The "R" of The A-to-Zed of Erol Alkan: Ramases & Selket, apparently "a guy who fixed boilers in Blackburn." Who suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy... or maybe came up with a squirrelly promotional gimmick. I mean, had a Philip K. Dickensian vision of iconic reincarnation. He was a Pharaoh reborn!
Witness... the evolution, of Ramases!!
"Mind's Eye" - B-side, by Ramases & Selket (1968)
This is the song on Erol Alkan's BBC list. Very authentic, evocative of ancient Egypt, to wake the Pharoahs. Selket was the missus.
"Crazy One" - A-side, by Ramases & Selket (1968)
The cover of this single, along with the "Crazy" title, and the actual song itself, lines up pretty well. Ahhh, the sixties.
"Screw You" - A-side, as Ram and Sel (1970)
This is so totally bent! I'm really not grokking the Apache beat, and the single-entendre, and... everything.
Here is some musico-biographical info about Ramases. He appears to have been a loon. The debut full-length album was enabled by the people in 10cc.
"And the Whole World" from Space Hymns (1971)
With the expanded palette of an entire LP, Ramases seems to have gotten serious. Like, real serious. Mystical prophecies of the brotherhood of man type stuff. I'm not expert enough to pass judgment between the outrageous novelties and the mind-expanding conceptual-psych-folk-pop... Only you can decide.
"Golden Landing / Long Long Time" from Glass Top Coffins (1975)
With the twin assists of the Royal Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras, the 2nd record seems like the come-down of a broken savant. "Long Long Time" shows the distinct thumbprint of The Beatles, in multiple ways.
As a reminder, the "A to Zed" show with Erol is well worth getting, here at Archive.org. Seriously good.
I've seen Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) a number of times, and twice in New Orleans. Hell, I've seen Mondo Generator in New Orleans...
This time they were playing their self-titled debut album all the way through, plus outtakes from that era and speciality hits. I would have preferred the psychedelic gem Rated R to the more stripped-down garage-psych of the first one, but that's a quibble. Between those two albums (and Kyuss), they kind of staked out what people still think of as "stoner rock."
Also, both of those records have recently been re-released in expanded editions. None of these videos feature the awesome, original, NSFW gatefold design. But let's take a peak anyway.
"Regular John" from Queens of the Stone Age (1998)
This is the first song. It rocks & rumbles with an arid majesty.
"Avon (live)" from 1st Queens show ever, 1997 (?!?!)
I don't typically trust the internet, but if so, a bootleg of the first show ever is sweet!
"If Only Everything" from Kyuss/QOTSA split EP (1997)
Pre-debut version of "If Only" (tv!) from the pre-debut split with pre-QOTSA stoner legends Kyuss. Kyuss shared significant membership with Queens, and I believe Nick O (bass) is touring with them again. The community is split about the best Kyuss record, but I've only ever heard Blues for the Red Sun[*] (1992), dating back to Indiana buddies. The other contenders are Welcome to Sky Valley[*] (1994) and ... And the Circus Leaves Town[*] (1995).
[*] Links to actual old Kyuss videos... Also, Kyuss Lives! (Bjork / Garcia / Oliveri) is coming to Houston - Thurs, Sept. 29, at Warehouse Live.
"Walking on the Sidewalks" from Queens of the Stone Age (1998)
The sidewalks of Porto Alegra, Brasil! Awesome tuneage, dude.
Various technologies have made it possible for both committed and involuntary amateurs to build up formidable bodies of work - much of it downloadable, all for free!! But I firmly believe that everyone needs a little amateurism in their musical lives.
Glasslung is one of many solo electro-ambient projects using the internet as their private digital distribution system - for free. Go to his blog for the whole discography to download.
I had started to post about this over a year ago, having found it on some Elder Scrolls forum. Then I kind of forgot about it, but he's just continued turning out the albums and EP's. I grabbed the most recent one, Great White Walls (March 2011), and it's better than I remembered! He calls it "ambient neoclassical droneshit," and it's kind of a midpoint between Leyland Kirby's synth tunes and his more environmental stuff as The Caretaker. I'd call it "cavernous sorrows in the spectral train station." Or something...
You can also listen to some tracks over at SoundCloud or on MySpace. Same dude previously did work as Fotled, with several releases here.
Hunting&Gathering is from Romania - with several free releases to stream or download at BandCamp, with liner notes! These drones are more acoustic guitar-based, with some ambient noises. Pretty cool stuff from everything I've checked out so far. Might as well start with the original demo, Journey to Balmora (2010). Although I discovered the artist at a different, non-Elder Scrolls forum, this one was inspired by probably my single favorite video-game ever.
