A Year of Music

As I seem to do every so often, I wandered off into the weeds for a few months there. But it’s fall, and the election is almost past (PRAISE BE), and I can start to think about things other than politics, economic misfortune, and the unfortunate impossibility / undesirability of revolution in a post-industrial, media-driven and self-aware society. And Sarah Palin. Fucking Sarah Palin.

I’ve continued to trawl the MP3-blog depths, and am no closer than I was six months ago to figuring out how to describe what I’ve found. I’ve heard a lot of music that’s new to me this year, and I’ve found an intimidating amount of it interesting, entertaining, or weird enough to hold my attention. I’ve been emitting little drips of information on my Twitter feed, but I’m not sure there’s enough context there to make it interesting to anyone other than myself. In the end, I’ll just have to start writing here every day again, and see if that knocks loose anything interesting.

Of course, I’ve been continuing to buy music. I’m enough of a completist that I’ll probably provide a complete dump of everything I listened to over the summer at some point, but for now, here’s what’s most interesting to me, my October shopping trips to Amoeba:

• Antony & The Johnsons: Another World
• Arckanum: Antikosmos
• The Breeders: Cannonball
• The Breeders: Divine Hammer
• The Breeders: Pod
• The Breeders: Title TK
• Darkthrone: Soulside Journey
• Ladytron: Velocifero
• A Minor Forest: Flemish Altruism (Constituent Parts 1993-1996)
• The New Year: s/t
• Sparks: Indiscreet
• Sparks: No. 1 in Heaven
• Sparks: Propaganda
• Sparks: A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing
• V/A: Dubstep Allstars, Volume 6 (mixed by Appleblim)
• V/A: Uproot (mixed by DJ /rupture)
• Vivian Girls: s/t

and Aquarius:

• Akimbo: Jersey Shores
• Antaeus: Blood Libels
• Bass Communion: Molotov and Haze
• Loren Chasse & Michael Northam: The Otolith
• Coelacanth & Keith Evans: Wrack Light in Copper Ruin
• Darkspace: Dark Space III
• The (Fallen) Black Deer: Requiem
• Daniel Menche: Creatures of Cadence
• Slagmaur: Svin
• Urfaust: Drei Rituale Jenseits des Kosmos
• New Egypt: White Magic

Aside from the limp and lifeless new album by The New Year, these are all interesting records, worth further discussion, and if I can, I’ll say more about them. Right now, I’m listening to the Darkspace record as the band seems to have intended (i.e. listening to Dark Spaces I through III straight through, at which point they becomes something more than a churning blackened crust-metal soundscape and start living up to the grandiose, symphonic concept indicated by the album and track titles). And last night, I listened to the A Minor Forest record, and was delighted to know the songs deeply and immediately, despite never having heard this record before. A Minor Forest were a shambling mess at times (especially for a math rock band), but they put on a great show, and their studio records sound more live than not.

Also, since I last wrote here, I saw Polvo and My Bloody Valentine play live. Polvo were OK and deserve credit for trying to wrap their weirdness around “Mexican Radio” (one of my favorite songs), but My Bloody Valentine did things with sound I didn’t know were possible, and the experience was more satisfying to my inner 19-year-old than I really had any right to hope going in.

I’ve been busy, and I continue to be distracted, but it’s a really good time to be a music fan.

And oh yeah, if you don’t have these records, your musical experience of 2008 is sadly incomplete and you are probably a hollow shell of a person:

• asbestoscape: s/t
• Clark: Turning Dragon
• Fucked Up: The Chemistry of Common Life

As promised, here’s the list of what-all I’ve added to my collection since the last time I posted one of these omnibus roundups. As always, the sources are various: Amoeba, Boomkat, the Amazon MP3 store, Mutant Sounds, Dualtrack, The Thing on the Doorstep, No Longer Forgotten Music, The Soundhead, Phoenix Hairpins, and What Fucked You. Some of them are duplicates from the last list big list I posted because I purchased copies of things I had downloaded to check out (like the excellent Au Revoir Simone album).

Some of you may notice that despite my fevered excoriation of Death in June (or, you know, ambivalent musings thereon), there’s a hearty selection of their music here. I decided I needed to hear more of their stuff for myself, and I have to say, extended exposure to their music reinforces my conviction that they’re purposefully playing games with their listeners in a way I find unconscionable, even if some of the (earlier) songs scratch a very specific, Joy Division-esque itch deep in my head. This is something Jessica Hopper deals with obliquely, in the context of indie hipsters becoming fans of black metal bands with questionable beliefs (another thing I’ve had to wrestle with repeatedly over the years).

UPDATE: The conversation continues over Jessica’s way, just as ambivalent and inconclusive as the one that goes on in my head.

Anyway, here’s the list.

