27/06/2021
Jon Hassel and Brian Eno - Delta Rain Dream
Jon Hassell, trumpet player and electronic music composer, has died at age 84. Hassell pioneered the influential genre of music he dubbed "Fourth World," defined as a "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques."
Best known for his groundbreaking collaborative album with Brian Eno, titled "Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics," Hassell's early solo records including "Vernal Equinox" (1977), "Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two" (1981), and "Power Spot" (1986) are absolutely essential listening. Listen below. A pillar of avant-garde and new music, Hassell also collaborated with the likes of Terry Riley, the Theatre of Eternal Music, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, and Carl Craig.
"If I had to name one over-riding principle in Jon's work it would be that of respect," Eno wrote in The Guardian in 2007. "He looks at the world in all its momentary and evanescent moods with respect, and this shows in his music. He sees dignity and beauty in all forms of the dance of life."
Cardiacs - Clean That Evil Mud Out Your Soul
Cardiacs, originally called Cardiac Arrest, was an English band formed in 1977 and led by Tim Smith (1961-2020). Noted for their complex, varied and intense compositional style and for their eccentric, theatrical stage shows, they have been hailed as an influence by many newer groups and artists.
As well as Smith, around 23 musicians were part of the Cardiacs over the years, including Smith's brother, Jim, and multi-instrumentalist, Sarah Cutts, who married Tim Smith in 1983.
Their music combined the excitement and energy of punk with the intricacies and technical cleverness of early British progressive rock, a combination sometimes referred to as pronk, although frontman Smith disavowed this classification.
Cardiacs released eight studio albums plus a number of live albums, compilation albums and singles between 1980 and 2007, and are best known for the 1988 minor hit single "Is This the Life?" They are also noted for attracting strongly diverse responses: they have remained one of Britain's leading cult rock bands during their four-decade-spanning career, but have also attracted virulent critical attack (including a lengthy editorial ban from the British music magazine New Musical Express).
On the 30th June 1990, Cardiacs played at Salisbury Arts Centre (a former church). The show was recorded and initially the video of it was released on VHS tape under the name "All That Glitters Is A Mare's Nest". The video helped Cardiacs achieve a cult following, with pirated copies of the video, being highly sought after. The audio from the show was released on CD in 1995.
The band was on hiatus following the 2008 hospitalisation of Tim Smith after a heart attack and series of strokes which affected his speech and movement.
Commenting on his condition, in 2017, Smith wrote: “Imagine if you were wearing a skintight bodysuit made of fishnet all around you, with electrical pulses going all the time. This is what my body feels like unless I fall asleep.”
In 2018, fundraising was set up for Tim Smith, which included the comment “This condition has affected Tim’s movement, his dexterity, his ability to speak, and it has added painful muscle tone and spasms that are a permanent feature of his life these days.”
On Tuesday 21st July 2020, at around 10.30 pm, Tim Smith passed away at his home, as a result of a heart attack.
Cardiacs final album, "LSD" remained unfinished at the time of Tim Smith's death. At the time of his death, Cardiacs still remained a cult following, their recordings were not, for example, available on Spotify. For many years there were few new copies of Cardiacs albums in circulation. Later on, re-releases became available on CD and then vinyl.
26/06/2021
John Peel's Happy Flowers - Daddy Melted
John Peel playing a track from an American band called Happy Flowers, broadcast on BBC Radio One from 7th August 1989. Interestingly it took some time for Peel to find out that the end of the track goes horribly wrong, when the CD at the end becomes corrupt and produces some weird sounds !!
24/06/2021
20/06/2021
The Sparks Brothers (2021) | Official Clip
50 years. 25 albums. 345 songs. Unlimited genius... I've been a fan of Sparks.
Cut to YOU watching the trailer first documentary. Out June 18th! Enjoy
19/06/2021
Mac DeMarco // On the Level (Official Audio)
mais um dos melhores concertos que vi nos ultimos5 anos... INESQUECIVEL
Arab Strap - Live @ NOS Primavera Sound 2017 - Porto, Portugal (Full Show)
Fucking awesome...Great band, after more than 20 years continue being very special, LOVE for arab strap.Arab Strap are masters of their of craft - one of the most unique bands who defined our generation!
thank you. Strap forever!
