quintessence and Bowie'a mime act back  in '71.....on mushrooms ('Drugs' they giggle!)...who cares? Its preposterous how these bland also-rans boast about paying to see some vaguely famed group play in the past,and seem to think that somehow this makes them 'cool' as if they were actually in these silly fucking groups? Yeah I was in Quintessence because i paid to see 'em.They'd even bring their own flute just in case the groups fluty man collapsed,and they asked the audience if anyone plays the flute,Keith Moon in Boston style.They hold up their hand ,"Me sir please sir!" in their moist pop star wet dream.Not a dry pair of Y-Fronts in the house. Yeah I saw Kajagoogoo play in Barnsley Railway station bogs back in '59.....hold on?...I'm genuinely envious of that one!!

Idles wouldn't have been allowed at any genuinely edgy 'punk' festival...if such a thing ever existed?.....hahaha those guys are sooo crazy,one of them wore a dress! hahahaha!

Prior to this shocking exposure, i had never heard of,or seen even a still of Billie Eilish. This is as dark as those kids are gonna get i thought.She led them in breathing exercises, started a reverse Mexican wave and shared her three commandments of concert-going: "Don't be an asshole, no judgment and have fun bitch!".Scything down 70 years of rock'n'roll history in one swooping scrape of Nero's fiddle like it had all never happened.

I felt a generation gap opening up immediately,mainly because I AM an Asshole,I judge everything and everyone, and i willfully avoid so-called,'Fun'...especially if i'm told to have it! 

I did ,however, join in on the breathing exercises,and the mexican wave in my friendless TV lounge, and consoled myself with a bout of sneering before i went to bed...alone...a choice not an obligation! 

Watching this crud was a very grave error on my part.....but maybe we can evolve from this?....I Doubt it very much.

Music is very fucking DEAD...well, at least very very fucking boring.

Tracklist:

1.Error System (BAGFGAB)
2.Error System (C Pulse Solo Recording)
3.Error System (C Pulse Group Recording)
4.Error System (E Based Group Recording)
5.Error System (EFGA)
6.Ecuador
7.Water Systemised
8.Venezuela 1
9.Guitar Systemised
10.Venezuela 2
11.Bolivia

DOWNLOAD an error message HERE!

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!

La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela - "The Theatre Of Eternal Music ‎– Dream House 78'17" ( Shandar ‎– 83 510) 1974

 You want more don't you?

Here we have the mongolian style drone singing of the La Monte Young husband and wife team,with John Hassell joining in the fun on what sounds uncannily like a Kazoo?But i'm reliably informed that it was a trumpet?.....yeah right? I'm not as stupid as I sound,it's a Kazoo!

So technology existed in 1974 that could cram 80 minutes of drone on two sides of one vinyl 12 incher,which makes it all sound even shitter quality,and is rather crackly;which adds to its charm and not only gets rid of the normals from your personal space, but the audiophiles too. Its a win/win situation.

Again we have instructions on how to play your record....thanks 'La':

"For the maximum fidelity on Side B, reduce the treble controls on your pre-amplifier to minimum. Since the sine waves have no harmonic content, and all are below 202.5 Hertz, this will reduce the surface noise which is normal on most discs. Note: Be sure to keep the treble controls normal on Side A."

I did all that and it still sounds shit,but being a fan of Shit-fi I mind not.

So now you know what you've been doing previously is WRONG!...which is not too much of a pity because the Audiophiles have now left the room.....FOR GOOD!

Now, if you haven't been patronized enough here's an explanation, from 'La' to you:

"Side A. 13 I 73 5:35 - 6:14:03 PM NYC is a sub-section of Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery, begun in 1966 as a section of the even longer work: The Tortoise, His Dreams And Journeys which was begun in 1964 with The Theatre Of Eternal Music. Performed 17 January 1973 at La Monte Young's private studio."

"Side B. Drift Study 14 VII 73 9:27:27 - 10:06:41 PM NYC Three sine waves. Frequencies and voltages of the sine waves determined and tuned by La Monte Young using oscillators custom designed by Rober Adler to generate specific frequencies and voltages of great stability. Performed 14 July 1973 at La Monte Young's private studio."

Art-Club Rule number one....NEVER EXPLAIN YOUR WORK!

Art-Club Rule number two....NEVER EXPLAIN YOUR WORK!!

