El estupor se hizo mármol...

Spacemen 3 How the Blues Should've Turned Out

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:22:00 +0000

Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia" (Stephen Erlewine, AllMusic). Spacemen 3 came to prominence on the independent music scene around 1989, gaining a cult following. However, they disbanded shortly afterwards, releasing their final studio album posthumously in 1991 after an acrimonious split. They gained a reputation as a ‘drug band’ due to the members’ drug taking habits and the candid interviews and outspoken views of Kember about recreational drug use. Kember and Pierce were the only members common to all line-ups of the band. Pierce has enjoyed considerable success with his subsequent band, Spiritualized. Spacemen 3 were sometimes compared to Loop, much to Kember's annoyance.

Sonically, Spacemen 3's music was characterised by fuzzy and distorted electric guitars, stuttering tremolo effects and wah-wah, the employment of 'power chords' and simple riffs, harmonic overtones and drones, softly sung/spoken vocals, and sparse or monolithic drumming. Their earlier record releases were guitar 'heavy', sounding Stooges-esque and "a bit like a punked-up garage rock band" (Stephen Erlewine, AllMusic); whilst their later work was mostly sparser and softer with more textural techniques and augmented by organs, resulting in "their signature trance-like neo-psychedelia" (Stephen Erlewine, AllMusic). Kember described it as "very hypnotic and minimal; every track has a drone all the way through it".

Spacemen 3 were adherent's to the "minimal is maximal" philosophy of Alan Vega. This minimalist musical approach typically represented compositions consisting of the repetition of simple riffs based around the progression of only two or three chords, or simply using just one chord. Kember has articulated the maxim: "One chord best, two chords cool, three chords okay, four chords average".

Spacemen 3 had the dictum "taking drugs to make music". In interviews, Kember often stated the importance of recreational drug use in his lifestyle and in inspiring his and Pierce's song-writing. Kember candidly admitted to his frequent drug taking - including cannabis, LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA, amphetamine and cocaine - and being a former heroin addict. Much of Spacemen 3's music concerned documenting the drug experience and conveying the related feelings. In NME's 2011 list, the '50 Druggiest Albums' of all-time, Spacemen 3's Northampton Demos release, Taking Drugs to Take Music to Take Drugs..., was ranked #23.

Kember was a keen record collector from the of age of 11 or 12; some of the first records he purchased included albums by The Velvet Underground. Pierce: "When I was 14, I bought The Stooges’ Raw Power and I listened to nothing but that for a year". Spacemen 3's early gig posters would often make explicit references to their sound being inspired by The Stooges, The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones. In 1988, Kember said, "Groups like Suicide or the MC5 are like my favorite stuff in the world". Pierce said, "Early on, we were listening to The Stooges, then came Suicide, then we’d start listening to Sun Ra, and pick up on all these lateral threads that ran between them".

Spacemen 3 were "fanatical musical magpies". In addition to the Protopunk of New York's The Velvet Underground and Suicide, and Detroit’s The Stooges and MC5, Kember's and Pierce's musical influences included: US 60s Psychedelic rock, such as The Thirteenth Floor Elevators; US 60s Garage rock; 60s British Invasion bands; Rock n' Roll; Buddy Holly; Surf music; The Beach Boys; early, seminal Electronic music, e.g. Silver Apples, Delia Derbyshire and Laurie Anderson; Krautrock; The Gun Club, The Cramps and Tav Falco’s Panther Burns; early Chicago blues, e.g. Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf; early Delta blues; gospel and early Staple Singers; Otis Reading; the production techniques of Brian Wilson, Joe Meek and Phil Spector; and the avant-garde jazz and free jazz of Sun Ra and John Coltrane.

Spacemen 3 recorded and performed numerous covers and re-workings of other band's songs, particularly earlier on in their history, and this was indicative of their influences. Examples include songs by the following bands and artists: The Stooges, MC5, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Roky Erikson, The Red Krayola, Glenn Campbell (of The Misunderstood), The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Suicide, Bo Diddley, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, The Yardbirds, and The Sonics. The song "Hey Man" (a.k.a. "Amen") is based on a Gospel traditional. The song "Come Down Easy" is derivative of a Blues traditional. Spacemen 3 performed an instrumental song live with a pronounced Bo Diddley style rhythm, dubbed "Bo Diddley Jam". The Spacemen 3 song "Suicide" was a clear acknowledgement of one of their influences: when performed live it was usually introduced as "this song is dedicated to Martin Rev and Alan Vega – Suicide".