1. ABC Mutes: Studio Stuff
2. Ab Ovo: Empreintes
3. Architects Office: 1987: Live
4. Architects Office: 9th Year Gala Performance
5. Area: Arbeit Macht Frei
6. Art & Technique: Diabolus In Mecanica
7. Au Revoir Simone: The Bird of Music
8. Ballet Mécanique: The Icecold Waters of Egocentric Calculation
9. Sir Richard Bishop: While My Guitar Violently Bleeds
10. ビジリバ: ビジリバ
11. Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath [box set remaster]
12. Black Sabbath: Paranoid [box set remaster]
13. Black Sabbath: Master of Reality [box set remaster]
14. Black Sabbath: Vol 4 [box set remaster]
15. Black Sabbath: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath [box set remaster]
16. Black Sabbath: Sabotage [box set remaster]
17. Black Sabbath: Technical Ecstasy [box set remaster]
18. Black Sabbath: Never Say Die! [box set remaster]
19. Blue Mathue: Perfect Pictures
20. Bogart & S·Core: Pilgrim
21. Boys Noize: Oi Oi Oi
22. The Breeders: Mountain Battles
23. Monte Cazazza: The Worst of Monte Cazazza
24. CEDS: Xandosis
25. CINdYTALK: Camouflage Heart
26. CINdYTALK: In This World
27. CINdYTALK: Secrets and Falling
28. CINdYTALK: The Wind is Strong
29. CINdYTALK: Transgender Warrior
30. CINdYTALK: Wappinschaw
31. Cardboard Village: Sea Change
32. Coil: The New Backwards
33. Combo FH: Véci
34. Commando M Pigg: s/t
35. Confetti: Retrospective
36. Crawling Chaos: The Gas Chair
37. Crawling With Tarts: Operas
38. Crevice: Crevice 1
39. Crevice: Think of Pleasant Things
40. Curlew: s/t
41. De Fabriek & Telepherique: PWZ
42. Death in June: The Guilty Have No Past
43. Death in June: Burial
44. Death in June: Nada!
45. Death in June: The World That Summer
46. Death in June: Brown Book
47. Death in June: 93 Dead Sunwheels
48. Death in June: The Wall of Sacrifice
49. Death in June: The Cathedral of Tears
50. Death in June: Oh How We Laughed
51. Death in June: The Corn Years
52. Devo: Recombo DNA
53. Disrupt: Jah Bit Invasion
54. Dom: Fackeln Im Sturm
55. Frank Domert: Kiefermusik
56. Dorothy: I Confess
57. Drahomira Song Orchestra: The Return of 120 Magicians
58. Iancu Dumitrescu / David Prescott: split
59. Alec Empire: The Golden Foretaste of Heaven
60. Enduser: Form Without Function
61. Eva-Tone: She’s-A-Wild
62. Flipper: Love Canal / Ha Ha Ha
63. The Flying Lizards: s/t
64. The Flying Lizards: Fourth Wall
65. The Flying Lizards: Top Ten
66. Folkdove: s/t
67. Francisco: Cosmic Beam Experience
68. Frequency.m: Fm043
69. Genghis Tron: Board Up the House
70. Gorilla Aktiv: Umsonst Ohne Risiko
71. The Hafler Trio: Ignotum Per Ignotus
72. Hajsch: Nagual (für Silvio Manuel)
73. Hands To / Eric Lunde: split
74. Kevin Harrison: Inscrutably Obvious
75. Hula: Black Pop Workout
76. Hula: Cut From Inside
77. Hula: Fever Car
78. Hula: Murmur
79. Hula: Freeze Out
80. Hula: Get the Habit
81. Hula: Black Wall Blue
82. Hula: Poison
83. Hula: Cut Me Loose
84. Hula: VC1
85. Indoor Life: s/t
86. Linton Kwesi Johnson: A Cappella Live
87. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Bass Culture
88. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Dread Beat an’ Blood
89. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Making History
90. Kiss the Blade: The Party’s Begun
91. Kiss the Blade: Young Soldier
92. Hassisen Kone: Harsoinen Teräs
93. Korean Buddhist God: Magnum You
94. Korpses Katatonik: Sensitive Liberated Autistiks
95. Joachim Kuhn: Cinemascope
96. Der Künftige Musikan: Veitstanz
97. LAShTAL: Thoum Aesh Neith
98. Laddio Bolocko: Strange Warnings of Laddio Bolocko
99. Laddio Bolocko: The Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko
100. Leviathan: Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
101. Liquid Visions: Endless Plasmatic Childhood
102. Eric Lunde: V215
103. Eric Lunde: Witness to Disaster
104. M83: Saturdays = Youth
105. Magma: Trilogie Theusz Hamtaahk Live
106. The Master Musicians of Joujouka: recorded live in France
107. Merzbow & John Hudak: The Time Stream
108. Merzbow: Batzoutai With Material Gadgets
109. Merzbow: Lowest Music 2
110. Mesh: Claustrophobia
111. Meshuggah: obZen
112. Jeff Mills: Gamma Player, Volume 1: The Universe by Night
113. Misson of Burma: Signals, Calls, and Marches [2008 Matador reissue]
114. Mnemonists: Gyromancy
115. Mnemonists: Roto-Limbs
116. Mnemonists: Some Attributes of a Living System
117. Monos: Everyday Soundtracks
118. Monos: Generators
119. Monos: Window
120. Monoton: Monotonprodukt 02
121. Monoton: Monotonprodukt 07
122. Mr. Partridge: Take Away / The Lure of Salvage
123. Nailsleeper: Marching Dynamics
124. Neung Phak: Neung Phak (Mono Pause)
125. Kaiser Nietzsche: Non Plus Ultra
126. Hermann Nitsch: Klaviersonate für Arnulf Rainer
127. Gary Numan & Tubeway Army: Replicas Redux
128. Nurse With Wound: Steel Dream March of the Metal Men
129. OAD: Daytona
130. The Ocean: Precambrian
131. Ora: After Rainfall
132. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Dazzle Ships [2008 Telegraph remaster]
133. Jürgen Paape: Nord Nord-West
134. PBK: Shadows of Prophecy / In His Throes
135. Pearls Before Swine: The Complete ESP-Disk’ Recordings
136. Bob Pegg: Ancient Maps
137. Bob Pegg & Nick Strutt: The Ship Builder
138. Pekka Streng & Tasavalla Presidentti: Magneettimiehen Kuolema
139. PFN: Akasa / Für Cleo
140. Phallus Dei: Pontifex Maximus
141. Poison the Well: Versions
142. Portion Control: Simulate Sensual
143. Prag Vec: No Cowboys
144. Princess Tinymeat: Herstory: 1984-1986
145. Qua: Forgetabout
146. Qua: Painting Monsters on Clouds
147. The Raincoats: s/t
148. Jay Reatard: Blood Visions
149. Reyvision: The Sound Cage
150. Chas Rose: Child of the Universe
151. Jack Rose: Dr. Ragtime & Pals / Jack Rose
152. Rosetta: Wake / Lift
153. S·Core: A Great Lump
154. S·Core: A Jest of Nature
155. S·Core: Dross
156. S·Core: Dysphonia
157. S·Core: Finger Mark
158. S·Core: Morbid Moppets
159. S·Core: Shedder
160. S·Core: Tarnish
161. S·Core: Undersong
162. Rolf Schulz: Tambora
163. Adrian Sherwood: Becoming a Cliché / Dub Cliché
164. Sigillum S: Abstraction
165. Sigillum S: Dispersion: Sliced Carrions & Pixel Handcuffs
166. Sigillum S: Es Database Chronology
167. Sigillum S: Mutilated Terrorism
168. Sigillum S: Terror-Auto Obstetrics
169. Soap-Jo Henshi: s/t
170. Social Climbers: s/t
171. Somatic Responses: Augmented Lines
172. Somatic Responses: Circumflex
173. Somatic Responses: Pounded Mass
174. Somatic Responses: Touching the Void
175. La Sonorite Jaun: Heliae
176. La Sonorite Jaune & The Haters: The Interstellar Destroyed Music Mail Project
177. SPK: Dekompositiones
178. SPK: Live 7 June 1987 Theaterfabrik Manege, München
179. SPK: Oceania: In Performance 1987
180. Stars & Stips: Nevergreens
181. Suburban Lawns: Baby
182. Suburban Lawns: Gidget Goes to Hell
183. Supersister: Present From Nancy
184. Supersister: Spiral Staircase
185. Teddy & the Frat Girls: Audio Suicide
186. Test Dept. / Brith Gof: Gododdin
187. Steve Thomsen: Retrospective II
188. Steve Thomsen: Retrospective III
189. Throbbing Gristle: Discipline
190. Throbbing Gristle: Mission of Dead Souls: The Last Live Performance of TG
191. Throbbing Gristle: Subhuman
192. Throbbing Gristle: The First Annual Report
193. Throbbing Gristle: Throbbing Gristle Live: Volume 1 (1976-1978)
194. Throbbing Gristle: Throbbing Gristle Live: Volume 2 (1977-1978)
195. Throbbing Gristle: Throbbing Gristle Live: Volume 3 (1978-1979)
196. Throbbing Gristle: Throbbing Gristle Live: Volume 4 (1979-1980)
197. Torche: Torche [2005 original version]
198. Torche: Torche [2007 re-recorded version]
199. Torche: Meanderthal
200. The Vaselines: The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History
201. Vazz: Your Lungs and Your Tongue
202. Vendino Pact: s/t
203. Virgin Prunes: A New Form of Beauty
204. Virgin Prunes: Over the Rainbow
205. Virgin Prunes: …If I Die, I Die
206. Voigt/465: One Faint Deluded Smile
207. Vox Populi!: Half Dead Ganja Music
208. Warning: s/t
209. Trevor Wishart: Journey Into Space
210. Trevor Wishart: Red Bird / Anticredos
211. Xanopticon: Liminal Space
212. Yeast Culture: IYS
213. Yeast Culture: Rena Leica: The Exposition of Nothing
214. Yelle: Pop Up
215. Zanov: Green Ray
216. Zanov: In Course of Time
217. Zanov: Moebius
218. v/a: Alchemy
219. v/a: Angelica 91
220. v/a: Angelica 92
221. v/a: Anthology 1: Come Organisation Archives 1979-1981
222. v/a: Bogata, Luca & Richman: The Devil’s Trill
223. v/a: Dry Lungs
224. v/a: Dry Lungs II
225. v/a: Dry Lungs V
226. v/a: Freedom in a Vacuum
227. v/a: Fridge Freezer
228. v/a: Hands 2/3
229. v/a: La Mort Heureuse
230. v/a: Mutant Sounds Whacked-Out Singles: Volume 7
231. v/a: No Big Business
232. v/a: No Big Business 2
233. v/a: PS1 Volume: Bed of Sound
234. v/a: Project One
235. v/a: Trumpett Sounds