“Gran Brittany has turned into something disgusting in the last ten years”
Possibly Arab Strap fueran the most wonderful anomaly of Scottish pop between mid-nineties and the equator of 2000.
Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have left behind a fabulous discography. A dark, confessional and slow-fired pop, which I suppose to evolve and become something more accessible – even just as convincing – until they parted, in 2005.
Three albums published by her account, and under different alias, in 2017 Arab Strap will meet for a tour.
UM DOS MELHORES CONCERTOS QUE JA VI. É INESPLICAVEL A QUIMICA QUE PASSA PARA QUEM GOSTA DE UMA DAS BANDAS MAIS ESQUECIDAS DA MUSICA ALTERNATIVA. Middleton is genius on that guitar
ontem jogou-se para o Euro 20,jogado em 2021 por causa do covid 19 e o Escoçes e leader Aidan Moffat, pronunciou-se sobre o jogo. A Inglatera uma equipa muito mais forte, não consegui vencer a garra a determinação dos Escoceses.
Stink
F-ing Little Bastards
Girls of Summer
Rocket, Take Your Turn
Don't Ask Me to Dance
Here We Go
Turbulence
New Birds
Speed-Date
The Shy Retirer
The First Big Weekend
16/06/2021
Vice Versa-New Girls Neutrons (Electrogenesis 1978-1980)
David Sydenham, Mark White (vocals), Stephen Singleton (keyboards, saxophone), Martin Fry (keyboards)
Relegated for a long time to being a footnote on the page of the seminal electronics from Sheffield, Vice Versa in the studios at the height of others like The Human League primigenios, bell that also founded the sale of Neutron Records, giving voice to others bands that needed it in those times.
His electronics were furious, let's say wrapped up in the Synth Punk as much as in the Minimal Wave, and the live concert included in this compilation of his opus demonstrating how much energy they could generate.
Squid - Peel St.
Art Punk, Post-Punk, Experimental Rock, Dance-Punk, Krautrock, Post-Rock
male vocals, anxious, energetic, progressive, rhythmic, playful, complex, dense,, noisy, psychedelic, eclectic, pessimistic, apocalyptic, atmospheric, aggressive, avant-garde
13/06/2021
Don Caballero - For Respect
One of the few indie bands to specialize in all-instrumental fare and also show an affection for jazz fusion.
Rare is the rock band that can make a strong impression on the listener without the benefit of a vocalist, but Pittsburgh's Don Caballero comes roaring out of the gate on its debut album. The quartet showcases its instrumental wizardry on the opening title cut, a skull-crushing groove monster that finds evocative drummer Damon Che leading the band through a succession of stop-time breaks
The Scissor Girls - Ambulatry
likeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.. EVER ... ever
In the late 1980s, while growing up in Washington, D.C., bassist/vocalist Azita Youssefi (aka AZ) and Heather Melowic (aka Heather M) discussed assembling a band.
Here Is the "Is-Not" collects a number of 7" and EP tracks from Chicago's Scissor Girls, a band whose extremely fractured, deconstructive take on punk attitudes and post-punk scratchiness always turned out far more accessible than it probably should have been
12/06/2021
11/06/2021
Jarvis Cocker & Barry Adamson- Set the Controls for The Heart Of The Pelvis (Jarvis Cocker & Barry Adam...
