[Posted 11/13/2011] A couple of months ago, I got sick of my computer/internet not working and decided to post about 1 song per day on Facebook. That's as far as I was willing and able to go via iPad.
For those who missed all that, I'll be reposting the songs over here - usually gathered into some kinda theme. This post is Weird Scandinavia of the 21st Century! For those who followed along the first time, I'll try to include some extras to make the blogwise catch-up worthwhile.
The first post was...
"På Grön Kvist" by BlandBladen, from I Grévens Tid (2003)
[09/03/2011] While we all wait for my (brand new) computer to regain net access, I'll just try FB-linking to random web music. Daily? Here's Swede psych-prog from Blandbladen: "På Grön Kvist" - nice...
"I Afton Trans" by BlandBladen, from I Grévens Tid (2003)
You'll find a few of the original tunes are on Soundweave's Summer Psych compilation. Just a hint - because it's great! These bands love the long jams, and are perfectly willing to throw in their traditional musics as well as electro magicks, or jazzy space-out whatevers. You can hear these and more on the band's SoundCloud.
On to Denmark!
"Gelassenheit" by Causa Sui, from Pewt'r Sessions 2 (2011)
[09/10/2011] Not gonna chase down another series of OOP ltd-ed vinyl after the fact... I'll just hope for CD's again. Danish jam masters Causa Sui go all Czukay-Macero on some live tapes with Sunburned Hand Of The Man dude - thus "Pewt'r Sessions."
"Streams of Gratitude" by Causa Sui, from Pewt'r Sessions 1 (2011)
Nice 'n' laidback. They finally released the collected Summer Sessions (#15, non-Metal 2009) on CD, so I expect they'll also do for these two vinyl EP editions.
Hindu whatnow?
"Kaneh Bosm" by Hidria Spacefolk, from Symbiosis (2002)
[09/12/2011] A bit more Scando-space-psych... This time it's "Kaneh Bosm" by Hidria Spacefolk, from Finland. All-release jukebox on website, link shown in YouTube description. Explore too please!
"Terra Hidria" by Hidria Spacefolk, from Symbiosis (2002)
Given the free listening, and Flash-enabled internet connection, I'll definitely be checking these guys out. Whoa, Finlandia...
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.
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."
I'd promised to do this back in November's Bert Jansch-Led Zeppelin post. I regularly buy some of the import British music magazines - mainly Mojo, but sometimes Uncut. And at least as much as an issue's articles, I consider what's on the 'free' cd that's loosely tied with the content.
So, here are 10 of the best Mojo comps that I've bought or heard, with most all the tracks via YouTube. I've embedded a YouTube playlist re-enactment, and each song title links to the individual video. I tried to balance quicker load-times with worthwhile videos. And *** indicates that the exact song and/or artist wasn't available, so I've picked something related. Oh, and I've tacked on the four volumes of Mojo's essential Music Guide series!
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind (Jan 2010) Compiled and Mixed by The Amorphous Androgynous
The Amorphous Androgynous is a BTWS-ish (#1, 2008) side-project of The Future Sound of London. They do psychedelic treatments and mixes of old-school psychedlia and freakbeat. This one includes prevous Top 10'ers The Yellow Moon Band (#8, 2009), Dungen (#5, 2008) and Can (#4, 1972).
This thing is packed to the gills with absolute classics! This one and the next, both 2002, made me notice these magazine/cd combos might be worth checking out. If your internet can handle the playlist-buffering, check this one out. Then go ahead and buy it on cd.
Feed Your Head: 16 Mind-blowing Classics (Dec 2002)
Drugs, it's all about drugs. Good balance of classics and obscurities, lots of anti- testifying against less pro- celebration. The Sonics may be the apex of '60s fuzz-garage-punk, just recently had a post on Sebadoh, and Chris Bell was with Big Star for their debut (#2, 1972).
I actually can't remember what the theme of this one was. Given the title, probably something to do with Radiohead. British magazines occasionally write stories about them, cover stories even! But this is old and new pop and avant electronic stuff, and a little in-between. Where I first heard Fujiya & Miyagi (#10, 2006), and Xela runs Type Records - which released The Alps III (#9, 2008), and more recently Alphabet 1968, I'm Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, and Perdition Hill Radio.
The Man Machine: Celebrates The Electronic Revolution (Nov 2009)
Maybe just goes to show how much Mojo equates Radiohead with Kraftwerk. O no! More F&M, more Tangerine Dream, O.M.D. instead of Human League. Also a section of Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygène, otherwise known as the Battlefield Theme to Star Laser Force.
I Can See For Miles: Mojo Presents Lost Tracks from America's Psychedelic Underground (Apr 2009)
Sweet comp of Nugget-y pysch-garage, pleasantly focused on Texas and International Artists, themed around an article about the big 13th Floor Elevators box-set. I filled in video gaps for the first track (not Texas, great song) and Endle St. Cloud (Texas/IA, good song). 13th Floor, The Red Crayola, Golden Dawn, Bubble Puppy, Lost & Found, these are good Texas psych!!