Courtesy of Joel Johnson, I found out that Paul Robertson has a new animation out. It’s a hearty 320MiB AVI file (I recommend downloading it via BitTorrent) and is a worthy sequel (this time in color) to Robertson’s indescribable masterpiece Pirate Baby Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006. To describe both videos as unholy apocalyptic freakouts is to do them inadequate justice; anyone who ever played Dodonpachi or Metal Slug X and felt that the boss battles just weren’t ridiculous enough needs to give this a look. It really makes former brainbursters like the Emergency Broadcast Network and Tetsuo: The Iron Man look tame. Impossibly dense seas of pixelated pop trash iconography flit by on torrents of blood at 30 hallucinatory, psychedelic frames per second; Paul is quite possibly the most skilled artist of Generation x-chan.

Integral to Robertson’s complex eschatological imagery is the soundtrack, both to Pirate Baby and (especially) to Kings of Power 4 Billion %, and fittingly enough, Robertson gives full credit to the soundtrack’s creator, Cornel Wilczek. Wilczek really goes balls-out on this one, producing disjointed industrial prog-metal electronica that wanders between amped up Clark and something like a more traditionally death metal version of Meshuggah. The guitars are a little rudimentary, but occasionally reach for a sort of Robert Fripp lunacy that, combined with the rest of the swampy, dense electronic mix and the eyeball-searing, brain-violating visuals creates a pure gestalt, a solid block of crushed and compacted pop culture that requires time, attention, and no predisposition towards epilepsy to decode.

Wilczek and Robertson are a natural team, and for a case study that is slanted more towards the Wilczek side of things, check out Devil Eyes. Left to his own devices, Wilczek has a much more pastoral folktronic sound, equally reminiscent of the aforementioned Clark and Dwayne Sodahberk’s second, superior album. Combined with Robertson’s sterile, disturbing vision of supercute zombies filtered through Alien Syndrome, the work as a whole strikes me as deeply melancholic and curiously affecting. There is no subject in these videos, only objects, and it strikes me that Robertson incidentally accomplishes what eluded Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick in AI (a movie that would itself work much better without dialogue): an evocation of a world where only our toys survive to carry out a degenerate pantomime of conscious existence.

(On a tangential note, for another, very different example of someone using gamer and anime culture to produce deeply personal pixel art, check out Jennifer Diane Reitz’s Unicorn Jelly. Almost nobody takes me seriously when I make this recommendation, but if you can get past the somewhat slow and obtuse beginning, you’re in for a novelistic experience of incomparable metaphysical depth. It’s very user-unfriendly, but it genuinely changed me, which is more than I can say for almost any other webcomic.)