“Set the controls for the heart of the pelvis” - Barry Adamson featuring Jarvis Cocker
Lolol Jarvis Co-wrote it, too. Lol Classic Jarvis: "(Save me from my own hand) (Now my guard's down) Ooohhh, set the controls for the heart of the pelvis. Haven't you heard my name rhymes with Elvis and one thing I know is this that your mouth is telling me to give you a big kiss. (Save me from my own hand) (Now my guard's down) Ahhhh, can't you see what's on offer, yeah babe, it's going cheap today. I enter a room and all the girls say: "C'mon Jarv, can I be the first? Oh, you make us so hot we feel we're gonna burst." Oh yeah... So please, so please, don't leave me alone in this double bed. It smells of damp towels and asthma inhalers. Say you're gonna call back later. Save me from these glossy photographs. Save me from my mother's laugh. Save me. That's right girls. That's right girls. Yeah. Save me from my own hand... C'mon... c'mon.... c'mon... (Lots of sighs and moans) Do you know how much I want you? Don't stop. "
Pardoner - "Donna Said" (Official Music Video)
Pardoner: Came Down Different
The past few years have been full of reasons to fall apart, and Bay Area rockers Pardoner very nearly went that way. Max Freeland (vocals, guitar), Trey Flanigan (vocals, guitar) and River van den Berghe (drums) bonded over Yo La Tengo and Polvo in the San Francisco State University dorms, formed Pardoner, and released a pair of warm and fuzzy guitar-rock records. But when Freeland relocated to Vancouver, it appeared the band was also on its way out. Fortunately for us, Pardoner wobbled, but didn’t fall, adding an old friend in Colin Burris (bass), and reuniting in San Francisco to record Came Down Different, their third album and Bar/None Records debut, in a two-day spree with veteran hardcore producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock). Opener “Donna Said” melds rock of the noise and jangle varieties while documenting the draining demands of the music-industry rat race
Nico - Evening of Light (Full Music Video)
This short film isndirected by François De Menil features Nico among Iggy Pop and The Stooges.
This is the only "promotional" video used by Elektra Records for The Marble Index.
10/06/2021
THE MONKEES - Circle Sky
In the space of a year, the Monkees went from singing "Cheer up, sleepy Jean" to "The porpoise is laughing goodbye." Their G-rated psychedelic cinema-bomb Head was no Hard Day's Night, despite being helmed by Five Easy Pieces director Bob Rafelson (and featuring Frank Zappa as a music critic with a talking cow), but the soundtrack was a largely un-Monkees-like potpourri that jostled for space in the annals of underground weirdness. A far cry from the polished Neil Diamond radio ditties they came up on, Head features Middle Eastern-tinged groove-rock ("Can You Dig It?"), swinging Harry Nilsson swank ("Daddy's Song"), ambient interludes, surrealistic dialog snippets ("I'd like a glass of cold gravy with a hair in it please," says Davy Jones); and, of course, porpoise pet sounds.
Guitar: Danny Kortchmar
Cello: David Filerman
Backing Vocals: Davy Jones
Bass Guitar: Doug Lubahn
Producer: Gerry Goffin
Cello: Gregory Bemko
Arranger: Jack Nitzsche
Cello: Jacqueline Lustgarten
Cello: Jan Kelley
Upright Bass: Jerry Scheff
Upright Bass: Jim Hughart
Drums, Percussion: John Raines
Brass, Woodwind: Jules Jacob
Guitar: Ken Bloom
Keyboards: Leon Russell
Upright Bass: Max Bennett
Lead Vocals: Micky Dolenz
Drums, Percussion: Mike Ney
Keyboards: Ralph Schukett
Conductor, Cymbals: Russ Titelman
Writer: Carole King
Writer: Gerry Goffin
Pink Floyd Meddle 1971 A Pillow Of Winds
(1971)
It's hard for me to understand how such a wonderful album by the extremely popular Pink Floyd has fallen under the radar like this one has. Everyone seems to know "Dark Side Of The Moon", "Wish You Were Here", and "The Wall" but for some reason "Meddle" remains relatively obscure. Maybe it's because those other albums all had singles with radio exposure while this one did not. Who knows. Regardless, this album is just as strong as the aforementioned ones and I'm sure if you are reading this list you are like me and do not give a rat's ass about radio singles.