Kember was also interested in drone music and everyday ambient sounds such as those created by electric razors, washing machines, lawnmowers, planes, motor engines and passing cars.

Wikipedia

Tom Waits Tales from the underground

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:53:00 +0000

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona.

Godspeed You ! B. E. Yanqui U.X.O.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:30:00 +0000

Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994. They were the first outside act to release their recordings through Constellation, an influential independent record label also located in Montreal.

After the release of their debut album in 1997, the group toured regularly from 1998 to 2002. In 2003, the band announced an indefinite hiatus in order for band members to pursue other musical interests. In the intervening period the group was occasionally rumored to have broken up,but the band finally reconvened for a tour in late 2010 and early 2011.

The band took its name from God Speed You! Black Emperor, a 1976 Japanese black-and-white documentary by director Mitsuo Yanagimachi, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors.

Although various members of the band are often pinned down as anarchists, no one in the band has explicitly subscribed to this label;however, there is a strong political component to the band's music.For example, the liner notes to Yanqui U.X.O. describe the song "09-15-00" as "Ariel Sharon surrounded by 1,000 Israeli soldiers marching on al-Haram Ash-Sharif & provoking another Intifada," and the back cover of that album depicts the relationships of several major record labels to the military-industrial complex.

It was produced and recorded by musician Steve Albini at the Electrical Audio in Chicago, Illinois in late 2001.

Lacking both the group's characteristic interwoven field recordings and specifically named movements, the recording was instead described by the band as "just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock."

Yanqui U.X.O is the band's most divided record critically. While some, such as Allmusic,praised the release as the group's finest album yet, others, like Pitchfork Media, derided it for its "sluggishness and a lack of invention."

Kort Incredibly Lonely

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:09:00 +0000

Kort - Incredibly Lonely (Live in Paris) from zack spiger on Vimeo.

Beach House Lover of mine

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:29:00 +0000

Wire On Returning 1977-1979

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:26:00 +0000

Wire is an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed (drums). They were originally associated with the punk rock scene, appearing on the Live at the Roxy WC2 album—a key early document of the scene—and were later central to the development of post-punk.

Inspired by the burgeoning UK punk scene, Wire is often cited as one of the more important rock groups of the 1970s and 1980s. Critic Stewart Mason writes, "Over their brilliant first three albums, Wire expanded the sonic boundaries of not just punk, but rock music in general."

Wire is arguably a definitive art punk or post-punk ensemble, mostly due to their richly detailed and atmospheric sound, often obscure lyrical themes and, to a lesser extent, their Situationist political stance. The group exhibited a steady development from an early raucous punk style (1977's Pink Flag) to a more complex, structured sound involving increased use of guitar effects and synthesizers (1978's Chairs Missing and 1979's 154). The band gained a reputation for experimenting with song arrangements throughout its career.

Wire's debut album, Pink Flag (1977), 'perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk', according to AllMusic, contains songs which are diverse in mood and style, but most use a minimalist punk approach, unorthodox structures . "Field Day For The Sundays", for example, is only 28 seconds long.

Chairs Missing followed in 1978, and found Wire stepping back from the stark minimalism of Pink Flag, with longer, more atmospheric songs and synthesizer parts added by producer Mike Thorne. The experimentation was even more prominent on 154 (1979).Many of the songs had bassist Graham Lewis on lead vocals. In 1979, creative differences pulled the band in different directions, leading to the Document and Eyewitness LP (1981), a recording of a live performance that featured, almost exclusively, new material, which was described as 'disjointed', 'unrecognizable as rock music' and 'almost unlistenable'.

