FFFUUUU

Madlib is back up for those who didn't get it the first time around. Please tell us of dead links.


This post will be replaced by a visual novel. (Ever17)


Ciao~\

Change of plans. Can no longer upload shit now. I did get to upload that brit pop band though.


And oh, I might as well do this.Imma talk about dem blogs on the right! (God, this post looks ugly.)

big city nostalghia- Thought I should at least have one tape blogspot where they get goooood shit. Format for them are also decent.
Actually you know what, y'all need more tape related blogspots.
http://vitaignescorpuslignum.blogspot.com/
http://bigwasteofplastic.blogspot.com/
http://ahogonsindustrialguide.blogspot.com/

animationmusicvolume - new blog. good shit. good people with good taste who actually do good reviews. unlike us Check it.

lurker - hail the metal gods.  news and insightful editorials about the metal scene today. they know their shit and plus they get fucking interviews on bands. FUCKING INTERVIEWS WITH THEM. nothing special? umad

KILLED in CARS - the deities of the obscure. they know their shit and with nearly every post they make I find a new band. that's how fucking amazing they are.

Flying Teapot - sieg the Croatian animu harem lead. besides the wide ranging music that is posted, he also posts manga shit that I'm sure most will get a kick out of it. also, check out his other blogs too.  (Terror Noise Audio and Opium Fields)

atmosfearic music, atmosfearic pictures - new blog discovered not too long ago. going quiet but the pictures and music posted are quite ace. hopefully it gets back up.

The Poet You Never Were - thought y'all needed some emo/hardcore/etc blog. it's been going since Feb 07, so you know it's good.

Buddha Khan - even more good shit in the vein of poet you never were, but with a bit more emphasis on other genres.

Japshare - the place to go for most of your Japanese music needs. nuff said

Edit: "Also, post this blogs, too:

http://killerplacebo.com/mu/

http://500metalunderground.blogspot.com/

http://stonerobixxx.blogspot.com/

http://idreverberations.blogspot.com"

A certain jazz musician is up again.

Anthony Braxton & Walter Franks - 4 Improvisations (Duets) 2004

"Saxophonist Anthony Braxton joins pianist Walter Frank on the latter's recording debut (note: the album cover misspells his last name, adding an "s" to the end). Frank, an Argentinian composer/improviser, has a graduate degree from Wesleyan and chops to burn. His work has focused on post-minimal music, including premieres of works by composer William Duckworth. His tonally centered and ostinato-heavy style is an interesting new foil for Braxton. Happily, the pairing is an effective one on 4 Improvisations.

While each disc is split into two tracks, each including a twenty-plus minute long selection, there is an expansive quality to the music-making, as well as a concomitant multiplicity of styles, that makes each "improvisation" sound like a fantasy with several discrete sections. "Improvisation 1" is a particularly wide-ranging journey: its opening pits Braxton's bluesy tenor saxophone utterances against Frank's thick block chords. The pianist then moves into a limpid, contrapuntal style, frequently creating shimmering arpeggiations and impressionistic harmonies. This in turn elicits a lyrical dolce sensibility from Braxton, who renders melodies as hushed, impassioned whispers. While this delicate interplay is eventually succeeded by a series of more vigorous interchanges, it is the album's most stunning passage, and one that will linger in your mind.

That said, Frank also holds his own in the more muscular interchanges. He accumulates a beehive of swirling minimal ostinati, to which Braxton responds with lightning fast trills. When Braxton has had enough of the limitations of the post-minimal harmonic field, he breaks out in a roaring, almost raucous burst of angularity, inspiring Frank to crescendo into more cluster-based harmonies and engage in a dissonant cadenza of melodic jabs and body blows. The two end the work playing in disparate styles: Braxton relies on avant-jazz altissimo shrieks, while Frank lays down layers of modal harmony. They somehow remain on the same page, creating a deliciously unusual hybrid music.

On "Improvisation 2", Frank plays in a drier, more staccato style. Braxton rips through some scintillating licks, creating intricate polyrhythms against Frank's repeated bass register interjections. Both are in avant high octane mode on "Improvisation 3"; Braxton's playing is fluid -- darting nimbly, bending pitches, breathlessly spinning out endless passages of dizzying melody. Frank plays machine gun-tempo repeated notes in reply, eventually graduating into acrobatic passages that exploit the piano's entire compass.