...enjoy these songs, which are all about or inspired by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a video game I furiously loved. This first demo is all about the first portion of the game, where you arrive in the small port town of Seyda Neen and proceed to explore its surroundings, the most notable of which are Seyda Neen itself and its lighthouse, the Samarys Ancestral Tomb (a nice little crypt...
Hilarious!!
And here's the one that prompted reviving the old "Some Free Ambients" draft. Recently posting a comment here, Mabatapes wants you to know about PLAENS. So why not?
Check out their SoundCloud page with about 5 long tracks of drifting synth space-drone, available for your downloading pleasure. Or to stream. If I had to pick a favorite title, it would be "Endlessly Drifting Remnants of Transmissions from an Extraterrestrial Headdress Ceremony," but the best music so far is probably this:
Most of the tracks sound fairly similar to me... good for background music while reading a sci-fi paperback or something. They have one album-length track up on BandCamp. Name your price, o' course.
(There is no known connection to Bethesda's series of open-world fantasy RPG's, which continues in November!!)
One more, real quickly. Alan Morse Davies is Welsh. This was in the earlier draft, but I don't remember too many details... I love the title It Is Glorious to Make Electricity for Socialism (2010) - downloadable and streaming at The Internet Archive. Lots of other, ongoing stuff stuff available listed here.
Discovered via Disquiet - great resource! Keep up at his blog (which I forgot to do). A little more info At Sea...
I really loved Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars, naming it my top non-Top 10 metal album of 2009. At first, I wasn't so sure about the What Once Was... Liber I EP, but eventually pegged it at #16 overall of 2010 (which is good).
"Epitome II" from 777 Sect(s) (2011)
And now, BAN are apparently starting another trilogy of records, named 777, to go along with the What Once Was... series. Some of the sections again seem harsher and rawer, but the 2nd part (they're all named "Epitome") is more atmostpheric - and awesome.
"Epitome IV" from 777 Sect(s) (2011)
Sounds good! The production straddles that fine line between clarity and insanity.
I heard Archive Volume One's 30-minute title track, "Journey to the Starglow Restaurant," on internet radio station Krautrock-World. And that's how I found out about these two releases... Since I don't have it yet (and haven't figured out the new video program), here's some Space Debris vids I haven't featured already.
Several free promo mp3's, including those two tracks, are available from this page at the Debris website. Might have to order Three with the new ones - it's their only album with the original line-up that I don't have.
Archive Volume Two is live, and seems to be split about evenly between the Mk 1 and Mk 2 line-ups. As are the following videos...
"Mountain (live)" from Into the Sun (2007)
"Solarization (live)" from Live Ghosts (2010)
I have a good feeling about these new collections!
I remember hearing about Voivod from my brother back in the '80s, and they were soooo extreme. It seems that they've changed styles during the intervening 25 years. Apparently this is the last album with founding band leader before his death. Check out Lovelock's Maybe Tonight, 1/2 of which is downloadable "Re-Edits." Do it!
Then there's the recent one by Time & Space Machine (half of Beyond the Wizards Sleeve), remixing Tame Impala. Then the original.
This one makes a little more sense. TTASM does the folky psych-pop thing, and it looks like Tame Impala does too. I believe I prefer the mega-remix, but still intend to check out that Tame Impala album.
We met a few of the guys in The Cult of Dom Keller at Austin Psych Fest, and also caught their set. They were some alright dudes, and the show was extremely cool. They were one of only 2 (I believe) UK acts at the festival. Personally invited by The Black Angels, they leapt at the chance to share a bill with Roky Erickson.
Not even touring, they just came over for the festival and psyched it up good. Kind of like Syd Barrett fronting Spacemen 3 - or a dronier, more British BJTM... on acid!!
"Into the Sky Volcano" from EP1 (2010)
I picked up the two EP's they were selling, cleverly titled EP1 and EP2 - and have been digging them. Since I couldn't find any promo mp3's to check them out beforehand, I'd looked on YouTube. They take their video collection seriously (esp. for YouTube material), so here are a few!
I think I give the slight edge to EP2, but definitely glad I picked up both. They seem like kind of a set, maybe chapters in a series, a full album between them, the yin & yang thing... Dunno.
"Eyes" from EP2 (2011)
"Worlds" from EP2 (2011)
And I want the collection of non-EP's stuff, because most of it's just as cool...
"Armageddon Monk Chant" (live 2010)
"We left this world behind for a home in the sun"
"...and stars will fall..." (unreleased demo)
So feel free to explore, check them out, read this interview I literally just found, track down their albums and stuff. Y'know, like music?