Tracklist:

A 13 I 73 5:35-6:14:03 PM NYC 39:03
B Drift Study 14 VII 73 9:27:27-10:06:41 PM NYC 39:14

DOWNLOAD some avant garde seasonal crackling HERE!

La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela ‎– "31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta" (Edition X ‎– 1079) 1969

 Another record you wouldn't wanna ask for in a record store due to its unmemorisable title and its wilful obscurity. The heads of a few vinyl grazing punters turn disapprovingly in your general direction, the sales assistant looks almost angry with a sneer of distaste on his lips (yes, they are all male).

He,with a barely consealed ounce of pure unadulterated glee utters a monosylabic"What?",and you have to say it again, coinciding with an audible titter from the chubby nerd in the Jazz Section.

"Ahhhhhh, you mean...."31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta",says the record man,who had obviously been learning all these difficult album titles my heart,for just these occasions. 

"Yes thats it", one says, to be replied with a succinct, "Why didn't you just say "The Black Album?" ,he retorted with a smirk,then added a terse "No....Its Sold out.....in 1969".

I dunno why Music attracts the biggest bunch of twats out of all the art forms,but it does. 

Although Record Shops are nowhere near as bad as Music gear stores,which are full of angry failed pop stars,and they want you to know that they are better at music than you,and they know more about music gear than you,and you're gonna wait until they are ready to scoff and sneer at your requests.

Invariably there will be one of them playing something complex on a keyboard while you stand there watching.

"Be with you in a minute",they would interject.

After the completion of Rick Wakeman's entire "Six Wives Of Henry The Eighth",it's your turn.

"Nah you don't want that, its a piece of shit",they advise.

"I know its a piece of shit that's why I want it"......they wouldn't understand.

Luckily the Internet has done for these fuckers...I may never have to meet a musician again, Hurrah!

So......, I digressed somewhat......as I forgot to include La Monte Young's Missus,Marian Zazeela, in my females in electronics/minimalism section some months ago;Here's her collaboration with  Hubby, La Monte.Resonant Tuvan style vocals from our favourite minimalist spouces,mixed with bowed gongs,electronic drones, and more room emptying harmonics.

Here's a description from the sleeve info to further confuse you all:

Side A: This work was recorded at the date and time indicated in the title, at Galerie Heiner Friedrich, München 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM - is a section of the longer work: Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery. Play this side at 33 1/3 rpm only.

Side B: We recorded this gong duet in our studio in New York City on the date and time indicated in the title. It is a section of a larger work: Studies In The Bowed Disc begun in September 1968. To listen to the live performance, playback at 33 1/3 rpm. However, this side may be played back at any slower constant speed down to 8 1/3 rpm, i.e., 16 2/3 rpm which is available on some turntables.

My record player only has 45 and 33rpm....!...so i can't add the 16RPM version of side B.....sorry.
Those crazy avant garde muso's huh?

Tracklist:

A 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM 23:00
B 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta 20:15

DOWNLOAD the donny and marie of minimalism HERE!

Rhys Chatham & His Guitar Trio All-Stars ‎– "Guitar Trio Is My Life!" (Radium ‎– TOE-CD-813) 2008

 As Branca apparently got his inspiration from C.C.Hennix and other minimalist also-rans,let's find out who he really nicked stuff from;namely  Rhys Chatham.

For New Years Day here's ten rendition's of Chatham's self-defining classic "Guitar Trio", as played on the 30th anniversary tour of the original recording in 2007.

Fusing the one note drones and harmonics of Tony Conrad and, with the minimal one chord rock of Punk,this 'composition'....its called a composition if is its done by a music graduate,....is as if a three second morsel of "Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement" by that long-haired group from Queens, was looped for an indetermined number of minutes.One of the greatest serious Rock'n'Roll compositions of allllll time.

So, of course it should be played over and over again to further strengthen the concept to a level previously unheard. The Complete Funhouse Sessions by the Stooges did my head in to the point that I may never want to listen to "Funhouse" ever again!;but this I never get tired of.....I've even played a version of it it with my groop (Scouts Of Uzbekistan).If you don't wanna go down into the Guitar Trio Basment then you may as well stop breathing!It's as fundamental as that.......but don't forget "BORIS JOHNSON IS A FUCKING CUNT!"