"Improvisation 4" is a lively dance, often operating in 6/8 time. Energetic streams of piano notes move in perpetual motion. Braxton's tenor sax navigates wide-ranging solo terrain, by turns sleek and ruminative. Romantic hued harmonies are pitted against post-bop runs, combining in a music that is both
ear-catching and exploratory. Braxton and Frank are terrific sparring partners; hopefully they'll team up again in the near future."

Bleecccch

Morton Feldman - The Late Piano Works Vol.2 For Bunita Marcus

"Following Steffen Schleiermacher's well-received recording of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories in September, comes this, another brave leap from the pianist into the aether of time, silence, and memory unique to that composer's music, particularly his late works. (For Bunita Marcus was written in 1985, two years before the composer's death).

The recordings constitute parts one and two of a series on Feldman's late works for piano that is being released on the MDG label. As with the first release, the sound here is excellent; non-invasive, resonant, and clear. The swimming timbres and revolving density of the work are conveyed with sympathy by the engineers.

Schleiermacher himself once again excels- sheer force of concentration and sensitivity to poetic affect, rather than traditional technical excellence, are required in this music, and the pianist is clearly well attuned to the singularity of the aesthetic. Listening to this performance, and indeed to any capable dialogue with Feldman's late work, one suddenly feels the overdetermination on the one hand, and the embarrassing futility of event on the other, of most composers' work. Form and theme, in the traditional sense, are external to Feldman. Not for him the arrogant dialectical workings of theme and counter-theme, of tension and release, neither does he pursue a domination of sound. His goal is to nurture a humble attention to the multimodality of common tones, of tiny cells which he ever so gracefully manipulates in profile, weighting, and register, to haunt the common stratification of musical time and normal time, and achieve a ghostly flickering all of his own. Humility, openness to nothingness and to music's unacknowledged natural state, silence, float through his singular orbit. Haunting, the hauntological, the ghost of human-made music, traces through this sound. The two alter each other, and alter the listener too.

For Bunita Marcus, at only 71 minutes in length (in this recording), falls far short of the extremes established in some of Feldman's other works. But its starkness, its acute reduction to the barest of material (basically a three-note set changing endlessly through modulations of register, rhythm and intensity), places it towards the more concentrated and denuded end of his late repertoire. Yet the denudation leads to great richness in the scale of events within the piece. Speaking through the stasis of flickering tones, certain events take on an enormous standing (despite their apparent smallness in sound or detail), a sort of drastic turning of the poetic screw, such that the listener reaches a plateau-state of awe, of bliss, at a higher remove from convention. The spiked staccato at minute nine, the sudden insistence and registral displacement between minutes eleven and sixteen, the introduction of resonating chordal sonorities in minute twenty, the feeling of tonal and dynamic cadence in the deep low tones of minutes forty-one and fifty, the almost impossible withdrawal into greater abstraction and temporal contraction from minute sixty, these are all features amongst many of this spectral, magical music.

The perpetual, as suggested by the pianist in his very interesting sleeve notes, is the time-state to which this music aspires. Schleiermacher achieves this effect through his graceful, tensile playing that lies right at the edge of definition throughout. It something of a jolt when the music finally stops (though even that event is mediated by ambiguity), and you find yourself faced yet again with the normal ticking of clocks, and all the associations brought thereof."

Divine

You must be somewhere in London

CAN"T STOP THE TECHNIQUE (Oh God, I hope this doesn't turn out like wordpress. Click on Annie May chica)

Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People

Alright, so I might be able to post stuff, but I really have to dig the mine i.e. posting old stuff I've gotten before August. So I might or might not post stuff. And as usual props to Dope for posting something.

"All Delighted People is built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad "All Delighted People," a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s "Sounds of Silence." Sounds delightful, yes! The song was originally workshopped on Sufjan’s previous tour in the fall of 2009. Other songs on the EP include the 17-minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers "Djohariah," and the gothic piano ballad "The Owl and the Tanager," a live-show mainstay (and Debbie Downer if you ask us; what’s it doing on a "Delighted" EP?)."

Raise Your Hands!

Dopesmoker by Sleep

One of the essential Stoner/Doom Metal albums and Sleep's swan song. The riffs have got to be one of the sludgiest, heaviest, and impenetrable in the Stoner/Doom Metal fusion genre. Al Cisernos delivers this drawn-out Gregorian chant-style delivery. It sounds he's doing his best to emulate the heaviness of the guitar's timbre (Listen to it and you'll see what I mean). The pace is incredibly slow (think of the speed that would rival Earth). However, it's most impressive trait is that the entire album (sans the bonus track Sonic Titan) is over a hour long. Must be great to be high while listening to this album. Once you get past the longevity and slow pace of this album, you'll see the greatness that Dopesmoker has to offer.

and yes, I got my username from this album

Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie

"Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust -- familiar in structure, but alien in performance -- is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion."

