Hypnotic Underworld - Ghost (#6, 2004)

I forget what's coming up on the Top 10, but 2004 must have been banner year for me to put Hypnotic Underworld at #6. (All rankings are always approximate and fluid from week to week - in my mind!) This is a phenomenal album, very musical - and I need to get more Ghost. Wish I'd heard they played in Texas last year, because I would've been there!


Ghost includes guitar samurai Michio Kurihara, who featured on Boris' Rainbow (#6, 2007), which is how I learned about them. But Masaki Batoh is the main guy. He seems mysterious, maybe a little reclusive, serious, maybe a little mystical. Guess what... they're Japanese!

The first four tracks make up the title suite. And the first part is the most floating and spacious on the album, "God Took a Picture of His Illness on the Ground" [edit]. The record is split between some open jams and some regular song, but if you're new to this psychedelic jazzy instrumental rock exploration, "Hypnotic Underworld, Part 2" might be the place to start out...



"Escaped and Lost Down in Medina" from Hypnotic Underworld (2010)

Parts 3 and 4 are differenter still, with the intensity rising and track lengths shortening quickly. "Aramaic Barbarous Dawn" [live] separates heavy and triumphant, whereas "Leave the World!" blisters for 20 seconds. But maybe an increasingly wound-up and rocking 4-part suite isn't your thing. Hypnotic Underworld offers a huge variety of flavors, while somehow all sounding like the same group.



"Hazy Paradise" from Hypnotic Underworld (2010)

This is a cover of the B-side to this 1970 Dutch-prog single. The sound on this one exceeds the song itself. Everything seems really low, but very clear. The guitar, the reverbed drums, I think there's organ, synth and maybe harpsichord. Or maybe that's the bouzouki. This is the kind of soaring, shredding psych lead guitar that Kurihara is known for.


Or maybe you prefer the Japanese Serge Gainsbourg. "Kiseichukan Nite" features a drifting ambient background, with an Eastern whistle, hand-drums, water drops in the Zen garden. All setting the stage for a Japanese spoken-word vocal, with audible page-turning. "Melodie?" I'd like to see Ghost cover that!

Uh oh, no video for "Piper." Let's see if I make one before posting. The whistle continues for the intro and slower, folky parts of this one. In English: "once I was piper..." The rock breakdown transition really reminds me of something specific, '60s beat band or '70s hard rock or the like. I cannot remember what song it is, though. Another mind-bending solo from Kurihara. He's not always there - but when he steps up, he really unleashes it. (Fine, I made a video - now someone tell me what rock song I'm thinking of!)



"Ganagmanag" from Hypnotic Underworld (2010)

This is probably my favorite tune on the album. Although the structured songs probably take it up to greatness, I really dig even more their loose 'n' jazzy vibe. They are truly the yin and yang of Ghost. Again the quiet balance of the moving parts into something both minimal and almost orchestral is quite a work of art. And followed by a few more of the songs. "Feed" takes its time, but builds up gradually with twining guitar and piano crescendos. "Holy High" mixes a fast Celtic jig with synth cycles, and mostly keeps moving at a breakneck pace.



"Dominoes / Celebration for the Gray Days"

The first part is a Syd Barrett song. Here's an excerpt from a Batoh article where he discusses the covers. I actually prefer the latter's creepy organ drone and ethereal vocals - like most everything else, it's pretty different than everything else. And it ends like a war.

Just a couple more notes. Ghost live in Austin 2009. And self-titled debut album (1990) in five parts: part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5.

Genre - Jazz-Prog Psychedelia
Official/Myspace - myspace.com/ghostjapanpsych
All Music Guide - Ghost
Location - Toyko, Japan

Review - Dusted Magazine
Download - Drag City, iTunes
Purchase - Drag City Records

Here Comes Pong to Houston!!

Part two of the first part on Pong's publicity push for new album Escobarb (2010). I've wanted to do a full track-by-track video interpretation of an entire record for awhile, and I see no better opportunity than this. So, full album as YouTube playlist, and below are the last 4 songs.

Pong will bring their travelling roadshow down to Super Happy Fun Land on their way to Louisiana, this Friday night! With New Orleans' One Man Machine & The Powers That Be and Lake Jacksonites Fiskadoro opening up. Get there early, for all three bands.