Gong -Continental Circus (1971)
"Continental Circus" is that one soundtrack to an obscure movie that so many of these prog/psyche bands seemed to put out in the late 60's and early 70's. This one was for a French film about motorcycle racing, which I'm sure 4 people thorougly enjoyed. The final product is strange as hell because you have early style space rock combined with lyrics and sound effects related to motorcycle racing. This to me is weirder than all of the complex concepts behind albums like "The Wall" or "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", because professional motorcyle racing is such a random thing to combine with psychedelic music.
It took me a few listens to warm up to this one but I really like it a lot. It's trippy and the guitar playing is pretty creative. Hopefully, I'll track this movie down eventually.
Gentle Giant Three Friends (1972)- Peel the Paint (2011 Remaster)
Gentle Giant
Three Friends (1972)
Genre: Progressive Rock
"Three Friends" is a low key concept album and the third release from Gentle Giant. Like most Gentle Giant albums, it's a short release but it features a variety of styles. There is lots of complex passages such as the opener "Prologue", there are more laid back psychedelic parts like in "Schooldays", and there is even some good old hard rock guitar soloing towards the end of the album. One of the most unique parts of this album is the vocal harmonizations. Very strange.
If you are trying to find this album, keep in mind that there are two different covers. The one above is the original UK cover. If you are in the US, the same exact album was repackaged with a cover that looks very similar to the debut album.
Soon ~ Yes, from the album Relayer
"Relayer" is the last classic Yes album. After this was released, the band went on hiatus and the individual members all worked on solo projects. In 1977, they reformed with Rick Wakeman back in the fold, but never again would they capture that greatness of the early 70's. They had run their course, as had progressive rock in general.
"Relayer" itself is quite a strange album in the Yes discography. For one, it's the only Yes album to feature Patrick Moraz on keyboards. He replaced Wakeman who left in frustration after "Tales From Topographic Oceans" but would never participate in any subsequent Yes releases. Moraz was about as proggy as they came, as evidenced by his solo debut album which came out shortly after "Relayer". So he was able to fill in for Wakeman pretty nicely and brought along his own style.
They tried to get away from “Tales From Topographic Oceans” for this one and went back to the structure of “Close To The Edge”, a single track on the front and the back split evenly between two songs. The music itself is probably the most complex the band ever recorded. It's their most jazz fusion oriented and is generally more hectic than anything they had done previously. It makes this a bad place to enter the world of Yes but an interesting one for some longtime fans. In particular, for those who are Steve Howe fans, you get to hear some of his absolutely wildest guitar work as he seemed to be using a new approach that he wouldn't continue with on subsequent albums.
Never Like This from Family Music in a Doll's House (1968)
"Music In A Doll's House" is an underappreciated early prog effort from a band that already isn't mentioned much, Family. Released in mid 1968, this is probably one of the more proggy releases from the pre "In The Court Of The Crimson King" era. It has less of a spacey psychedelic feel, instead going for the British eccentricity, all over the place, hard rock kind of thing. In fact, this thing is so all over the place and dense that it's quite difficult to rap your head around. With Roger Chapman's vibrato vocals, an arsenal of different instruments, and completely unpredictable compositions, it's a lot to take in. I still don't feel like I know what I'm getting into when I turn this on.
Also of note, this is a very early production effort by the great Dave Mason of Traffic, who had yet to even begin his own solo career.
V D G G The Aerosol Grey Machine 01 Afterwards
Van der Graaf Generator's debut is another one of the prog debuts that gets written off as an unnecessary part of a band's discography, as is the case with Genesis, Jethro Tull, and Yes. Just like these other bands' debuts, if this album isn't great, it is at least, very interesting. People usually consider the next album, "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" as the band's first essential album. However, I think that "The Aerosol Grey Machine", released in 1969, is another key part of early prog history. The album was entirely written by Peter Hammill, so you get a great sense of his intimate lyrical style and super dramatic vocals. Like most of these early prog albums, it's significantly lighter than what they would release in the next few years, but Van der Graaf Generator's strange, heavy jazz style is previewed here as well as the unconvential melodicism of Hammill's solo career.