I’m so metal that instead of being out tonight getting shithammered (y’know, like I usually do), I’m sitting at home listening to Korpiklaani sing Finnish drinking songs while I rip the Black Sabbath box set (found a cheap copy of it used, as well as picking up the new Meshuggah and Sir Richard Bishop’s While My Guitar Violently Bleeds at Amoeba) and randomly sticking Bjork’s name into Bonnie Tyler lyrics. It’s a party, y’all!

The problem with drinking from a firehose is that sometimes you asplode. This just happened to me, and I’m trying to deal with it by sharing my total insanity with you, the semi-random passersby on the internet.

As I’ve mentioned several times, I recently discovered the awe-inspiring zombie amusement park that is Blogspot’s coterie of MP3 blogs. I’d never really paid them much attention before, because most of my exposure to MP3 blogs had been through dodgy Eastern European metal blogs that were dedicated to scene rips of upcoming releases, and I’m really not all that into pissing all over the people who make my favorite music, which is basically what these blogs are all about (somebody has to pay for music, somehow, if it’s going to continue to be made).

However, Mutant Sounds and its brethren opened my eyes to the vast amount of music that exists in a twilit state with respect to copyright; thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act™, most of the recordings shared via these blogs won’t be public domain until the end of this century – if ever – yet the vast majority of this material can be had neither via love, money, nor diligent browsing of GEMM. Most of the artists involved really don’t seem to care, as the bloggers are all pretty careful to avoid posting material that is readily available, and in some cases the creators send the blog owners better-quality recordings of their own material to replace inferior rips.

It didn’t help that one of the first of these blogs I discovered, dualtrack, has posted nearly every record I deeply coveted between 1989 and 1992. I sometimes forget that I got my start as a major music nerd through RE/Search’s Industrial Culture Handbook, but when I was learning about this stuff, I was also your average broke college kid and therefore could only read about these records in The Ooze’s monthly new-releases newsletter, saving up for stuff I really, really wanted, like :zoviet*france: reissues on CD or the occasional bizarre overindulgence. Now that I’m all grown up, most of those records, CDs and cassettes are beyond gone, appearing only in Amoeba’s used bins or on eBay (sometimes for plainly hurtful prices). It was with delight bordering on awe that I discovered that almost all of these records I’d been searching for for many, many years were freely available, generally with high-quality scans of the included artwork.

So, armed with a not entirely flimsy rationalization, a sense of burning need, and a month’s Premium subscription to Rapidshare, I went completely bonkers. Most of the stuff on this list came from either dualtrack, The Thing on the Doorstep, No Longer Forgotten Music, Rusted Noise, Mutant Sounds, Phoenix Hairpins, Boomkat, Amoeba and Other Music Digital. (NOTE TO RECORD LABEL FOLK: My copy of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black is on a shiny aluminized plastic platter purchased new from Amoeba Records, with the latest lame cover art you have chosen for it. The original cover art was much nicer. Thank you for your attention.) A lot of it I even bought, as I took this opportunity to fill in long-standing gaps in my collection. As you can see, it would take me a very long time to even summarize what’s here, so I’m going to leave that to other postings. Suffice it to say that just about every weird kind of music you can imagine, and some you probably can’t (the Masstishaddhu record, in particular, defies description to anyone who hasn’t already heard it).

It’s going to take me weeks to listen to all this stuff, much less comprehend it. There’s a lot of amazing, weird and profound music in here.