Tracklist:

1-1 Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Brooklyn 19:27
1-2 Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Chicago 23:34
1-3 Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Buffalo 21:15
2-1 Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Toronto 19:20
2-2 Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Montreal 22:24
2-3 Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Cleveland 16:35
2-4 Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Minneapolis (Excerpt) 6:45
3-1 Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Milwaukee 19:04
3-2 Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Chicago 30:23
3-3 Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Brooklyn 16:27

DOWNLOAD from the basement of rock magic HERE!

Catherine Christer Hennix ‎– "The Electric Harpsichord" (Die Schachtel ‎– DSART10) 1976/2010

During my section on females of early Electronics, one carelessly overlooked this drone epic by Catherine Christer Hennix, who was...it says here.....a Swedish-American composer, philosopher, scientist and visual artist associated with drone minimal music.There's no evidence that anyone else but herself gave her the often tenuous title of Philosopher,but there IS evidence of Drone music,and here it is.

You got it.....a Drone done on a....yep...Electric Harpsichord.There is also evidence that Hennix actually moves her fingers on the clavier rather than just holding down a chord for 25 minutes.Not sure how sustained an electric Harpsichord is, but i guess ,not too much, so the notes have to be retriggered or we would have silence instead of another drone.

Name dropping time:La Monte Young's a fan,Henry Flynt is a pal,and Glenn Branca found this influential.

That changes everything and nuthin',but it helps in the marketing,even if their plaudits could have easily been taken out of context like those ridiculous quotes on the back of paperbacks...."Amazing","Sensational","Superb!".

There's little info about this performance on the cover,especially after Young and Branca have used up the space, but i gather it was recorded in 1976? 25 minutes of backbreaking toil....maybe on another day she may get out of bed to do another 25 minutes....life's hard in the art world.

Tracklist:

1. The Electric Harpsichord 25:24

DOWNLOAD electrically HERE!

Tristram Cary - "Soundings: Electroacoustic Works 1955-1996" (Tall Poppies -TP139) 2005

Tristram Cary was among the earliest electro-pioneers.He worked as a radar engineer in World War II and at this time conceived ideas of early electronic and tape music. After the war he developed his first electronic music studio and studied composition, piano, horn, viola and conducting at Trinity College of Music in London. He became well known for his music for several episodes of 'Doctor Who', and for his music for many films,among them the fantastic 'Lady Killers'(the Alec Guiness Version NOT the shite Tom fucking Hanks/american version),which was his big break. 
Cary was also responsible for a number of 'Firsts' in Electronic Music,as co-producer of the first concert of live computer music at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in 1968,he was also a partner in EMS' production of the 'Putney', one of the first generation of synthesizers,and made the music for 'The Children of Lir' (1959), the first major BBC television program with an entirely electronic score.
'Soundings' includes music Cary composed with makeshift WWII surplus in the 1940s, with the first tape recorders in the 1950s, with analog synthesizers in the 1960s and 1970s, and with computer-based systems between 1979 and 1996. It includes Cary's deeply affecting music for the radio version of Ray Bradbury's 'Leviathan 99' (1972) .Also 'Birth is Life is Power is Death is God is ...' (1967), a major concert work which integrates electronic sounds, recorded sounds, and sounds of musical instruments drawn from Cary's soundtrack to a film shown at the British Pavilion at EXPO '67 in Montreal. It includes 'Soft Walls' (1980), an early work for Synclavier; excerpts from 'The Impossible Piano (Homage to CN') (1994), a tribute to Conlon Nancarrow for sequencer and sampled piano. And it includes 'Continuum' (1969); '3 4 5 - A Study in Limited Resources for Stereo Tape' (1967); 'Suite - The Japanese Fishermen' (1955 / 1996); 'Stream Music' (1978); 'Nonet' (1979); 'Soft Walls' (1980); 'Sine City II' (1979 / 1996); 'The Clockpieces' (1983/1996), and 'Trellises' (1984). Also: 'Black, White & Rose', for marimba, gongs, woodblocks and tape (1991) and 'Narcissus', for flute and two tape recorders (1968); with performances by Ryszark Pusz (percussion) and Douglas Whittaker (flute).
Basically Tristram was there from the year zero of musique Concréte,early electronics,all the way through the dawn of the Synthesiser, to Computer music to sampling.He did it all,and fitted in a few works for Doctor Who as well!?