The CD release also includes as bonus tracks the two songs from the band's first single. These were recorded earlier and if you compare them to the LP tracks you can clearly see the jump forward they made with "The Aerosol Grey Machine". This CD is very hard to find, so pick it up if you see it for cheap.
Ron Geesin & Roger Waters - Our Song
Progressive Rock, Experimental/Avant-Garde
As opposed to some of their peers like Soft Machine for example, Pink Floyd wasn't comprised of fluid members who were frequently drifting back and forth from various projects like solo albums and outside collaborations. Pink Floyd was a very insular entity, especially during this 1969-1971 period where it's still somewhat of a mystery of exactly what the writing and recording dynamic was like. They seemed like a faceless band, just turning out exotic, atmospheric, and sonically advanced, self contained albums. It wasn't exactly clear where the ideas where coming from, and it still isn't. Occasionally they'd bring in a collaborator, but only the most obscure.
As far as the band members being inactive outside the main group, "Music From The Body" is one of the few exceptions. Aside from Syd Barrett's solo records, "Music From The Body" was the only non Pink Floyd album from any of them until David Gilmour's solo debut in 1978. It was almost another 15 years before Waters himself released an actual solo album, which basically has nothing in common with this besides Waters' depressing songs and frail, whispery voice. Again aside from Barrett's records, this is also probably the only outside project of theirs that I would consider a classic.
Much like the Pink Floyd albums from this period, Roger Waters and company look back with indifference. It's been hard to suppress the actual Pink Floyd albums since they're marked "Pink Floyd", but "Music From The Body" has almost completely been forgotten. I'd venture that a lot of fans that even enjoy the obscure albums like "Ummagumma" and "More" don't realize this exists.
The album is of course, not a Waters solo album, but a collaboration between him and experimental/avant-garde composer Ron Geesin. There's no doubt that it's more his work than Waters. Although it's clear that around this time Waters was more than happy to explore the avant-garde and primarily noise based music, neither him nor anyone else in the band had the background knowledge and skills for this type of sophisticated orchestration. This is further evidenced by the fact that on the subsequent Pink Floyd album, "Atom Heart Mother", the band brought him on board to help arrange the title track, their most sophisticated song to date.
"Music From The Body", like so much of Pink Floyd's music from this period, was actually a soundtrack. And just like all that Floyd material, as obscure as this stuff is, the music is far more remembered than the movie. The movie in this case was one of those old school anatomy documentaries where they have the camera crawling around human tubes, showing the practically alien makeup of our insides. This music was a perfect match. It's mostly short, quick tracks. Little avant-garde but musical tracks composed by Geesin. You can imagine moving to different bodily phenomena as the tracks quickly go by. Roger's songs are obvious. Exclusively simple acoustic folk tracks with his depressing lyrics. Very much his style during this period. Here it provides quite a contrast to the madness around it. The rest of Pink Floyd does make an uncredited appearance for the finale. By the sound of the band, it's clearly them, but it's unfortunately not a lost Floyd classic itself. It could almost be described as a half assed appearance, fitting in with the lo-fi nature of the record.
The Nice - The Cry Of Eugene - Original
The Nice
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (1968)
Genre: Progressive Rock, Psychedelic
The Nice were another late 60's psychedelic group that helped bridge the gap between psych and prog. The way they combined classical music sounds with hard rock proved to be incredibly influential to the development of prog as well as early heavy metal. Organ heavy hard rock bands like Deep Purple and Black Widow, were certainly influenced by these guys. Besides their own output, the band is known for being Keith Emerson's first band. After a few years he would leave to found Emerson Lake & Palmer.
"The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack" was the group's first full length, released at the tail end of 1967. It features a cool combination of the dreamy pyschedelic tracks like "Flower King Of Flies" and "The Cry Of Eugene" with instrumental freakouts like "Rondo" and "War And Peace". The album reminds me of Pink Floyd's debut which was released around the same time. Floyd's 10 minute long "Interstellar Overdrive" is comparable to the 8 minute jam "Rondo, with the significant difference being how one jam evokes a spacey feel while the other a classical. "Flower King Of Flies" is a particularly special track, and I would even call it one of the standouts of the psychedelic era. It's combination of subtle Satanic lyrics, dreamy production, and Emerson's Hendrix like freakouts was certainly unique for the time.