1. ABGS: Werkbeschallung: Live
2. Abwärts: Amok Koma
3. Gunter Adler: Minute Music
4. Gunter Adler: Polysyntetica
5. Gunter Adler: The Silver Book
6. Ain Soph: Kshatriya
7. Alpha Omega: Electronic Mind Project
8. Au Revoir Simone: The Bird of Music
9. Autonomic Computing: Mutantextures
10. Henry Badowski: Life is a Grand
11. Erykah Badu: New Amerykah, Part 1: 4th World War
12. Biochemical Dread: Bush Doctrine
13. Biota: Rackabones / Vagabones
14. Bipol: Ritual
15. Black Sun Ensemble: Black Sun Ensemble
16. Blacworld: Subduing Demons (In South Yorkshire)
17. Burning Witch: Crippled Lucifer
18. Monte Cazazza: To Mom on Mother’s Day / Candy Man
19. C-Schulz: 7. Party Disco
20. C-Schulz: 10. Hose Horn
21. Chrome: Alien Soundtracks
22. Chrome: Half Machine Lip Moves
23. Chrome: 3rd from the Sun
24. Chrystal Belle Scrodd: The Inevitable Chrystal Belle Scrodd Record
25. Coil / Zos Kia: Transparent
26. Cold Sun: Dark Shadows
27. Cosey Fanni Tutti: Time to Tell
28. Cranioclast: A Con Cristal
29. Cranioclast: Koitlaransk / Ration Skalk
30. Crash Worship: This
31. Crawling Chaos: Sex Machine / Berlin
32. Helios Creed: X-Rated Fairy Tales / Superior Catholic Finger
33. Crispy Ambulance: From the Cradle to the Grave
34. Crispy Ambulance: Live on a Hot August Night
35. Crispy Ambulance: Sexus
36. Crispy Ambulance: The Plateau Phase
37. Crispy Ambulance: Unsightly and Serene
38. Crispy Ambulance: Live at the ICA
39. Current 93 & HÖH: Crowleymass
40. Current 93 / Nurse With Wound: Mi-Mort
41. Daft Punk: Alive 2007
42. Danava: UnonoU
43. Danielle Dax: Pop-Eyes
44. Danielle Dax: Jesus Egg That Wept
45. Danielle Dax: Inky Bloaters
46. Danielle Dax: The Janice Long Session
47. Danielle Dax: Comatose Non Reaction: The Thwarted Pop Career
48. Amy Denio: No Bones
49. Dead Meadow: Old Growth
50. Dethklok: The Dethalbum
51. Die Form / Asmus Tietchens: Face to Face, Volume 1
52. Die Form: Duality
53. DF Sadist School: Les Cent Vingt Journées de Sodome
54. Doxa Sinistra: Via del Latte
55. Drowning Craze: Trance / I Love the Fjords
56. Frankie Dymon, Jr.: Let It Out
57. Earth: The Bee Made Honey In The Lions Skull
58. Einstürzende Neubauten: Kollaps
59. Einstürzende Neubauten: Zeichnungen des Patienten OT
60. Elohim: A L’Aube Du Verseau
61. Erste Weibliche Fleischergesellin Nach 1945: Ferien Auf Dem Lande
62. Étant Donnés: Aurore
63. Étant Donnés: L’eclipse
64. Étant Donnés: Re-Up
65. Etat Brut: Mutations et Protheses
66. Exterminator: Anna Blume
67. Factrix: Empire of Passion
68. Factrix: Scheintot
69. Fanzine: 1980
70. Fanzine: 1981
71. Fanzine: 1982
72. File Under Pop: Heathrow
73. Brigitte Fontaine & Areski: L’incendie
74. Brigitte Fontaine & Art Ensemble of Chicago: Comme à la Radio
75. Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle: Telinehmende Beobachtung
76. The Fugs: First Album
77. The Fugs: Second Album
78. BC Gilbert & G Lewis: Ends With the Sea
79. The Gothic Archies: The Tragic Treasury: Songs from “A Series of Unfortunate Events”
80. Bruce Haack: Electric Lucifer: Book 2
81. Bruce Haack: The Electric Lucifer
82. Hanadensha: Acoustic Mothership
83. Hanadensha: Astral Pigmy Wave
84. Hanadensha: Doobie Shining Love
85. Hip Hop Pantsula: YBA 2 NW
86. Lars Hollmer: Fran Natt Idag
87. Lars Hollmer: Vill Du Höra Mer
88. Lars Hollmer: XII Sibirska Cyklar
89. Hoola Bandoola Band: Fri Information
90. Hoola Bandoola Band: Garanterate Individuell
91. Hoola Bandoola Band: På Väg
92. Hoola Bandoola Band: Vem Kan Man Lita På?
93. The Horrorist: Attack Decay
94. The Human League: Being Boiled
95. The Human League: The Dignity of Labour
96. Hunting Lodge: Tribal Warning Shot
97. In the Woods…: Three by Seven on a Pilgrimage
98. Islaja: Meritie
99. Kallabris: Considération sur / sous lé café
100. Richard H Kirk: Darkness at Noon
101. Richard H Kirk: Disposable Half-Truths
102. Kotazo: Papy Mbavu / Papa Komanda
103. Korpiklaani: Korven Kuningas
104. Korpiklaani: Spirit of the Forest
105. Korpiklaani: Voice of Wilderness
106. Lava: Tears Are Goin’ Home
107. Thomas Leer & Robert Rental: The Bridge
108. Lemon Kittens: Spoonfed and Writhing
109. Lemon Kittens: The Big Dentist
110. Lemon Kittens: We Buy a Hammer for Daddy
111. Lesbian: Power Hor
112. Liquid Sound Company: Exploring the Psychedelic
113. Machinic Indices: Untitled Kompositions
114. Malombra: Malombra
115. Masstishaddhu: Shekinah
116. Men/Eject: Men/Eject
117. Metabolist: Drömm
118. Metabolist: Hansten Klork
119. Metabolist: Identify
120. The Metronomes: Regular Guys
121. Mimir: Mimir
122. Mimir: Mimyriad
123. Mnemonists: Biota
124. Mnemonists: Horde
125. Moctan: Suspect
126. Morphogenesis: Prochronisms
127. Mysticum: In the Streams of Inferno
128. nEGAPADRÉS.3.3: nEGAPADRÉS.3.3
129. Joanna Newsom: Walnut Whales
130. Joanna Newsom: Yarn and Glue
131. Nocturnal Emissions: Spiritflesh
132. Non: Mode of Infection / Knife Ladder
133. Nurse With Wound / Spasm: Creakiness / Firemoon
134. Nurse With Wound / Termite Queen: Nurse With Wound / Termite Queen
135. Nurse With Wound / Organum: A Missing Sense / Rasa
136. Nurse With Wound: A Sucked Orange
137. Nurse With Wound: Brained by Falling Masonry
138. Nurse With Wound: Crocodile Krazy Glue
139. Nurse With Wound: The Musty Odour of Pierced Rectums
140. Opal: Early Recordings 2
141. Orchestra Terrestrial: Here and Elsewhere
142. Organum: Horii
143. Organum: Ikon
144. Organum: Sphyx
145. Organum: Tower of Silence
146. Michael O’Shea: Michael O’Shea
147. La Otracina: Fauna & Animated Floral Arrangements
148. P16.D4: Distruct
149. P16.D4: Kühe in 1/2 Trauer