1	1.2.X.U.	1:56
2	It's So Obvious	0:52
3	Mr Suit	1:25
4	Three Girl Rhumba	1:24
5	Ex Lion Tamer	2:18
6	Lowdown	2:27
7	Straight Line	0:46
8	106 Beats That	1:13
9	Strange	3:58
10	Reuters	3:02
11	Field Day For The Sundays	0:29
12	Champs	1:47
13	Feeling Called Love	1:22
14	I Am The Fly	3:07
15	Dot Dash	2:24
16	Practice Makes Perfect	4:06
17	French Film Blurred	2:35
18	Another The Letter	1:08
19	I Feel Mysterious Today	1:56
20	Men 2nd	1:42
21	Marooned	2:20
22	Sand In My Joints	1:51
23	Outdoor Miner	2:51
24	A Question Of Degree	3:11
25	I Should Have Known Better	3:50
26	Two People In A Room	2:09
27	Blessed State	3:28
28	The Other Window	2:09
29	40 Versions	3:28
30	A Touching Display	6:55
31	On Returning	2:06

Marvin Pontiac Legendary Greatest Hits

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Marvin Pontiac was hit and killed by a bus in June 1977 ending the life of one of the most enigmatic geniuses of modern music. He was born in 1932, the son of an African father from Mali and a white Jewish mother from New Rochelle, New York. The father's original last name was Toure but he changed it to Pontiac when the family moved to Detroit, believing it to be a conventional American name.

Marvin's father left the family when Marvin was two years old. When his mother was institutionalized in 1936, the father returned and brought the young boy to Bamako, Mali where Marvin was raised until he was fifteen. The music that he heard there would influence him forever.

At fifteen Marvin moved by himself to Chicago where he became versed in playing blues harmonica. At the age of seventeen, Marvin was accused by the great Little Walter of copying his harmonica style. This accusation led to a fistfight outside of a small club on Maxwell Street. Losing a fight to the much smaller Little Walter was so humiliating to the young Marvin that he left Chicago and moved to Lubbock, Texas where he became a plumber's assistant.

Not much is known about him for the next three years. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Marvin may have been involved in a bank robbery in 1950. In 1952, he had a minor hit for Acorn Records with the then controversial song "I'm a Doggy." Oddly enough, unbeknownst to Marvin and his label, he simultaneously had an enormous bootleg success in Nigeria with the beautiful song "Pancakes."

His disdain and mistrust of the music business is well documented and he soon fell out with Acorn's owner, Norman Hector. Although, approached by other labels, Marvin refused to record for anyone unless the owner of the label came to his home in Slidell, La and mowed his lawn.

Reportedly Marvin's music was the only music that Jackson Pollack would ever listen to while he painted, this respect was not reciprocated. In 1970 Marvin believed that he was abducted by aliens. He felt his mother had had a similar unsettling experience, which had led to her breakdown. He stopped playing music and dedicated all of his time and energy to amicably contacting these creatures who had previously probed his body so brutally.

When he was arrested for riding a bicycle naked down the side streets of Slidell, La, it provided a sad but clear view of Marvin's coming years.

Marvin held the tribal belief that having a photograph taken of yourself could steal your soul, thus these candid shots are the only ones known to exist.

In 1971 he moved back to Detroit where he drifted forever and permanently into insanity.

WHAT OTHER GREAT ARTISTS HAVE SAID ABOUT MARVIN PONTIAC.....

"In my formative years, as an aspiring bass player, there was nothing I listened to more than Marvin Pontiac." Flea "A dazzling collection! It strikes me that Pontiac was so uncontainably prescient that one might think that these tracks had been assembled today." David Bowie "A Revelation." Leonard Cohen "Marvin would kick your ass for nothing. A true genius, Marvin was a pure original." Iggy Pop "The innovation and possibility in this music leaves me peechless." Beck "I've always been a fan of Mr. Pontiac's -- my housekeeper Cubby really loves it." Michael Stipe