Ok, no more from me. The next four make up a series of genre overviews which are well worth checking out. Great stuff if you already dig it. Great introduction if you need one. Kick out the jams!!!
Record labels want you to buy their stuff, so they're way better off with you coming to them for legally free internet music. Here are four different labels with standing promotional download offers.
I'd previously offered Ghost Box Music as a preferable retro-British drawing-room hauntology alternative to "Glo-Fi." The rest is heavier. Profound Lore is Ontarian, and brings a wealth of black metal and doombience(tm). Earlier this year, Tee Pee Records put up a 2009 sampler package of their stoner metal, stoner rock and stoners. And finally, the personal record label of former Tee Pee signee, Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre: The Committee To Keep Music Evil, pretty much what you'd expect...
Label: Ghost Box Music (Edinburgh, Scotland) "The concept for the label was hatched in 2003; a manifesto of influences was compiled, which included: music for schools, cosmic horror stories, library music, English surrealism, and the dark side of psychedelia," per Wikipedia.
Click on any release on the artist page (linked below via no. of albums), and songs with an asterisk (*) can be right-clicked, then Save Target As... (bitrate: 192 kbps)
The music of Belbury Poly is, by turns joyous, naive and at times shot through with terror or supernatural wonder. Parallel world TV soundtracks and nostalgia for an imaginary past.
Here come The Focus Group, stitching a patchwork quilt of bells, toys & fragmented melodies. They offer us a varied program of musical activities for educational and ritual use.
Remember, electricity can not be seen or heard. Harmful, invisible forces surround us everywhere we go. Fortunately The Advisory Circle is on hand to help us make the right decisions.
After years of experimentation in geomancy, psycho-geography and ancient British electronics, Mount Vernon Arts Lab join Ghost Box. Visceral sounds that immerse the listener in a world of deserted tube stations, 18th century secret societies and time haunted vaults beneath neolithic barrows.
YouTube Sample: "The Submariner’s Song” [D/L, from The Seance at Hobs Lane, 2001/2007]
Eric Zann's radios, oscillators and recordings conjure eldritch, echoing spaces and invoke the voices of the dead that whisper within them.
No sample YouTubes, but a review of Ouroborindra (2005)!
There's also a Ghost Box film from their visual artist co-founder. Whew...
Label: Profound Lore Records (Mississauga, ON, Canada) That's their .mp3 page... with all single-song D/L’s of extreme metal, doom, ambience, and combinations thereof! (192 kbps)
Includes songs by these acts: Krallice (hip USBM o' Brooklyn, 2 songs, 1 new/1 old) Sample: "Energy Chasms" [not for d/l]
Label: Tee Pee Records (NYC, NY) “2009 Online Sampler” Single .zip Download, bitrate: 192 kbps, 19 songs/19 bands!
Includes these actual songs by these bands: Iron Age (TX, opening for Baroness 12/8) Nebula (playing Houston 11/5) Spindrift (opened here for Dandy Warhols) Weird Owl (I like 'em at least) The Warlocks (BJTM-esque, recent Houston show) Ancestors (cool and epic post-metal, 21+ mins!) Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound (great band name!) Earthless (badass, 35+ mins!) ... and other stoner luminaries.
Label: The Committee To Keep Music Evil (Los Angeles, CA) Kind of like Ghost Box, but downloads are on the album pages at their store. (bitrate: 128 kbps)
Getting lazy, so I'll just link to the various bands' MySpace. They all seem to be pretty much some kind of '60s-influenced garage-psych heavy/rock/indie/pop outfit...
So, I was reading at one of my regular internet music places, and all of a sudden I'm hearing about a contender for album of the year (this current one). Investigating, I discovered a strange and new-ish phenomenon. I didn't realize we'd gotten to the point where a few similar albums would trigger the immediate christening of an all-new sub-sub-genre, then the re-christening, and re-christening, and re-christening. Then an all-out critical scrum over what genre tag should triumph.
"The sound has many names, but none of them seem to fit just right. Dream-beat, chillwave, glo-fi, hypnagogic pop, even hipster-gogic pop - all are imperfect phrases for describing a psychedelic music that's generally one or all of the following: synth-based, homemade-sounding, 80s-referencing, cassette-oriented, sun-baked, laid-back, warped, hazy, emotionally distant, slightly out of focus." - Pitchfork review of Psychic Chasms (2009)
No, the place wasn't Pitchfork (although I've come to terms with its place in my music quest), and the album wasn't Neon Indian's. It was elsewhere, and they were actually talking about Washed Out's current year output. See, the gimmick here is these American guys are doing on a small scale with lo-fi recordings and "micro-labels" what British folks were doing in the '80s on a huge scale on Mtv. Darker sentiments, presented beatwise, and wrapped in sunny pop hooks.