Tracklisting:

DISC ONE: Analogue Works 1955-1978 

Continuum

Suite - Leviathan '99

345 - A Study in Limited Resources for Stereo Tape

Suite - The Children of Lir

Birth is Life is Power is Death is God is ...

Suite - The Japanese Fishermen

Narcissus (Flute: Douglas Whittaker)

Steam Music 

DISC TWO: Music for Computer 1979-1996 

Nonet

Soft Walls

Sine City II

Black, White & Rose (Percussion: Ryszard Pusz)

Three Clockpieces

The Impossible Piano 

DOWNLOAD some sound soundings HERE!

Tristram Cary ‎– "Trios - Live Performance Electronic Music(Trios for synthi VCS3 and turntables)" (Electronic Music Studios Limited) 1971

L-R Robert, Tristram,John, Charlotte and Doris Cary entertaining themselves with some light electronic experimentation of an evening in their suburban abode.

While America were polluting our delicate young minds with atrocious propaganda like The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, The Osmonds, and the acceptable(in the 70's) face of child sexual abuse,The Jackson 5. Britain, had the Cary Family, making Abstract avant-Garde Electronic music for adult kids who didn't know that dancing could be fun, and rhythm can only exist if worked out on a computer. The biggest difference between the Cary's and the Jacksons,apart from, hopefully, the lack of sexual abuse; was the cavernous difference in record sales.....as the Jacksons sold only a few million copies of their works and the Cary's sold even less,something like 250,no not 250 thousand.....two hundred and fifty,give or take the odd warped copy?
Well, us intellectuals (wink wink), know that shagging your kids is wrong, and that dancing makes one look like a fool. Self-consciousness is a lingering symptom of intelligence,so its good to let yourself go every now and again, no-one's gonna be watching you......then you look up after recreating John Travolta's famous strutting dance scene from Saturday Night Fever, and find out that they ARE looking at you.....and quite correctly, Laughing!?
You're on much safer ground with a huge synthesizer,a computer,a locked door and a few turntables.
"TRIOS" was first performed at the Cheltenham Festival......I assume that's the famous Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival? In which case I would love to see some film of hundreds of Drunken Irish race goers encountering this stuff for the first time; a far better audience to encounter than preaching to the converted,chin-stroking massive on the South Bank,or the Rives Gauche. Intellectual Ghetto's are not to be encouraged......so lets form one?
Tristam handled the VCS3, and his sons,John and Robert, did the turntablism.....I'd like to think that Charlotte and Doris got their tuppenny's worth in also?
The VCS3, I imagine was supplied by Tristram's partner in the EMS record label, inventer Peter Zinovieff,who created some of the wildest Synthesizers known to man.
All the tracks are rather short excursions into bleepy knob twisting territory, giving Napalm Death a run for their money in how to fit in as many tracks as possible on a 33rpm 12 incher,.....although there's nothing here to rival Napalm's one second magnum opus, "You Suffer",a classic of any genre may I suggest?

Tracklisting:

Untitled 1-32

DOWNLOAD the tristram cary family band HERE!

Laurie Spiegel ‎– "The Expanding Universe (Expanded)" (Philo ‎– PH9003) 1980/2018

Just as the universe is not only expanding but accelerating, electronic classic from the seventies are expanding too. Like this vastly expanded version of 'The Expanding Universe' by music software innovator and goddess of early electronic music , Laurie Spiegel. No matter how unimaginative the title of this album,plus extras, is;One cannot help but be charmed by its warm electronic splendor. If this was made by some long-haired Kraut in a waistcoat and flares from 1976 we'd all be raving about it as another lost vastly over-rated Krautrock classic;but as its by some spoilt american academic,and,oh no, a lady,it rarely features in those best one hundred electronic albums lists in those trainspotter magazines for middle aged men with existential problems.Personally thinking, this is Tangerine Dream but with cleaner hair.
Composed 1974-76 using a computer playing the actual sounds by controlling analog synthesis equipment using the GROOVE (Generating Realtime Operations On Voltage-controlled Equipment) hybrid system which was developed by Max Matthews and F.R. Moore at Bell labs. Interaction with the computer was through a keyboard, a drawing tablet, pushbuttons and knobs, as well as complex "algorhythms" written in FORTRAN.....it says in the notes...one especially likes the 'pushbuttons and knobs' bit.