"Applesauce" from Escobarb (2010)

This mini-track has been up on Myspace for ages, and breaks up the album up into about halves. When this was all I'd heard of new material, it kind of threw me off. Like Pong was going in some wild new direction that did not involve electro-space boogie-psych. Which obviously ended up not being a major concern...



"Umbrella" from Escobarb (2010)

This song didn't really flow naturally for me at first. I think making the video helped me piece it together in my mind. Like the various parts, but still seems a little collaged together. Live gigs are the crucible for making such things succeed...



"Sunshine" from Escobarb (2010)

I was hesitant to just let the gravure modelling film roll, but it turned into an undeniable Wizard of Oz-Dark Side of the Moon phenomenon. So there it is... In the last post, I mentioned getting a tape of the previous Houston show. I had to put names to unreleased songs, and I named this one "Overstimulated." Even much more interesting (nice segue) are the names given by someone else on a 2005 Lawrence, KS tape. "Superwrong" was labeled Is this thing stuck on On?/intense sounds. There's also a song I'm positive I'd never heard, so-called Get A Little Bit/Then One Day... What ever happened to that?



"Escobarb" from Escobarb (2010)

And the title epic of experimental wide-screen funk and wha?! I wasn't fully prepared, but now think it's a fantastic ending. Maybe the finest Pong tune not primarily driven by live performance concerns. The melodica, the choogling, the guitar and sound effects, the sung/spoken/chanted/rapt storysong worthy of a Marty Robbins from Saturn! "The baseball guys..." Super-awesome.

21st c. Krautwerks

I've put a couple of Cloudland Canyon videos up, usually to illustrate what's happening now in Krautrock. I figured it was time for their own post, because Lie in Light (2008) is a really cool album. Plus of the main duo, half is actually German! And the other from Brooklyn... which is not so unusual in a modern band really.


"Krautwerk" from Lie in Light (2008)

Fantastic song. If that doesn't hook you, then theses aren't the droids you're looking for. But anyway, I always include that song so there needs to be more. How about the whole album?

Lie In Light - Cloudland Canyo...

Regardless, I still made some more videos, because I couldn't believe there were only a couple out there from the record. Just some highlights...



"White Woman" from Lie in Light (2008)

Second song lays out a bed of electronic drone, with a little Velvet John Cale string scrapings, while a hip chant to the lady of the spheres detaches completely. Then "You & I" changes again, with hypnotic pulsations and a leisurely motorik rhythm.



"Heme" from Lie in Light (2008)

After a pure synth space-drone, "Heme" brings another floating, burbling drone intro - which settles into a nice melody. A heavy-lidded beat, wah guitar, and German vocals complete the blissed-out but mellow picture. It's like riding a magic carpet in slow motion on some exotic hookah-delivered substance.



"Lie in Light" from Lie in Light (2008)

Cloudland produce one more massive droning soundscape for the title track, before "Mothlight Part 1" again switches gears. Reverbed guitar, distorted vocals, it's almost like a Woods ballad.



"Krautwerk" [live] - May 9, 2008 - Chicago, IL

With the late, great Jerry Fuchs on drums - whose live drumwork in Maserati was posted earlier in the ongoing Krautstorm.


And here's a single, epic track released all on its own - a collaboration with Lichens: "Exterminating Angel" (2007).

Exterminating Angel - Cloudlan...

Snailface II: Fishy Man-Goat

I recently noticed a new-ish comment on the 2009 Next 10 Metalloid list - from Snailface (#18)!


Looks like Snailface II (2010) is upon us. Available at the same site as the debut, and just as free... Just a little run-through and it seems good, a bit more grooviness, with a spoken-word trilogy of interludes and maybe even awesomer song titles.



"Fishy Man-Goat Terrifies Couples Parked at Lake Worth / Mogollon" from Snailface II (2010)

What I'd said about Snailface (2009):

I'd never heard of Kowloon Walled City (the band). But they took up a 6-day album-making challenge, and the results are free! Hilarious, good, dopey (stoner) Doom, recommended for Black Sabbath fans. The riffs are thick and numerous, the playing is right-on, and once again it's a super-bargain.