Arguably, more than genre tags like "glo-fi" or The Wire critic David Keenan's "hypnagogic pop," but those labels can be useful, too... - Pitchfork review of Life of Leisure (2009)
From what I gather, the leading light here is Memory Tapes (or Weird Tapes or Memory Cassette). As with anything so premature and ill-defined, there's a lot of variation between acts. This/these guy(s) seem to rein it in a bit - including some guitars, not getting so lost in the wooze... I dunno, my research was pretty limited. They do offer the more experimental, UK-only 22:22-minute bonus disc/track from their latest, "Treeship," for free download.
Seems like every other day, an evocatively named band would come about and contribute to this glo-fi/dreambeat/chill-wave thing that was perfect for those unbearably humid August nights rife with possibility... - Pitchfork review of Seek Magic (2009)
So, what's wrong with just "indie-synthpop"? Hmmm... I think I'll throw in my own competing label - how about "bunnygl!tch"?
Anyway, I thought you should know what's going on. Personally, I much prefer the hauntology style they're practising over at UK's Ghost Box (downloadables on artist's release pages), influenced by previous generations of studio-work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Especially The Advisory Circle and Belbury Poly. It's generally more restrained and polite than the noisier bunnygl!tch stuff. But that's England for ya!
From the archives of Austin's KVRX 91.7fm Local Live show... lots of in-studio performances, going back to '96. Some have just one song, some have many more. But all are single-song downloads, so you might have to mess with the folders and tags to get 'em where you want 'em in your library.
[Click image to check for future Wild Moccasins songs]
In parentheses, the number of songs links to that show's page with the songs. The artist name links to MySpace (with sample songs streamable). I'm kind of going against the Headspace's obscurity grain here, but you can always just browse the archive yourselves.
Here I was going to write a whole explanation on what all I mean when I call many of these bands "post-rock." But this Wikipedia article does a really good job. (Post-rock fans are the type to make sure the Post-rock Wiki entry is up-to-snuff.) I would just disagree that it’s “non-rock” music - it’s just as much rock as Krautrock and prog-rock.
But basically, we're talking about rock band line-ups playing rock-type songs that put the emphasis on aspects that most real rock bands don't focus on. Dynamics instead of "changes," songs drawn out in arcs rather than verses and choruses, tones and moods over riffs and vocals. Not to be confused with the similarly-rooted, and somewhat overlapping, genre math-rock.
Louisville's Slint was a major nexus for both. For post-rock, they staked out new spaces for the guitars and rhythms to explore. For math-rock, they built algorithmic song structures, and made the instruments wheel geometrically around a common center of gravity. Spiderland (1991) is one of the pinnacles of '90s independent rock, far beyond its seminal role in genre-spawning.
Two intermediary bands are worth mentioning here. Don Caballero (more math-y, still with riffs but instrumental) started off with For Respect (1993). Rodan were also from Louisville, taking it from math to post-math. Here's my own personal How the Winter Was Passed 7" (1993), a rarity! Both of these were way too early to be either/or, so they're kind of like transitional fossils in the evolution of whatever we're talking about.
[Pt. 2 here]
True post-rock starts taking form around the time of Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996). It's got the instrumentals, it's got the atmosphere, it's got the 20-minute opening track, and the elaborate full-sentence title. It's got the look and feel of hand-tooled avant rock. And it got enough critical acclaim to launch a whole sub-genre.
Scotland's Mogwai took it international with Young Team (1997). Slow and serious, built like a classical symphony... They also would need two/part YouTube videos due to song lengths.
The major Montreal scene (and acronymic names) began with Godspeed You! Black Emperor (aka GY!BE). Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000) brought in cinematic dynamism, slow-build-to-apocalypse crescendos, and all epic songs. And a formula is born!
Explosions in the Sky (or EITS) are from Austin, and nice folk by all accounts. They take their post-rock a bit heavier, metaller, more explosive! Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (2001) continues in the proud tradition of interminable album titles. Its airplane cover and textual art got the rumors going about something about 9/11. Nonsense...
You can read more about Japans's Mono and their melancholy film-score classicisms, with extra noise outbursts, here. The Athens, GA youngsters in Maserati speed it up, motorik-style. As their (single-word!) bandname would imply.
Finally, Austin's The Calm Blue Sea is very Mono-esque, which is to say Very Godspeed-ish... They have several videos found here, and have just recently scored a silent film.
And that brings us up to now, with Mono and Maserati finishing their tour together in Austin next weekend. I can only assume The Calm Blue Sea will be in attendance.
Just for good measure, there’s also post-metal, descended from Neurosis mostly. But that’s an altogether different story...