150. Penumbra: Skandinavien
151. Permutative Distorsion: Brückenkopf im Niemandsland
152. Pitch Black Afro: Split Endz
153. Eddie Prévost / Organum: Flayed / Crux
154. Problemist: 9 Times Sanity
155. Project 197: IP001
156. Pseudo Code: Europa
157. Psychic TV: Allegory & Self
158. Psychic TV: Dreams Less Sweet
159. Psychic TV: Force Thee Hand ov Chance / Blinded Eye in Thee Pyramid
160. Psychic TV: Mouth of the Night
161. Psychic TV: NY Scum
162. Punch Inc.: Fightclub
163. The Raveonettes: Lust Lust Lust
164. Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
165. Steve Reich: Tehellim & The Desert Music
166. Steve Reich: Triple Quartet
167. Steve Reich: You Are (Variations) / Cello Counterpoint
168. Robert Rental: On Location / Double Heart
169. The Residents: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
170. The Residents: Commercial Single
171. Graeme Revell: The Insect Musicians
172. The Revolving Paint Dream: Flowers in the Sky: The Enigma of the Revolving Paint Dream
173. Boyd Rice and Friends: Music, Martinis & Misanthropy
174. Salon Music: La Paloma Show
175. Sandoz: In Dub: Chapter Two / Extra Time (Under the Stones)
176. Shock Headed Peters: I, Bloodbrother Be
177. Shock Headed Peters: The Kissing of Gods
178. Sielwolf: IV
179. Sielwolf: Nachtstrom
180. Sielwolf: V - Remixes
181. Sigillum S: 23|20
182. Sigillum S: Bardo Thos-Grol
183. Sigillum S: Studs and Divinity
184. Sixth Comm: Grey Years
185. Smegma: 33 1/3
186. SPK: Slogun / Meccano
187. SPK: Live At Garibaldi’s, 1979
188. SPK: Information Overload Unit
189. SPK: Auto Da Fe
190. SPK: Leichenschrei
191. SPK: Angst Pop: Live
192. SPK: From Science to Ritual
193. SPK: Human Post Mortem (Despair OST)
194. SPK: Live at Pandora’s Music Box
195. SPK: Live at the Crypt
196. SPK: No More
197. SPK: Off the Deep End
198. SPK: See-Saw / Chamber Musik
199. SPK: The Last Attempt at Paradise: Live in Lawrence, Kansas
200. SPK: Wars of Islam: Live in Rome
201. SPK: Machine Age Voodoo
202. SPK: Metal Dance / Will to Power
203. SPK: In Flagrante Delicto
204. SPK: Zamia Lehmanni
205. SPK: Gold & Poison
206. SPK: Compilation Tracks (2nd version)
207. Snakefinger: Manual of Errors
208. Snakefinger: Chewing Hides the Sound
209. Snakefinger: Greener Posters
210. Sol Invictus: Lex Talionis
211. Somatic Responses: Digital Darkness
212. Spektr: Mescalyne
213. Sun Ra: HelioCentric Worlds, Volumes 1 & 2
214. Sweet Exorcist: Spirit Guide to Low Tech
215. Symphonique Elegance: Act One
216. Syrup Girls vs Sick Girls: Shotgun Wedding, Volume 8
217. Teenage Jesus & The Jerks: Orphans / Less of Me
218. Thick Pigeon: Thick Pigeon
219. Throbbing Gristle: AR-TT-010
220. Throbbing Gristle: United
221. Throbbing Gristle: DOA: The Third and Final Report
222. Throbbing Gristle: Adrenaline
223. Throbbing Gristle: 20 Jazz Funk Greats
224. Throbbing Gristle: Nothing Short of a Total War
225. Throbbing Gristle: Rafters
226. Throbbing Gristle: CD1
227. Tools You Can Trust: Again Again Again
228. Tools You Can Trust: Say It Low
229. Tools You Can Trust: Sharpen the Tools
230. Trop Tard: Ils etaient 9 dans L’obscurite
231. Tuxedomoon: Dark Companion / 59 To 1 Remix
232. Tuxedomoon: Desire / No Tears
233. Tuxedomoon: What Use? / Crash
234. Tuxedomoon: Joe Boy The Electric Ghost / Pinheads on the Move
235. Tuxedomoon: Une Nuit au Fond de la Frayére / Egypt
236. Tuxedomoon: Scream with a View
237. Tuxedomoon: Half-Mute / Scream With a View
238. Tuxedomoon: Ship of Fools
239. Tuxedomoon: The Ghost Sonata
240. Týr: Ragnarok
241. Ultravox: Slow Motion
242. Vas Deferens Organization: Zyzzybaloubah
243. Verhören: Death is Safe
244. Vidna Obmana: Noise / Drone Anthology 1984-1989
245. Virgin Prunes: Heresie
246. Von Zamla: No Make Up!
247. Vox Populi! / HNAS: Face to Face, Volume 2
248. Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
249. Xasthur: A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors
250. Damien Youth: Festival of Death
251. Damien Youth: Fluttering Briar
252. Damien Youth: The Man Who Invented God
253. Z’ev: Elemental Music
254. Z’ev: Salts of Heavy Metals
255. Stefan Weisser: Poextensions
256. Zahgurim: Moral Rearmament
257. Zero Kama: The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H.
258. Zos Kia Meets Sugardog: That’s Heavy Baby
259. v/a: 2005 Hands
260. v/a: 4 in 1
261. v/a: Ach Hanover
262. v/a: Angst in My Pants
263. Alban Berg / Anton Webern / Arnold Schoenberg / James Levine / Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra: Orchestral Pieces
264. v/a: Can You Hear Me? Music from The Deaf Club
265. v/a: Colorado
266. v/a: Dada > Antidada > Merz
267. v/a: Devastate to Liberate
268. v/a: Dokument: Ten Highlights in the History Of Popular Music, 1982-1983
269. v/a: Earthly Delights
270. v/a: The Elephant Table Album
271. v/a: Er Ist Tief Und Dein Wasser Ist Dunkel
272. v/a: Feature Mist
273. v/a: Fluxus Anthology
274. v/a: Für Ilse Koch
275. v/a: A Gnomean Haigonaimean: A Compilation of Fantasies Intoxication Concepts
276. v/a: Gut Level One
277. v/a: Hare / Hunter / Field
278. v/a: Harmony of the Spheres
279. v/a: Hate’s Our Belief
280. v/a: Iberico
281. v/a: Internationalism
282. v/a: The Last Supper
283. v/a: Machines
284. v/a: Masse Mensch
285. v/a: Palatine: The Factory Story
286. v/a: Passage du Trou Marin
287. v/a: Perpetual State of Oracular Dream
288. v/a: Riposte
289. v/a: A Selection
290. v/a: Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus
291. v/a: The Virus Has Been Spread: A D-Trash Records Tribute To Atari Teenage Riot