Ryko Edition

Études d'exécution transcendante (Boris Berezovsky Edition) by Franz Liszt

No review, just get it

An Ideal for Living by Joy Division

The Missing Link between Punk and Post-Punk.

Wrong by Nomeansno

"WWWHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOAOOOAOOAOAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! This is the one, baby, this is the first one where all the things that set them apart came together and clicked: it’s got stunning musicianship (I bet this is one hell of a listen for any advanced bass player/guiter player/drummer), furious punk and ridiculously complex jazz-punk, just like on the previous releases, but this time they succeeded in creating an album that’s entirely captivating, which makes this their first album that is both challenging and digestible at the same time (unless you never got further than your average three-chord punk). “It’s Catching Up,” for instance, with the bass and the drums synchronically opening the album with bludgeoning power, unites manic intensity with obsessive precision (making NMN one of the tightest punk outfits ever), in the process putting forward images as dark as those in “The Day Everything Became Nothing.” The album opener is only the beginning though, as the album’s split between generally short and fast punk blasts (about half of the album, thus becoming the most punk-oriented of their output yet) and longer (but no 7 minutes-epics this time) and seemingly more complex songs that incorporate elements from hard rock, prog, funk, jazz and God knows what else.

God must get a kick out of hearing ‘Brainless Wonder” though: with the lyrics (nothing more than “I need lunch feed me now, I need lunch when’s my break?”) coming near the end of the song, I usually refer to this one as an instrumental, but it’s not your average one, as it’s almost impossible to keep up with, although it has several original sections that show more creativity and focus than many prog outfits can put in an entire concept album. It’s followed by the equally relentless and pumping “Tired of Waiting” that shows the band to be the second act ever (in my humble opinion) to combine punk and jazz successfully (the first is, of course, The Minutemen). The nonsensical “Two Lips, Two Lungs and One Tongue” even ups the ante and has some terrific verse/chorus-contrasts, a drummer going completely berserk without losing his control, and a break that would be turned into a great advantage on the following live album. “Oh No Bruno!” finally shows they could also limit themselves to minimal punk employing fewer chords and complexity, and pull it off.

“The Tower,” like “Real Love” and “Victory” on the previous album, is basically a mid-tempo rocker with fairly simple riffs, but the bass is much more prominent here, forming a heavy foundation for the slashing guitar parts of Andy Kerr. “Stocktaking” starts off with the repetition of weird guitar accents and an intro that goes on for more than one and a half minute, but once it’s on its way, it becomes another prime example of Nomeansno’s near avant-garde approach to punk/funk. Apocalyptic images are once again revived for “The End of All Things” which is probably one of the most peculiar songs on this album, primarily because of the most remarkable contrast between the supercharged musical attack and the drawled vocals, with even backing vocals during the chorus. One of the best songs on the albums and, by consequence, an undisputed classic in the band’s catalogue, is “Rags and Bones,” on which bass and guitar basically repeat the same melody over and over again, but somehow turn the song into some sort of mini-rock opera with an intensity that doesn’t diminish until it’s finished. The album closer, “All Lies,” has a catchy chorus that somehow sounds familiar, but the sections in between are as challenging as the rest of the album (just listen to those thundering drums!!).

And then there was only one song left: “Big Dick.” Now, what this exactly is, I have no idea, but I usually refer to it as one of the hardest funk songs any punk band ever recorded. With only bass, drums and semi-rapped vocals, “Big Dick” is one of the funkiest ever, with an awesome performance by Rob Wright on bass. Already cool in itself, my amazement actually even grew when I saw these guys perform the song live and almost blew me away with an almost otherworldy groove that made my butt cheeks explore polyrhythmic exercises. Likewise, this album blows me away time and again. It’s one of those rare albums that finds an utterly original band at their creative peak, with overall impressive songs, a production sound that stresses their qualities, a perfect song order that grabs your attention for forty minutes and, most importantly, it’s a GIANT kick in the butt. To this day I have heard very few loud albums (one by The Dead Kenndedys, one by Black Flag, and uh …) that give me a kick like this one does. It’s not only one of the best “(hardcore) punk” albums I ever heard, no, like many other favorite bands/albums it’s just too good to be labelled as “only punk.” It’s rock ‘n’ roll as good as it gets."