There's even a promo video, with bison sing-a-long!!




And just for completeness' sake, here's the video that I had made for "Botanomancer (Sap Cave of the Magi)" from I - still available at the same site as before.

Creature With The Atom Brain

Not the song, not the movie, but the band. I was reading the newest Mojo magazine (Peter Gabriel cover) - remember the post on their great compilations? This month's cd is dream POP, with Cluster and Eno, Cocteau Twins, Panda Bear (#10, 2007), Mercury Rev (Top 10 in 1993 and 1995), etc...


Here's their three-star (*** of 5) review of Transylvania (2010):

You can't move for bands claiming a Queens of the Stone Age connection, and for Creature With The Atom Brain it comes in the form of both a B-movie sounding name (a 13th Floor Elevators reference), an appearance by Mark Lanegan, a shared producer in former Kyuss man Chris Goss and former members of Josh Homme-affiliates Millionaire and Evil Superstars. And like many a band in the Queens circle of friends, you possibly have a rough idea of what they'll sound like: hypnotically languid vocals, mantra-like riffs, and songs that seep out your speakers like hot magma at their own slow, clock-melting speed. It's all been done before, of course, but it's hard not to fall for the pulsating head trip of Transylvania or the disorienting slow-psych burn of opener "I Rise The Moon." Just one question: do they have deserts in Belgium?

The reference is actually to a Roky Erickson song, which is a reference to an actual 1955 B-movie. According to the Wiki, "Struyf cit[es] Erickson's former band The 13th Floor Elevators and the man himself as influencing Creature with the Atom Brain's sound." But here are some videos... or just buy it here.


"I Rise the Moon" from Transylvania (2010)


"Is That Lady Sniff?" is a Butthole Surfers reference.


"Transylvania" is the title track of the album.


"Spinnin' the Black Hole" is the 4th video I found.



"My Flag" from The Snake (2005)


O yeah, they're Belgian.

Free Live Tapes with Maserati

I found a great resource for live music bootlegs, authorized by the artists before the hi-grade recording equipment gets dragged in. Most importantly, part of the offerings was Maserati (#2 Live Show of 2009, #2 Album of 2007)!! Awesome...


That sent me on a search for more available live recordings from them, and I found some.

Portland, OR 10/10/09 [back-up link]
The setlists for these 2009 shows are all pretty similar, and I just found them so I can't suggest one over the other. Get 'em all. This is the only one with "Inventions," which is a great song. The longest one, with the most tunes. (Each track is a separate download: make sure they all complete at ~10-20,000kb file sizes.)

Athens, GA 9/19/09
This is the shortest one, but it's the hometown gig. But not the March show famous for the many videos on YouTube.

Charlottesville, VA 5/27/07 [Fuchs pix]
One .mp3 file, about 36 minutes, ~17,000kb. As you'd imagine, the versions are pretty different. Around the time the last new album was out, so the tracks were much newer and the arrangements looser. Set list: Inventions, Synchronicity IV, 12/16, The World Outside, Show Me The Season. Nice! (Main issues: 1 file, 64kbps bitrate.)



So, now to the resource I mentioned. unARTigNYC is for NYC live videos... NYC Taper is for audio, found via this Rocket Recordings blog post.

These seem to be completely authorized by the bands. Obviously lots of NYC acts - Oneida (5) and Yo La Tengo (6) and Antlers (9), plus some other regulars... Animal Collective (5), Fiery Furnaces (11), etc. They don't keep every single recording available, so you might have to e-mail for them to re-up some of the older ones.

All 2009 bootlegs:
[list] Site's 2009 Top 10 Concerts

Maserati - 9/28/2009
This is the one that started the quest, and the only NYCtaper download I've grabbed yet. Very, very nice sound! Includes only 2009 "The World Outside" that I found, and a really good version of unreleased song "We Got the System to Fight the System." Unfortunately omits set opener "No More Sages."

Dungen - 8/14/2009
Feelies play Crazy Rhythms at Maxwell's - 11/21/2009
Double Nickels Anniversary Show - 7/25/2009
Woods w/ songs - 7/15/2009
Woods w/ jams - 2/6/2009

I might add more descriptions later. But you know what you like best...