Cardiacs are one of the best things ever. Back in 2006, I seriously considered making a weekend visit to London to see them play one of their legendary live shows at the Astoria, and only didn’t go because London is 8 time zones away from San Francisco, last-minute plane tickets would have been hideously expensive, and the shows sold out in like a day anyway. They are the greatest. For real. Unless you hate things that are fun, or never liked The Pixies or King Crimson or Queen or Sparks or any of a million other weird bands that are also fun. They are OBJECTIVELY GOOD.

So it is with considerable delight that I point out that Mutant Sounds has posted a rip of their nearly impossible to find debut cassette, The Obvious Identity. Some of this material was released on the (almost as hard to find) Archive compilation from five or six years ago, but it’s different when it’s all in its original setting. These songs sound a billion times more primitive than the refined mayhem found on Guns and Sing to God, but they do have their own weird allure, falling somewhere between Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Oingo Boingo and Madness.

I could spend all night writing about how great these guys are, but instead download the rip, listen to the free downloads on the Alphabet Business Concern’s pages for Cardiacs, and then engage in the not-at-all torturous process of trying to convince Tim Smith to sell you his music. He and his band deserve your money, but he sure doesn’t make it easy for people to give it to him.

I know some music nerds who seem to live to amass a hoard. They, like me, have stacks of CDs covering every flat surface, and connive to find ways to fit more CDs into more places in their houses. Most of them share a problem in common, and that problem is one I try very hard to avoid: they’ve lost track of what they’ve acquired, and it’s entirely likely they have a big pile of music scattered around that they’ve never heard.

That sort of thing makes me itch. Music is a thing to hear and to experience, not to collect and sit on like Smaug, the greedy dragon from The Hobbit, was with his stolen gold. Since I’m not a professional critic, I pay for my music myself, and music claims the biggest share of my disposable income. If I buy music, I want to get my money’s worth out of it.

One of the most useful side effects of ripping my entire CD collection was that it gave me tools for tracking information about what, when and where I buy music, and helps me make sure that I actually hear everything I buy. I make heavy use of iTunes’ smart playlists to help me give equal time to my collection, and one of the main things that drove me to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro was that iTunes was getting so bogged down in dealing with the hundreds of playlists I’ve created that it was taking minutes (literally) to do trivial tasks, and syncing my iPod was taking half an hour each time.

These tools come with their own problems, though, which is that periodically I get overwhelmed by buying too much new music at once. It happens. I don’t really have a list of new releases I want, because for at least the last ten years I can walk into and out of a record store in under a half hour having spent an uncomfortable amount of money and not having to look too hard to find a big pile of stuff I absolutely must have right now. As I gradually make the transition to buying music online, resisting the temptation of immediate gratification only gets harder.

So last year I came up with a solution to the problem, which was yet another set of smart playlists that I used to create a music budget. Capping my spending on music isn’t really a concern to me, at least right now: I’ve got a good job, no car and few vices aside from music shopping. No, really it was about trying to make sure that I wasn’t buying more music than I could get to know. After looking at my listening habits over time (something for which last.fm is extremely helpful), I decided about 24 hours a month was a good cap.

The idea is a good one, and it’s definitely helped, but I’ve also blown the budget more often than not (I’ve also come in way under budget a few months, in part to balance out the months where I get out of hand).

It is my sad duty to report to the world at large that January 2008 was not a good one for my music budget, as I added, um, 3.5 days’ worth of new music to my iPod. Oops. Even after last night’s Amazon & Interpunk orgy, I ended up downloading these releases from Bleep and Boomkat after Bleep suddenly fixed my Clark order:

• Clark: Throttle Promoter (Warp)
• Amon Tobin: Kitchen Sink: Remixes (Ninja Tune)
• Autechre: Untilted (Warp)
• Autechre: Draft 7.30 (Warp)
• Autechre: Quaristice (Warp)
• KTL: KTL 3 (Mego)
• Æthenor: Deep in Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light (vhf)

For somebody who used to claim he didn’t like Sunn(((O))))) very much, I sure do have a lot of their side projects. And now my Autechre collection is complete again. But either way, I’m sort of hoping I can ease up for a month or two, both so I can assimilate all the new stuff I’ve gotten, and so I can make some progress in listening through my collection, which is what I’m supposed to be doing for this blog.

Like I promised, I tracked down those two Ganglion records. It wasn’t that tough; I just had to find their MySpace page and then follow that to their Interpunk page. Interpunk’s price schedule for shipping is kind of jacked for small orders, so I hunted around and ended up picking up a few other things (including a Drowningman album I didn’t have, with its requisitely smartassed song titles – one of which, in turn, provided the title for this post). They included a free label sampler, as is their way, but I’m not very hopeful that anything other than the No Trigger song will be any good.

While I was at it, I bought this album I discovered through Mutant Sounds, because I was really enjoying it and the MP3s linked from Mutant Sounds sound like crap. And I grabbed two more Dan Deacon releases, which I may end up regretting (song titles like “Shit Slowly Applied On Cock Parts” do not prefigure happy fun-time easy listening), but I love Spiderman of the Rings, and maybe naming things just isn’t his strong suit: another song is named “ksjfhgljkhertykjlehgskjhkjvhda”. (I bought these three using Amazon’s MP3 store, which is scarily easy to use, in case anyone’s curious.)

Finally, I grabbed these crappily encoded MP3s of Steve Albini recording demos for Fugazi because Cosmo’s description was interesting.