Detroitrocksampler

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Rationals (1968) Guitar Army (3.18)
MC5 (1970) Looking at You (3.05)
Alice Cooper (1970) Long Way to Go (3.05)
The Up (1970) Together (4.23)
Amboy Dukes (1967) Journey to the Centre of the Mind (3.14)
Don & the Wanderers (1968) On the Road (2.18)
Bob Seger System (1967) Heavy Music (2.39)
Mynah Birds (1967) I’ve Got You in My Soul (2.29)
Third Power (1970) Persecution (3.25)
Detroit (1971) Rock’n’roll (5.53)
Grand Funk Railroad (1969) Inside Looking Out (9.32)
Pleasure Seekers (1966) What a Way to Die (2.14)
Unrelated Segments (1967) Story of My Life (2.38)
Terry Knight & the Pack (1967) How Much More? (2.30)
Woolies (1966) Who Do You Love? (2.00)
Underdogs (1967) Love’s Gone Bad (2.27)
SRC (1968) Black Sheep (3.47)
Flaming Ember (1967) Gotta Get Away (4.20)
Frigid Pink (1970) House of the Rising Sun (4.39)
Stooges (1970) Down on the Street (2.47)
Savage Grace (1971) All Along the Watchtower (5.41)
The Frost (1971) Rock’n’roll Music (3.00)
MC5 (1968) Borderline (3.11)
Funkadelic (1973) Cosmic Slop (3.21)
Wayne Kramer (1975) Get Some (3.38)
The New Order (1975) Declaration of War (2.48)
Ascension (1973) Get Ready (8.54)
Destroy All Monsters (1977) You’re Gonna Die (2.52)
Sonic’s Rendezvous Band (1977) City Slang (5.15)
Southbound Freeway (1967) Psychedelic Used Car Lot Blues (2.30)
Bob Seger System (1967) 2+2 (2.45)
Unrelated Segments (1967) Where You Gonna Go?
Terry Knight & the Pack (1966) Numbers (2.08)
Tidal Waves (1966) Farmer John (2.09)
The Früt (1971) Keep On Truckin’ (2.56)
? & the Mysterians (1966) Girl (2.18)
Iguanas (1965) Mona (2.39)
Stooges (1969) Asthma Attack (6.36)

Info

Brian Eno Small Craft on a Milk Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948), commonly shortened to Brian Eno and previously as simply Eno is an English musician, composer, record producer, music theorist, singer and visual artist, best known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.

Eno studied at art school, taking inspiration from minimalist painting, but he had little musical education or playing experience when he joined the band Roxy Music as their keyboards and synthesizers player in the early 1970s. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry, and of touring, and he left the group after the release of For Your Pleasure (1973), beginning his solo career with the art rock records Here Come the Warm Jets (1974) and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974).

Eno extended his reach into more experimental musical styles with No Pussyfooting (1973) and Evening Star (1975), both collaborations with Robert Fripp, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) by GenesisAnother Green World (1975) and Discreet Music (1975). His pioneering ambient efforts at "sonic landscapes" began to consume more of his time beginning with Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978) and later Apollo: Atmospheres and SoundtracksFor All Mankind. Eno nevertheless continued to sing on some of his records, ranging from Before and After Science (1977) to Wrong Way Up (1990) with John Cale to most recently Another Day on Earth (2005). where he is credited as Enossification, and his influential solo records (1983) which was composed for the documentary film

Eno's solo work has been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasizing "theory over practice" He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences partly through collaborations with other musicians. By the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal "Berlin Trilogy," helped popularise the American punk rock band Devo and the punk-influenced "No Wave" genre, and worked frequently with Harold Budd, John Cale, Cluster, Robert Fripp and David Byrne, with whom he produced the influential My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including Remain in LightU2, including The Joshua Tree (1987); and worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among others. (1980); produced seven albums for

Eno pursues multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer and a regular column on society and innovation in Prospect magazine, and "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards in which each card has a cryptic remark or random insight meant to resolve a dilemma. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write.

Test Dept Materia Prima

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:28:00 +0000

Test Dept were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by a strong commitment to radical socialist politics.

The group formed in the London suburb of New Cross in 1981. The core members of the group were Angus Farquhar, Graham Cunnington, Paul Jamrozy, Paul Hines and Toby Burdon.The slides and film for their multi-media events were the work of their visual director Brett Turnbull.

Their discography spans a wide variety of influences and styles, including a collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir in support of the miners' strike of 1984. They were particularly notable for complex and powerful percussion, as well as high-energy live performances. Like the German band Einstürzende Neubauten, with whom they are often compared, Test Dept used unconventional instruments such as scrap metal and industrial machinery as sound sources; however, Test Dept's use of these objects was far more rhythmic than was Neubauten's, and was often accompanied by film and slide shows. The group were noted for large-scale events in unusual site-specific locations, such as Waterloo station, Cannon Street station, Stirling Castle and the disused St Rollox Railway Works in Glasgow.

In later years the band's music became less industrial and took on many of the properties of techno. The band's political stance was energised by the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

The band split up in 1997, but its former members have continued to work in the fields of art and culture. Angus Farquhar re-established the ancient Gaelic Beltane Fire Festival, held yearly on the night before/morning of the first of May on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. Farquhar also formed NVA, an innovative theatre company specialising in large-scale site-specific events. Cunnington, who suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, produced a one-man show in 1996 called Pain, recounting his experiences as a sufferer from this condition. Jamrozy works as an artist under the name of Satellitic.