TIRED OF WAITING

Nomadic Pursuits by Yawning Man

"With new releases by both Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson (both delivered via Cobraside Distribution), 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for fans of true desert rock. As in, rock, from the desert. It doesn’t get much more so than the sweetly toned Yawning Man, whose latest album is the quizzically-titled Nomadic Pursuits. In what’s being billed as a “reunion lineup” boasting guitarist Gary Arce, bassist Mario Lalli (also guitar/vocals in Fatso Jetson) and drummer Alfredo Hernandez, the instrumental trio offer a glimpse into generator-party bliss, ringing out reverb into the open air as many bands try to do and almost nobody pulls off this well.

True, it’s been five years since Yawning Man put out the Rock Formations full-length and the Pot Head EP, which were compiled on vinyl in 2008’s Vista Point, but I for one am of the opinion that if Yawning Man happened every day it would lose some of the magic. Yeah, it would be cool to get a fresh batch of jams each year – I know I wouldn’t get tired of hearing Arce’s guitar tone, which if you want to get right down to it is more or less what launched the now-legendary Palm Desert scene those many years ago – but there’s something special about a release like Nomadic Pursuits. It doesn’t happen often, it serves a very specific purpose, and it feels special when you listen. Not every album does that.

And it’s not like we’ve been Arce-less. There was the killer Yawning Sons record last year in collaboration with the UK’s Sons of Alpha Centauri, and there was Dark Tooth Encounter and Arce’s contributions to Ten East and others that have at least somewhat filled a Yawning void. Nonetheless, once you hear the lively interaction between Arce, Lalli and Hernandez on “Far-off Adventure,” you’ll be forced to agree there’s nothing quite like the real deal. At 8:28, that’s the longest cut on Nomadic Pursuits, but not necessarily the most satisfying. The opener, “Camel Tow,” is warm enough to make me long for air conditioning, and as the jam is later revived and mutated on “Camel Tow Too,” it becomes something of a running theme throughout the album. A focal point, almost, but the music carries such a spontaneity and natural feel that to call something that feels like I’m saying it’s contrived, which would be grossly inaccurate.

It’s always fun to find an appropriate situation in which to listen to a record, where the senses fuse to create a full experience rather than just a hearing, and in that sense, I’ve found Nomadic Pursuits is almost certainly a nighttime album. On the closer, “Laser Arte,” Lalli comes to the fore of the mix and gives a somber rumble to complement Arce’s background leads, ending the record on a mellow but still emotionally weighted note. In contrast to the earlier cut “Sand Whip,” “Laser Arte” is slower and more arresting, but by the time you get there, the flow of Nomadic Pursuits has so much engulfed you that it could go anywhere and you’d be willing to follow. Hernandez turns in inventive tom work and a creative performance throughout, but his playing on “Sand Whip” is especially noteworthy, as he seamlessly drives an already rhythm-centered song in an active manner that’s not at all overplayed.

Make sure to pay attention as well to the gentle guitar layering that takes place in the hypnotic “Blue Foam,” which if you’re not careful will drift past without you realizing how gorgeous it actually is. Some of this material is a few years old, but Arce, Lalli and Hernandez play through it all as though it was freshly written in the studio. The songs are patient, yes, and openly structured (I’m pretty sure the tape just runs out on “Blue Foam”), but there’s an element of excitement to them as well. Lalli’s bass runs on “Ground Swell” give the song a punch it would otherwise be very much missing, and Hernandez’s constant hi-hat adds an urgency that, while somewhat frantic next to parts of Nomadic Pursuits, isn’t necessarily out of place within the context of the song itself.

Yawning Man have always been an “in the know” band for the heavy rock underground, far more influential than commercially successful, but the quality of a work like Nomadic Pursuits speaks for itself (no mean feat for an album without vocals). Arce is in top form guitar-wise, and the chemistry he has with Lalli and Hernandez makes these seven jams a joy to hear in whatever situation you feel they’re best heard. Its release was something of a surprise, but I’m glad to say that Nomadic Pursuits joins top notch albums like Brant Bjork’s Gods and Goddesses and Fatso Jetson’s Archaic Volumes on the short list of 2010 highlights. It’s the soundtrack to your summer swelter, and is not to be missed."

2010 album of the year material? Maybe...