D-Rider (1996 Remaster) FROM Hawkwind Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974)
"Hall Of The Mountain Grill" is considered by many to one of the most essential Hawkwind albums. It sees the band both focusing and hardening the sound a bit, hinting at the general direction that heavy metal was headed. There's no question that it's psychedelic and trippy as hell but it's certainly more song based than the debut, "In Search Of Space", or "Space Ritual" which feel less structured
Dashiell Hedayat - Eh, Mushroom, Will You Mush My Room?: Long Song for Z...
Dashiell Hedayat
Born
5 June 1947, Paris, Île-de-France, France
Died
17 July 2013, Paris, Île-de-France, France
French Psych, Canterbury Prog related
"Obsolete" was a one-off release from Dashiell Hedayat, a French counterculture figure/poet, with significant contributions from early period Gong. Because of the Gong connection, this is held as a cult classic by many, especially since it's pre-Steve Hillage meaning that you get to hear Daevid Allen just laying down the messy psych.
This is more on the psych/Kraut side of things, without the harsher, more radical German vibes, instead emitting some of the playfulness associated with the Canterbury Scene and atmosphere of the early/lost years of Pink Floyd. The record is split up by sides, with Side I featuring the brilliantly titled "Eh, Mushroom, Will You Mush My Room?" suite and the second side featuring the "Cielo Drive/17" Kraut-like jam. One of the standout parts is the "Long Song For Zelda" section, which is as laid back, depressing psych as you can get and has Daevid Allen meandering around the fret board with his wah-wah.
Jethro Tull Sealion (2002 Remaster)
"War Child" saw Jethro Tull in a place of uncertainty after the band's increasingly complex works of "Thick As A Brick" and "Passion Play". Ian Anderson knew that for the time being he wouldn't be constructing any albums of that nature, but wasn't sure exactly what direction Jethro Tull would be taking going forward. With "War Child" he ended up using some songs he had been storing the last few years as well as a few new ones.
The result was a more straightforward rock album that hinted at the band's older sound, but didn't actually sound quite like it. In the end, "War Child" proved a bit of a disappointment at the time of release, and even now it's one of the more forgotten albums from the band's classic period, considered by some to be an unusual mid-career slump. The bizarre and atrocious album cover hasn't helped either. While I don't hold it up as an "Aqualung" or "Benefit", I do think there's plenty for a Tull Fan to enjoy here.
08/06/2021
07/06/2021
06/06/2021
05/06/2021
David Bowie - Liza Jane
ODT, 1964
'Liza Jane' became the first recording to be released as a single by David Bowie (but under the name Davie Jones with the King Bees). Despite promoting the single on the television shows Juke Box Jury, Ready Steady Go! and The Beat Room, and receiving good radio coverage, the single sold poorly and the band was subsequently dropped from the label Vocalion Pop
03/06/2021
John Bender - 31A4 /I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It...
Outside of German Shepherds (see below), John Bender most epitomizes the basement-dwelling outsider-bohemian aspect to synth-punk. In 2010, when attempting to track him down for a proposed profile, the scant few contacts I had all said the same thing: he ain’t talking to no music journalist. Self-imposed obscurity is definitely the name of the game for the mysterious Bender. In the early ’80s, he produced three slabs of vinyl, I Don’t Remember Now / I Don’t Want To Talk About It, Plaster Falling and Pop Surgery, all of which quickly sailed into the phantom zone (until that is music blogs such as Mutant Sounds retrieved them).