Sonic Youth Silver Session

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:55:00 +0000

Silver Session for Jason Knuth is a 1998 EP by Sonic Youth. Its eight tracks consist entirely of guitar feedback with occasional drum machine. Jason Knuth — of the album's title — was a Sonic Youth fan who committed suicide, and proceeds from the record's sales were donated to San Francisco Suicide Prevention Hotline. An explanation of the record is found in the liner notes:

"Silver Sessions were taken from an evening when SY had to do vocal overdubs for 'A Thousand Leaves' -- the band upstairs was hammering out some funky metal overdrive and we couldn't "sing" properly (?!) -- we decided to fight fire with molten lava and turned every amp we owned on to 10+ and leaned as many guitars and basses we could plug in against them and they roared/HOWLED like airplanes burning over the pacific -- we could only enter the playing room with hands pressed hard against our ears and even then it was physically stunning -- we ran a sick outmoded beatbox through the P.A. and it blew out horrendous distorted pulsations. Of course we recorded the whole thing and a few months later we mixed it down into sections, ultra-processing it to a wholly other "piece" -- in a way, it's my favorite record of ours -- I hope Jason [Knuth, to whom the release is dedicated] digs it --- keep on keep on keep on --- thurston/sonic youth/nyc 1998."

La Monte Young Theatre of Eternal Music

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:22:00 +0000

La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer and musician.

Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer.His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, or drone music. Both his proto-Fluxus and "minimal" compositions question the nature and definition of music and often stress elements of performance art.

A number of Young's early works use the twelve-tone technique, which he studied under Leonard Stein at Los Angeles City College. (Stein had served as an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg when Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve-tone method, had taught at UCLA.)Young also studied composition with Robert Stevenson at UCLA and with Seymore Shifrin at UCB. When Young visited Darmstadt in 1959, he encountered the music and writings of John Cage. There he also met Cage's collaborator, pianist David Tudor, who subsequently gave premières of some of Young's works. At Tudor's suggestion, Young engaged in a correspondence with Cage. Within a few months Young was presenting some of Cage's music on the West Coast. In turn, Cage and Tudor included some of Young's works in performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. By this time Young had taken a turn toward the conceptual, using principles of indeterminacy in his compositions and incorporating non-traditional sounds, noises, and actions.

He formed the Theatre of Eternal Music to realize "Dream House" and other pieces. The group initially included Marian Zazeela (who has provided the light work The Ornamental Lightyears Tracery for all performances since 1965), Angus MacLise, and Billy Name. In 1964 the ensemble comprised Young and Zazeela; John Cale and Tony Conrad, a former Harvard mathematics major, and sometimes Terry Riley (voices). Since 1966 the group has seen many permutations and has included Garrett List, Jon Hassell, Alex Dea, and many others, including members of the 60s groups.Young has realized the "Theatre of Eternal Music" only intermittently, as it requires expensive and exceptional demands of rehearsal and mounting time.

Most realizations of the piece have long titles, such as The Tortoise Recalling the Drone of the Holy Numbers as they were Revealed in the Dreams of the Whirlwind and the Obsidian Gong, Illuminated by the Sawmill, the Green Sawtooth Ocelot and the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. His works are often extreme in length, conceived by Young as having no beginning and no end, existing before and after any particular performance. In their daily lives, too, Young and Zazeela practice an extended sleep-waking schedule—with "days" longer than twenty-four hours.

La Monte Young's use of long tones and exceptionally high volume has been extremely influential with Young's associates: Tony Conrad, Jon Hassell, Rhys Chatham, Michael Harrison, Henry Flynt, Charles Curtis, and Catherine Christer Hennix. Young's students include Arnold Dreyblatt, Daniel James Wolf and Lawrence Chandler. It has also been notably influential on John Cale's contribution to The Velvet Underground's sound; Cale has been quoted as saying "LaMonte [Young] was perhaps the best part of my education and my introduction to musical discipline.