Laurie's music is more along the minimalist framework i.e. Terry Riley etc but is always interesting and strangely melodic over dissonance. Interlocking rhythmic passages connect and disperse in the course of her compositions always creating a wandering dynamic. One can compare some fo her compositions to the Berlin School sequencer bland-outs of early K. Schulze,but with less equipment....and,of couse, much cleaner hair.

The Lovely Laurie at the controls.

Tracklist:

1 Patchwork
2 Old Wave
3 Pentachrome
4 A Folk Study
5 Drums
6 Appalachian Grove I
7 Appalachian Grove II
8 Appalachian Grove III
9 The Expanding Universe
10 The Orient Express
11 The Unquestioned Answer
12 Dirge Part I
13 Dirge Part II
14 Music For Dance Part I
15 Music For Dance Part II
16 Clockworks
17 East River Dawn
18 Kepler's Harmony Of The Worlds
19 Wandering In Our Times

DOWNLOAD some illegal spiegel HERE!

Charles Amirkhanian ‎– "Mental Radio: Nine Text-Sound Compositions" (Composers Recordings Inc. -CRI SD 523) 1985

 I knew you couldn't get enough Text Sound Compositions,so here's nine more.
Includes the moment Charles got his hands on a sampler (1982),then did what everybody did,him being a groundbreaking composer,and sampled a Dog's bark.Probably straight after sampling a belch. An act so unimaginative that its almost Avant garde in itself.As he's a qualified composer,with certificates and stuff, musicianly acts that people like us would do in our down time from work...real work that is....would be dismissed as silly popularist rubbish.....but if a qualified Music lecturer and certified composer did it...its avant garde innit?


Tracklist:

Church Car 2:55
Dot Bunch 5:35
Dog Of Stravinsky 3:21
Hypothetical Moments 5:31
Maroa 5:10
The Putts 5:18
Dreams Freud Dreamed 5:31
Andas 6:45
History Of Collage 4:45

DOWNLOAD doooooowwwwwnnnn...HERE.....load dowwwww...n...Here...here..sar...hear Down load HERE!

Charles Amirkhanian ‎– "Lexical Music" (1750 Arch Records ‎– S-1779) 1979

Another regular contributer  to Giorno Poetry Systems was one 
Charles Amirkhanian, a well-versed practionioner in the less than nobkle art of electroacoustic music and text-sound composition.
You know what you're in for. Lots of repeated words,chopped up spoken phrases,echo boxes,and phase drifting. The most minimal form of composition available.You don't even need an instrument except the one that mother nature provided us with,free of charge,that complex,and sadly,much abused device called the Human Voice.
Here, that natural tool is used as a creative tool, rather than singing about how your girlfriend has left you,or how Donald Trump uses his,as a shitting anus.His face being a repulsive orange arse with a shredded wheat sellotaped to the upper end of its cleft.
Even though that Meredith Monk album, "Key", made me want to burn down an Art Gallery,for different reasons however, than a trump supporter would. The monosyllabic faecal matter that spurts from the so-called 'mind' of Trump,via his talking asshole appendage, is the stuff of book burning,and degenerate art exhibitions. However there are a few Donald Trump books I would gladly burn,and the man is himself, thee degenerate's Degenerate.
Lets celebrate stupidity for the sake of some tax cuts,and get this silly old planet tettering on the edge of either nuclear destruction or evironmental disaster.He with the small orange hands is,after all, a truly terrible and incompetent business man.Apart from being a five time bankrupt,the worst possible thing for his precious economy would be Nuclear War or Environmental collapse.Duh!...i smell a more serious,nay deadly, looming shadow of bankruptcy skipping carelessly along the fairway,straying into the rough,and ultimatly hiding in the deepest bunker that stolen money can buy.......(note golfing analogy,so that the orange one and his clones can understand it...the ones that can read that is).
The point,and i'm struggling to see the point in anything(!?),is, that this political environment is the kind of lamely vicious atmosphere that would see works like 'Lexical Music' resigned to the ovens in this dawning dark age of moronic self-service,celebrating the crass and meaningless.The new rennaisance is well and truly OVER!
The hard facts are that if we are all to live to the standard of living that ALL americans live at, we will need 4 , FOUR, extra Earths!!!!...Do I need to repeat that?