Hailing from art-punk hotbed Ohio, Bender creates deliriously dub-drenched electronics that – in addition to boasting structural complexities that resist easy decoding at every turn – are intensely personal. He doesn’t necessarily “rawk,” but on a track like “65-2 Galacial” (“I hate the world, it’s dying and it’s ugly,” he croaks) the guy does manage to achieve a blurrily hiccupping, avant-rockabilly that falls somewhere between deconstructed Charlie Feathers and Pyrolator circa Ausland. Seriously far out stuf
Pure Ground - Going Under The Wire
The current state of American synth-punk is a gigantic question mark. These days, most underground freaks into synthesizers and drum machines fall for minimal wave (the soul of which is resolutely English/European – and that’s cool, but synth-punk it is not). Fortunately, exceptions do exist. Lurking deep inside Noah Anthony’s Profligate project (electro-industrial bleeding into 21st-century technoise) lurks a dark, spacey cool that without question would make Damon Edge proud.
Then there’s Los Angeles’ Pure Ground (cofounded by Greh Holger of Hive Mind fame and Brotman & Short’s Jesse Short); these dudes might call the minimal-wave scene home, yet their jams bop/swing with rock ‘n’ roll vigor. This is especially true of the über catchy “Going Under the Wire” (which can be found on the duo’s self-titled cassette released last year on Holger’s Chondritic Sound imprint). Buzzing like a robotics lab, with Gothic vox that only grows more wrecked with each rotation of the ear-worm chorus (“UNDER THE WIRE!”), the tune totally flaunts the Devo/Pere Ubu chromosomes buried in its silicon-based DNA.
Further exploration (i.e. bands not mentioned anywhere else in this piece): Smersh, Men’s Recovery Project, Nervous Gender, The Parasites Of The Western World, Sad Sack, Danse Asshole, Xex, Xerobot, Billy Synth And The Turn Ups, Skoal Kodiak, The Misfits (debut 7-inch only), Red Asphalt, The Jesus Lizard (first EP only), The Twinkeyz, Units, Primitive Calculators (Australians who rocked like us Yanks)
Big Black - I Can Be Killed
outlier pick to piss off the purists, Big Black avoided synthesizers like the plague. Yet the Chicago trio’s impact on the genre’s genesis is nothing short of profound. One of the most important underground outfits of the ’80s, Big Black served as the primary viaduct over which synth-punk made the pilgrimage from the ’70s (Chrome, Devo, Suicide) to the ’90s (Six Finger Satellite, Brainiac). Not only that, it was a bridge of ingenious construction, one that revolved around pumping the genre’s principal sound (i.e. greaser rock as performed by hotwired robots) full of hardcore aggression, classic American hard rock and dystopian gloom (formative influences included Cabaret Voltaire, Killing Joke and Neubauten). In addition to opening up synth-punk to new intensities of noise squall (as well as belligerently offensive subject matter), Albini’s use of the Roland TR-606 was downright brilliant, enabling the group to unleash battering-ram beats whose inhuman relentlessness shared more in common with electronic body music and new school hip-hop than anything rock music had produced up to that point in time.
German Shepherds - I Adore You
Few underground scenes were as freewheeling as the Bay Area’s at the onset of the ’80s. Chrome, Flipper, Minimal Man, Dead Kennedys, Factrix, Monte Cazazza, Crime, Tuxedomoon … its pursuit of radicalism was staggering. Out of this sonic melee emerged German Shepherds, whose synth-punk nugget Music for Sick Queers was reissued in 2012 on the outstanding Superior Viaduct label. Teetering between extremely un-PC satire and downright bad vibes, the record is soaked in Cold War-era youth angst, mass murder chic and apocalyptic prophecy (“J. Christ” is credited as a contributor).
Performances are delivered with such stone-cold intensity that it’s hard to imagine anybody but disturbed individuals making this music (apparently, the group enjoyed spreading unsavory rumors about themselves). Both “THC” and “Communist Control” are mandatory listening, but the group’s pièce de résistance is “I Adore You;” buttressed by bargain-basement drum machine, singer Mark Hutchinson comes off like a religious cult casualty while moaning, “Oh, Lord... I submit to you. I offer a sacrifice. Permit me to offer this sacrifice... I want your blood. Share your blood... oh, God.” Clearly, dude did not have a positive church-going experience as a child.
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)
LinkWithin