So here’s the newest grist for the mill:

• Dan Deacon: Meetle Mice (Carpark)
• Dan Deacon: Silly Hat vs Egale (sic) Hat (Carpark)
• Fugazi: In on the Kill Taker [Steve Albini demos] (bootleg)
• Ganglion: Of the Deep (self-released)
• Ganglion: As Steel Takes to Flesh (self-released)
• Drowningman: Don’t Push Us When We’re Hot (Thorp)
• Last Perfection: Drawing Conclusions (United Edge)
• Shizzo Flamingos: Years Passed By 83-85 (Fuego)
• Supermachiner: θριαμβος της μεγαλης μηχανης (Undecided)
• v/a: New School Records: Summer Sampler 2007 (New School)

In the alternate world where thudding European techno is (still) being dropped on heaving, roiling dancefloors in American Legion halls in small towns across the Midwest and every major city has a Technodrome right next to the basketball coliseum expelling crowds of sweat-soaked, euphoric clubbers every Sunday morning, Clark’s “Volcan Veins” (released today on his new album, Turning Dragon, on Warp) is entering the charts at #1, where it will tenaciously hang for the next six weeks. Good gravy, I didn’t think anyone was still making music like this. Sounding like nothing so much as an exceedingly messy yet propulsive blend of Jackson at his nastiest and Speedy J’s from-out-of-nowhere heavy techno flawed-masterpiece Loudboxer, “Veins” also reminds me of Neil Landstrumm’s “Gigolos Trapped in Retro Hell”, Kiki’s “Gas126” and some of User’s more alarming Moroder-on-bathtub-speed disco loops. Which is to say that it’s a grainy, oversaturated chunk of High NRG disco-loop fury, and is exactly the sort of thing that makes me regret having hung up my slipmats. This is some seriously whacked-out dancefloor business and it ends the only way it could – by collapsing into a murky black hole of distortion and echoes.

Don’t believe me? Listen to the second track in this album sampler. I already tried to buy the whole album through Bleep (the samples make it sound fucking fantastic, but I sort of expect that from Clark at this point – his last album, Body Riddle, was a nearly flawless slab of loud bedroom techno), but they sent me a ZIP file containing only the liner notes. Thanks, guys.

Writing this blog is leading me into interesting terrain, as this recent batch of additions to my library shows:

• The second half of Mordant Music's The Tower has been banging its way into my head far enough to make me take a leap of faith and buy the rest of their diverse and aggressively eccentric catalog.
• I realized that I was entitled to download a bunch of Severed Heads' Op series outtakes due to having bought Op 2 a while ago, so I grabbed those.
• Talking about Surgeon's awesome DJ sets reminded me to check his site to see if he had a more recent set than the ones I have, and indeed he did.
• Finally, I've been accumulating a pile of crud from Mutant Sounds, so I added all that to my iPod so I could get to know it better. There is some amazing music that's been dug out of obscurity by that blog:
  • Tappi Tíkarrass, Björk's first foray into the post-punk sound that she refined in Kukl and the Sugarcubes, before she decided to become the most avant garde pop star ever;
  • a bunch of long out of print Hirsche Nacht aufs Sofas (HNAS) records from a parallel universe where Nurse With Wound were actually German, instead of merely being obsessive fans of Krautrock;
  • a whole pile of European art-damaged gothic post punk (Claustrofobia, Dark White, Epitaphe, Tango Luger);
  • some early records by the fucking tremendous Wall of Voodoo, whose Call of the West combines the miserably American, empathy-drenched humanity of Raymond Carver or Robert Stone with Ennio Morricone's expansive sound and Kraftwerk's electronic pulse – anyone who thinks the Wall of Voodoo story starts and ends with "Mexican Radio" is very much missing out;
  • a couple completely sui generis Japanese electronic / prog / jazz / avant garde records from the 70s, one of which was a collaboration between most of Yellow Magic Orchestra and the one Japanese Pop artist whose work I know well (Tadonori Yokoo – there was a semi-exhaustive survey of his work up at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo when I was there);
  • and a pile of random singles from the Mutant Sounds archives, including an awesomely out of character John Duncan track and a deeply weird couple of tracks by Duppi, a Japanese band I'd never heard of and will probably never hear from again. Mutant Sounds is so awesome that there's no way it's going to last.

Here's the full list. I've appended links to sources for most everything. Downloading the albums posted by Mutant Sounds requires you to deal with quasi-filesharing services like Rapidshare, Zshare, Bodongo and Megaupload; these services' wack-assed stabs at business models make getting at the archives a pain, but I assure you that if you like boundary-pushing music, it's worth jumping through the requisite hoops. A lot of this stuff is begging to be put back into print, if only by somebody like Hyped2Death.

• Claustrofobia: Arrebato (Fobia) [ms]
• Dark White: The Grey Area (private) [ms]
• Epitaphe: Syndrome (private) [ms]
• HNAS: Melchior (United Dairies / DOM) [ms]
• HNAS: Music für Schuhgeschafte (Dragnet) [ms]
• HNAS: Willkür Nach Noten (Dragnet) [ms]
• Haruomi Hosono & Tadanori Yokoo: Cochin Moon (King) [se]
• Mordant Music: Baud With You / Shot Away (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Carrion Squared (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Dead Air (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Fallen Faces / Dead Air (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Filthy Danceheng (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Petri-Dish (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: The Tower: Parts I-XVII (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Mordant Music: Travelogues: A Beautiful Vesta (Mordant Music) [bk]
• Severed Heads: Op 1 (sevcom)
• Severed Heads: Op 2.3 (sevcom)
• Severed Heads: Op 2.9 (sevcom)
• Surgeon: Neck Face (www.dj-surgeon.com)
• Tango Luger: s/t (Invisible) [ms]
• Tappi Tíkarrass: Bítið Fast í Vítið (Spor) [ms]
• Tappi Tíkarrass: Miranda (Gramm) [ms]
• Wall of Voodoo: Ring of Fire / The Morricone Themes (Index) [ms]
• Wall of Voodoo: Two Songs by Wall of Voodoo (Index) [ms]
• Wall of Voodoo: Wall of Voodoo (Index) [ms]
• Tsutsui Yasutaka & Yamashita Yosuke: IE (Fiasco) [ms]
• whacked-out singles from the Mutant Sounds archives:
  • Drinking Electricity: Shaking All Over / China (pop:aural)
  • Duppi: Velvet Night / はつねつのみやこ (Night Gallery)
  • Électric Max Band: Mick and Max / Knives, Feathers and Fire (Reprise)
  • Electro Static Cat: Lethologica (Freedom in a Vacuum)
  • Eskaton: Musique Post-Atomique (Eskaton)
  • John Duncan / Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heemann: The Elgaland-Vargaland National Anthem / Old Hive (Die Stadt)
  • Kevin Dunn: Nadine / Oktyabriana (dB Records)
  • v/a: Earcom 3 (Fast Product)