So maybe Trump frog marching us to extinction is actually a good thing. VOTE TRUMP 2020...because we deserve him.

NB.. Sorry about that, but i felt, as a practicing Nihilist, that i had to squeeze something 'political' in, after noticing that 'Things Magazine' used that word in their brief description of this blog...and i quote: "Die or D.I.Y?, charting the esoteric, the homemade, the off-beat and the political".....so i return the favour with a link. A bit like the Mutually Assured Destruction policy?
Tracklist:

1.Mugic (1973) 5:27
2.Seatbelt Seatbelt(1973) 14:38
3.Dutiful Ducks(1977) 2:00
4.Muchrooms(1974) 2:00
5.Mahogany Ballpark(1976) 9:40
6.She She And She(1974) 8:40

DOWNLOAD HERE....HERE DOWNLOAD.....DOWN HERE LOAD....HERE LOAD DOWN...HERE!

Meredith Monk ‎– "Key" (Increase Records ‎– INCS - 2008) 1971

Someone's taking the piss here...surely?
'Award winning'....you know you're off to a bad start when that phrase is used!......Meredith Monk ,a regular contributer to the Dial-A-Poem Poets releases on Giorno Poetry Systems. Had her own recording career,capturing her 'Performance Art' madness,yodeling, indian war cry,s,and 'meaningful' vocalisations in an 'Off Broadway' tradition that specializes in half empty medium sized room full of the chin-stroking manhatten art elite. Would they notice if I left the auditorium after five minutes of this ear grating opera of the absurd?....of course they would.As they would every other philestine feigning a need to urinate. Real art lovers hold it in.They regularly strengthen their pelvic floor muscles with a rigorous exercise program specifically to avoid such a taint on their Artzy Fartzy credentials. Real artists DON'T PISS!
Well,we've heard something like this caterwauling before haven't we?...Yoko Ono perhaps? Then back in the 50's we had Bas Sheva in Les Baxter's 'Passions' and Yma Sumac, both of whom Meredith Monk makes sound like Barbara Strisand.
I'd say, if you didn't get up and leave after 5 minutes, or less, of one of Monk's off-broadway operas, then you are a pretentious and deluded masochist.
Its ART you Idiot!.....like religious belief ,maybe sometimes its just better to keep it to yourself?
Maybe i'm just a  stupid Philestine or future Trump supporter, and normally I like room emptying nonsense, but this makes my ears rattle in such an uncomfortable way that it makes me wanna burn down an art gallery. My defence would be that my wilful act of arson was a conceptual artistic statement,and that the ruins should be donated to the people,naturally only after being purchased as an investment by Charles "Wifebeater" Saachi.

Saatchi and wife on a quiet night out...conceptual art or what?

Tracklist:

A1 Porch
A2 Under Street
A3 What Does It Mean?
A4 Vision
A5 Fat Stream
B1 Vision
B2 Do You Be?
B3 Vision
B4 Change
B5 Dungeon

DOWNLOAD something far too clever for you to understand HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "The Nova Convention" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 014-015) 1979

Live recording at an historic "summit",'The Nova Convention',a kind of tribute forward slash benefit, for William.S, including alledged counter culture and avant garde performers in New York City in 1979. Sadly,the music section of this convention,which included Suicide, B-52's, Bobby Fripp isn't available,but.....
Frank Zappa IS the talking asshole, and there's a nice picture of him on the inner cover bathing in the light of William Burroughs' credibility ray. Of course we also have  Patti Smith....good isn't she(?),introduced as 'Great'...well as least she and a bunch of hack journalists thought she was.....waxing lyrical about similar asshole, Jim Morrison,with 'jokes' that fall as flat as her terrible adult orientated rock albums.
John Giorno places himself early in the tracklist once more,and everyone skips the needle forward,bouncing off the Patti Smith track like a skimming stone,to the safer ground of Glass,Cage Billy,and Brion,among others,aka the real thing.