Glenn Branca The Ascension

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:15:00 +0000

Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is a highly influential avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Branca started playing the guitar at age 15. He also created a number of tape sound art collage pieces for his own amusement. After attending York College in 1966-1967 he started the short-lived cover band The Crystal Ship with Al Whiteside and Dave Speece in the summer of 1967. Branca studied theater at Emerson College in Boston in the early 1970s. In 1973 he moved from Boston to London with his then girlfriend Meg English. After moving back to Boston in 1974 he met John Rehberger. While there, he began experimenting with sound as the founder of an experimental theater group called Bastard Theater in 1975.

In the early 1980s he composed several medium-length compositions for electric guitar ensembles, including The Ascension (1981) and Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses (1981). Soon thereafter he began composing symphonies for orchestras of electric guitars and percussion, which blended droning industrial cacophony and microtonality with quasi-mysticism and advanced mathematics. Starting with Symphony No. 3 ("Gloria") (1983), he began to systematically compose for the harmonic series, which he considered to be the structure underlying not only all music but most human endeavors. In this project, Branca was initially influenced by the writings of Dane Rudhyar, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Harry Partch. He also built several electrically amplified instruments of his own invention, expanding his ensemble beyond the guitar. A few of these instruments were third bridge zithers he called "mallet guitars", because they were percussion instruments played with drumsticks, monotone electric cymbaloms with an additional third bridge on resonating positions. Early members of his group included Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Page Hamilton of Helmet, and several members of Swans including Michael Gira and Dan Braun. In the early '90s, David Baratier attempted to document Branca's teaching style in They Walked in Line.

In September 1996, The Glenn Branca Ensemble played at the opening ceremony for the Aarhus Festival in Denmark. The ceremony took place in the Musikhuset Opera House, and in the audience were the Queen of Denmark, the mayor of Aarhus and other dignitaries. After receiving more than 25 major commissions since 1981 Branca's music has finally begun to receive academic attention. Some scholars, most prominently Kyle Gann, consider him (and Rhys Chatham) to be a member of the totalist school of post-minimalism.

In 2008, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award as well as a Caps grant in 1983, an award from The National Endowment For The Arts in 1988 and a NYSCA grant in 1998, all for music composition.

"Lesson No.2" (5:01)
"The Spectacular Commodity (for Eiko and Koma)" (12:41)
"Structure" (3:06)
"Light Field (In Consonance)" (8:19)
"The Ascension" (13:10)

Loop A Gilded Eternity Remastered

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:25:00 +0000

The band was formed in 1986 by Robert Hampson (vocals, guitar), with wife Bex on drums. Bex was soon replaced by John Wills (of The Servants) and Glen Ray, with James Endeacott on guitar.Initially releasing records on their own Head label, their first release was 1987's '16 Dreams', with debut album Heaven's End following later that year. The band's psychedelic/drone rock gained comparisons with Spacemen 3, much to the latter's annoyance.

Ray and Bex left, to be replaced by Endeacott, Wills and Neil MacKay,the band also being signed up by Chapter 22 Records, returning with a more polished sound with the 'Collision' single in 1988. Second album Fade Out followed in 1989, reaching #51 on the UK album chart Endeacott left the band in 1988, Scott Dowson joined the following year.

They then hopped labels again to Beggars Banquet subsidiary Situation Two, releasing the 'Arc-Lite' single in 1989 and the third and final studio album A Gilded Eternity in 1990.

The band split in 1991, with Hampson briefly joining Godflesh before forming Main with Dowson. Hampson's Main project was discontinued in 2006, he now releases under his own name. Chasm is said to be his most recent (1999) project. Wills and Mackay went on to form The Hair and Skin Trading Company.

A collection of the band's John Peel sessions entitled Wolf Flow was released in 1992. Following the split Loop's official studio albums were re-released on their Reactor label.

The band's sound was influenced by Krautrock and No Wave influences and relied heavily on three chord riffs. Some of the records featured cover versions of Suicide, The Pop Group and Can tracks. During the latter stages of their career the band played at the Reading Festival in 1989.

Autechre Confield

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 09:04:00 +0000

Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums have been released.

With Confield, Sean Booth and Rob Brown largely abandoned the warm ambient sounds of their earlier works such as Amber and Tri Repetae in favour of the more chaotic feel that they had been pursuing with LP5, EP7, and Peel Session. Confield saw the experimental use of computer programs to form the basis of songs instead of stand-alone synthesizers.