2008 bootlegs, pt. 1:
[list] 2008 Top 10 Concerts

Black Mountain - 2/23/2008
Squeeze-heavy Chris Difford - 5/13/2008


2008 bootlegs, pt. 2:
Devo - 6/26/2008
Tom Tom Club - 6/26/2008

Not sure about the rest...


2008 bootlegs, pt. 3:
Butthole Surfers - 12/12/2008
Wilco - 8/13/2008.
Epic show, great-looking double encore!

Stereolab - 10/2/2008


All 2007 & 2006bootlegs:
[list] 2007 Top 5 Concerts

Neil Young - 12/19/2007
Roger Waters doing Dark Side plus... - 5/30/2007
Radiohead - 6/24/2006

With No Human Intervention - Aborym (#7, 2004)

Maybe I just like calling them the best Italo-Hungarian Hard/Black Alien Industrial Metal band, by far! But really, this has the most unique take on the Black Metalloid sound of anything since the originators. You'd think the main draw would be the BM+avant superstar frontman and "Voice of Death" Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Sunn O))), The Beast of..., on and on). Partially, but witness the mix of cyber-thrash, straight electronics, even techno!


"With No Human Intervention" from With No Human Intervention

After the Shakespeare-quoting, haunted-radio-tuning seance intro of "Antichristian Codec (Intro)," the title track plunges directly into the raging maelstrom of metal, electro, mystic chants and demonic howls that make up most of this record. Once you grok all of that, the lyrics await [all]. Some of the chanting is Latin: Vivit et non vivit. Black Metalisms glorious as "History bears witness of doctrinal screams!" At half the length, "U.V. Impaler" tackles about 19 times as many different approaches. Chanting now Hungarian. Pounding, shredding, arpeggiating, mellowing, grinding, everything!!


"Humechanics-Virus" from With No Human Intervention (2004)

The riff, with Maxwell's Silver Glitch-Tone! Attila's insane vocals altered further into the depths of sound effect. The musical progression moving towards the end. The middle section with machine noise breakdown, which return to form the basis of "Does Not Compute." Sounds like some kind of printer/lathe cycling through, with additional rhythms gradually layered on. Then it's an all-out "unce-unce-unce" techno beat, which I don't normally like. But I'll tell you why this works better than actual techno: other than the beat and breaks, everything else is working against the rhythm. The machine recording doesn't mesh to it, the synthworks are too floaty to reinforce it.


"Faustian Spirit of the Earth" from With No Human Intervention

Plus another monolith of metal follows, cut from the same cloth as the title track. I'm really digging these lyrics, which I'd never really understood. "Gather your modalistic interchange ability," it begins. Parts of this follow the Absu approach to singing the unsingable - just a few syllables at a time, ignore syntax. "Digital Coat Masque" is another good one. I really like the gothic synth and vocal delay with disco hi-hat sections... the harpsichordian classical-gas not as much. "The Triumph" is 10 minutes long and features some quieter keyboard moments and the female orgasm.



"Black Hole Spell" splits between gloomy synth dirge and more Blackened wailing. Rick Wakeman might even recognize parts of the very end. "Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action 2" was only #10 on the Top 10 Most Ridicvlous Black Metal Song Titles - 4th post! Unusual coda ya got there... "Out Of Shell" gets a bit funky at points, maybe to prepare you. "Chernobyl Generation/The Alienation of a Blackened Heart" two-fer-one. The first builds on pretty straight dancefloor slamming, good for a negative comparison to why "Does Not Compute" is better. The second kinda reminds me of early Black Flag, filtered through 21st century European extreme metal sensibilities. You'll have to check Lala for the outro "Automatik Rave'olution Satan," which is beaty noise-ambient, but only one minute long.

This really could have gone higher on the Top 10. Exceedingly solid album, especially given the unusual style combinations and general noise-making.

Genre - Hard/Black Alien Industrial Metal
Official - code666.net/aborym/
Myspace - myspace.com/aborym666
Location - Italy

Review - Metal Storm
Download - Amazon, iTunes
Lala - With No Human Intervention
Purchase - Amazon