Tracklist:

A1 –Terry Southern - Vingette Of Idealistic Life In South Texas 1:25
A2 –William S. Burroughs - Keynote Commentary & Roosevelt After Inauguration 5:52
A3 –John Giorno - Eating The Sky 13:30
A4 –Patti Smith - Poem For Jim Morrison & Bumblebee 11:45
B1 –William S. Burroughs - Benway 3:40
B2 –Philip Glass - Building, Excerpt From Einstein On The Beach By Robert Wilson & Philip Glass 3:04
B3 –Brion Gysin - Kick That Habit, Junk Is No Good Baby, Somebody Special & Blue Baboon 7:06
B4 –Frank Zappa - The Talking Asshole 5:25
B5 –William S. Burroughs - From The Gay Gun: "This Is Kim Carson" & "Just Like The Collapse Of Any Currency" & "The Whole Tamale" 13:27
C1 –William S. Burroughs - What The Nova Convention Is About 2:35
C2 –Ed Sanders - Hymn To Aphrodite From Sappho 8:50
C3 –John Cage - Writing For The Second Time Through Finnegans Wake 14:15
C4 –Anne Waldman - Plutonium Ode & Skin Meat Bones 6:35
D1 –Laurie Anderson & Julia Heyward - Song From America On The Move 12:50
D2 –Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky - Punk Rock, Old Pond; Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow, & Nurses Song 13:00
D3 –William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Les Levine & Robert Anton Wilson Conversations 7:10

DOWNLOAD at nova express speeds HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Big Ego" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 012-013) 1978

Is it Ironic that an album called 'Big Ego' is opened by Patti Smith?....HeHeee,i'm like a dog with a bone here..... Seven minutes and fifty seconds of literary references,beat talk,and unaccompanied caterwauling.Truly horrible;but at least she didn't have that awful adult orientated rock group backing her up. I still haven't recovered from buying and then playing 'Horses',it just sounded so...er...'old'!? In fact most of those new york bohemian bands struck me in the same way...including The Ramones(Ironic bubblegum Rock?). The striking exception were 'Talking Heads',something genuinely new with no obvious roots, and to a certain extent, 'Television';mainly because they both dressed straight. But,Like The Ramones and Smith, punk they were not.
Cleveland seemed to have far more 'punk' cred to these ears.
At least we've got some early Philip Glass (yeah that's him,the funny looking one on the cover!?) to raise the bar,followed by lots of interesting and confrontational poetry of course;all this and a Robert Ashley track to get the weird level up a tad.
A evening of Poetry anyone? Shut up and listen for a couple of hours surrounded by an audience with applause hair-triggers, who laugh at the slightest hint of anything 'Clever';an action inferring that they are 'clever' too.The same problem occurs when a singer pronounces his lyrics clearly so you can hear the words,which naturally suggests that he,forward slash,she, must be saying something sickeningly meaningful.Its pop music, get over it! I'm sure whoever's reading this don't give several shades of shite what I think about anything,as much as I could not care less what a pop vocalists view is on any political situation or dogma.I still have no idea what Joe Strummer was going on about,but from what I understand, it was some pseudo-lefty hypocrisy with rhymes kinda stuff.Trying their level best to put the 'Y' in Nihilism.
No other such event demonstrates the manifestation of the human 'Hive Mind' than a poetry performance. The best way to experience it is buy,or download,the record of the event,hitting the pause button to get another smoothie from the fridge,or most likely go to bed.
No...its good really....its just that the punk priestess as played by hippie Smith just pissed me off a tad.

Tracklist:

A1 –Patti Smith - The Histories Of The Universe 7:46
A2 –Philip Glass - A Secret Solo 2:17
A3 –John Giorno - Grasping At Emptiness 9:45
A4 –Laurie Anderson - Three Expediences 3:00
A5 –Robert Wilson & Christopher Knowles - A Letter To Queen 8:00
B1 –Meredith Monk - Education Of The Girlchild, 1972: Biography 8:00
B2 –Michael Lally - All Of The Above (Excerpt) 6:17
B3 –Robert Lowell - Ulysses & Circe (Excerpt) 9:40
B4 –Larry Wendt - How To Cook A Duck 4:44
B5 –Jackie Curtis - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 2:27
C1 –Ed Sanders - The Fugs: A Monologue 2:12
C2 –William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch(Excerpt) 2:14
C3 –Harris Schiff - 15 Years Passes / Dollar Bill 1:45
C4 –Otis Brown - Boneless Chicken 1:43
C5 –Joel Oppenheimer - Cities, This City 2:45
C6 –The Fugs - Saran Wrap 1:15
C7 –Claes Oldenburg - June Was / Panodramdra 1:15
C8 –Denise Levertov - Homage To Pavese: Woman Alone 3:33
C9 –Ted Greenwald - Friends 2:08
C10 –Anthony J. Gnazzo - Hisnia & Hernia 4:44
C11 –Steve Tropp & Gloria Tropp - Snow White 1:03
C12 –Jim Brodey - Homeward Bound 1:52
C13 –Robert Ashley - Interiors With Flash 3:07
D1 –Eileen Myles - Tuesday Brightness 0:50
D2 –Helen Adam - Apartment On Twin Peaks 5:42
D3 –Anne Waldman - Light & Shadow 6:10
D4 –Joe Johnson - Fly Ho 0:37
D5 –Lorenzo Thomas - Wonders 1:50
D6 –Ishmael Reed - Sky Diving 2:19
D7 –Kenward Elmslie - The Woolworth Song 2:30
D8 –Mona DaVinci - The Last Supper Of Mona DaVinci (Excerpt) 2:50
D9 –Bernard Heidsieck - Canal Street No. 19 2:25
D10 –Steve Hamilton - Promise 3:25
D11 –Frank O'Hara - Poem / Poem 1:45
D12 –Ron Padgett No Title 1:28