According to Booth, "Most of Confield came out of experiments with Max that weren't really applicable in a club environment". One of the more controversial aspects of the album's production was, like EP7, the use of generative sequences for certain aspects of the songs. Booth countered this, arguing that although the beats created with the sequences may seem completely random to some people, that he and Brown had tight control over the limits and rules of what the beats could do, and that the concept was no different to the improvisation found in jazz. Although the bases of most of the songs were created by computers, analogue synthesizers and conventional drum machines were in fact used in many of the tracks.

Big Black Songs About Fucking

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 08:09:00 +0000

Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun. In 1985 Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who played on Big Black's two full-length studio albums, Atomizer (1986) and Songs About Fucking (1987).

Big Black's aggressive and abrasive music was characterized by distinctively clanky guitars and the use of a drum machine rather than a drum kit, elements which precursored industrial rock. The band acknowledged no taboos, and Albini's lyrics openly dealt with loaded topics including murder, rape, child sexual abuse, arson, racism, and misogyny. They also held staunch principles, shunning the mainstream music industry and insisting on complete control over all aspects of their career. Big Black booked their own tours, paid for their own recordings, and refused to sign contracts, eschewing many of the traditional corporate trappings of rock bands. In doing so they had a significant impact on the aesthetic development of independent and underground rock music.

Songs About Fucking it placed 54th on Pitchfork Media's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1980s'. Included are covers of Kraftwerk's "The Model" and Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore".

Steve Albini has said that Songs About Fucking is the Big Black album that he is most satisfied with. In a 1992 interview with Maximumrocknroll magazine, Albini said:

“

The best was side one of 'Songs About Fucking'. I was real pleased with the way we did that. We just hopped into the studio, banged all the songs out and hopped out. Didn't take long, didn't cost much, just real smooth. Side two we recorded at a more leisurely pace and I think that hurt us. And that Cheap Trick song got on the tape and the CD by accident, and we just left it on.

”

The band had already decided to split up before the album was recorded, prompted by guitarist Santiago Durango's decision to enroll in law school, and the band's desire to quit while at their peak.

Steve Reich Music for 18 musicians

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:48:00 +0000

Music for 18 Musicians is a work of musical minimalism composed by Steve Reich during 1974-1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976 at Town Hall, New York. Following this, a recording of the piece was released by ECM New Series. A recording of the opening sections is on Steve Reich's official website.

Music for 18 Musicians was written for a cello, violin, two clarinets (both players double on bass clarinet), four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, a metallophone, and four women's voices. In the introduction to the score, Reich mentions that although the piece is named Music for 18 Musicians, it is not necessarily advisable to perform the piece with that few players due to the extensive doubling it requires. With only 18 musicians, the parts are divided as follows:

violin
cello
female voice
female voice
female voice
piano
piano
piano and maracas
marimba and maracas
marimba and xylophone
marimba and xylophone
marimba and xylophone
metallophone and piano
piano and marimba
marimba, xylophone, and piano
clarinet and bass clarinet
clarinet and bass clarinet
female voice and piano

The piece is based around a cycle of eleven chords. A small piece of music is based around each chord, and the piece returns to the original cycle at the end. The sections are aptly named "Pulses", and Section I-XI. This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger ensembles, and the extension of performers resulted in a growth of psycho-acoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". A prominent factor in this work is the augmentation of the harmonies and melodies and the way that they develop this piece. Another important factor in the piece is the use of human breath, used in the clarinets and voices, which help structure and bring a pulse to the piece. The player plays the pulsing note for as long as he can hold it, while each chord is melodically deconstructed by the ensemble, along with augmentation of the notes held. The metallophone (unplugged vibraphone), is used to cue the ensemble to change patterns or sections.

Some sections of the piece have a chiastic ABCDCBA structure, and Reich noted that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written [before this piece].

King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:14:00 +0000

King Tubby (born Osbourne Ruddock, January 28, 1941 – February 6, 1989) was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub music in the 1960s and 1970s. Tubby's innovative studio work, which saw him elevate the role of the mixing engineer to a creative fame previously only reserved for composers and musicians, would prove to be highly influential across many genres of popular music. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix, and so may be seen as a direct antecedent of much dance and electronic music production.