DOWNLOAD a infinitely compressed mass of ego's HERE!

Laurie Anderson / John Giorno / William S. Burroughs ‎– "You're The Guy I Want To Share My Money With" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 020-021) 1981

Ahaaa, 'Poets'.don't cha just love 'em?
I sense a ruthless vitriolic attack coming on...but,wait....No,I say. That would be too obvious.That's just what you expect me to do,because I'm clearly a bitter and frustrated failed Poet myself.
Not true children, Not true....I like these poets, and most of the poets,slash,writers who exist within the Giorno Poetry Systems stable.There ain't nothing poncy about this bunch of  vicious malcontents, who use their words like razor blades sectioning major arteries as if they were chilli peppers,scraping out the seeds and throwing away the husks for the dogs to fight over.
Laurie Anderson is ,obviously, 'the nice one' of this particular trio,teetering on the cliff edge of fame and impending chart success.
Whereas the imfamous William Burroughs,had different kind of fame,being the censorship baiting voice of the post hippy generation.Laden with the job of describing the real world as we chose not to see it.
John Giorno was a kind of proto-ranter,whose no-holds barred descriptions of the seedier underbelly of modern existence are delivered with an unappealing nasally whine through a delay echo to increase the uncomfortable nature of his poems,slash, rants to the point of sticking ones fingers in ones ears.Almost as if one didn't wanna hear what Giorno was saying during these relentless verbal barrages.I have to say, Giorno's poems are much better heard when someone else reads them out,just like I thought Bob Dylans songs were better when someone else did them.I now know both of these preferences to be very wrong.
I love the cover art of all these Giorno Poetry Systems albums,with their sharply focused glossy magazine style photography and graphics.Its as in your face and intelligent as the acidic words on this shared double album.

Tracklist:

1 –Laurie Anderson - Born, Never Asked 4:31
2 –Laurie Anderson - Closed Circuits 7:27

3 –Laurie Anderson - Dr. Miller 4:22
4 –Laurie Anderson - It Was Up In The Mountains 2:13
5 –Laurie Anderson - For Electronic Dogs 3:08
6 –Laurie Anderson - Structuralist Filmmaking 1:10
7 –Laurie Anderson - Drums 0:34
8 –William S. Burroughs - Introducing John Stanley Hart; He Entered The Bar With The Best Intentions 2:23
9 –William S. Burroughs - Twilight's Last Gleamings 2:51
10 –William S. Burroughs - My Protagonist Kim Carson 4:56
11 –William S. Burroughs - Salt Chunk Mary; Like Mr. Hart, Kim Has A Dark Side To His Character 4:13
12 –William S. Burroughs - Progressive Education 7:13
13 –William S. Burroughs - The Wild Fruits 2:26
14 –William S. Burroughs - The Unworthy Vessel 2:45
15 –William S. Burroughs - The Name Is Clem Snide 2:03
16 –William S. Burroughs - Mr. Hart Couldn't Hear The Word Death 2:54
17 –John Giorno - I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, And You Cheated Me Out Of It 10:40
18 –John Giorno - Completely Attached To Delusion 7:47

DOWNLOAD because You're the guy i wanna share my poetry collection with HERE!