King Tubby's music career began in the 1950s with the rising popularity of Jamaican sound systems, which were to be found all over Kingston and which were developing into enterprising businesses. As a talented radio repairman, Tubby soon found himself in great demand by most of the major sound systems of Kingston, as the tropical weather of the Caribbean island, (often combined with sabotage by rival sound system owners) led to malfunctions and equipment failure. Tubby owned an electrical repair shop on Drumalie Avenue, Kingston, that fixed televisions and radios. It was here that he built large amplifiers for the local sound systems. In 1961/62 he built his own radio transmitter and briefly ran a pirate radio station playing ska and rhythm and blues which he soon shut down when he heard that the police were looking for the perpetrators. Tubby would eventually form his own sound system, Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi, which became a crowd favourite due to the high quality sound of his equipment, exclusive releases and Tubby's own echo and reverb sound effects, at that point something of a novelty.

Tubby engineered/remixed songs for Jamaica's top producers such as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo and Vivian Jackson that featured artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Big Joe, Delroy Wilson, Jah Stitch and many others. In 1973, he built a vocal booth at his studio so he could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to him by various producers. This process is known as 'voicing' in Jamaican recording parlance. It is unlikely that a complete discography of Tubby's production work could be created based on the number of labels, artists and producers with whom he worked, and subsequent repressings of these releases sometimes contained contradictory information. His name is credited on hundreds of b-side labels, with the possibility that many others were by his hand yet uncredited, due to similarities with his known work.

Francisco López La Selva

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:06:00 +0000

Francisco López is an avant-garde experimental musician and sound artist.

He is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene.

Since the early eighties he has developed an impressive, completely personal sound universe.

He has released a large amount of sound pieces with record labels from more than fifty countries and realized hundreds of concerts and sound installations worldwide; including some of the main international museums, galleries and festivals, such as: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (New York City), London Institute of Contemporary Arts, Paris Museum of Modern Art, National Auditorium of Music, Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Sónar, Darwin Fringe festival, Kitakyūshū city art museum.

http://www.franciscolopez.net/

Union Carbide Productions In the air tonight

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:54:00 +0000

Union Carbide Productions was a Swedish rock band formed by Ebbot Lundberg (vocals), Patrik Caganis, Björn Olsson, Per Helm and Henrik Rylander in 1986.

Their music can be described as a fusion of psychedelic rock and punk rock and a bit angrier and closer to stoner rock than The Soundtrack of Our Lives (the band that emerged from the ashes of Union Carbide Productions).

Though never really commercially successful, the band has received praise from artists like Kurt Cobain, R.E.M. and Sonic Youth. After the success of The Soundtrack of Our Lives, a compilation CD was released in 2004.

In the spring of 1987, the band managed to get a record deal with the small label Radium 226.5, which released their first album "In The Air Tonight". One of the people running the company, Carl Michael von Hausswolff claims that "At that time nobody else was doing what they were into, and having a reputation as spoiled rich kids with outrageous behavior didn't exactly help them make friends with the media or the music biz. A lot was exaggerated, but not all."

The name Union Carbide Productions originates from the company name Union Carbide Corporation that was written on a battery that Björn Olsson had, and that was involved in the Bhopal disaster in 1984.

Spacemen 3 Forged Prescriptions

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:28:00 +0000

Forged Prescriptions is a 2-CD album by Spacemen 3, containing the entirety of their album The Perfect Prescription as well as alternate and demo versions of the same songs, and some previously unreleased tracks.

In his liner notes, Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom says this release presents the album's songs in their "full guitar laden versions with all the layers of beautifully streamlined guitar—considered by us to be too hard to replicate live and therefore reduced for the original release."

Forged Prescriptions came out on Space Age Recordings in 2003, and on Big Beat Records in 2004.

Disc 1

"Things'll Never Be the Same" – 5:54
"Walking with Jesus" – 5:12
"Come Down Easy (Demo Version)" – 6:02
"Transparent Radiation (Single Version)" – 4:12
"Ode to Street Hassle" – 4:45
"Call the Doctor" – 4:11
"Ecstacy Symphony" – 9:06
"Feel So Good" – 5:28
"Soul 1" – 5:44

Disc 2

"Transparent Radiation" – 7:52
"Come Down Easy" – 6:43
"Walking with Jesus (Demo Version)" – 3:58
"Things'll Never Be the Same (Demo Version)" – 5:54
"We Sell Soul (Previously Unreleased 13th Floor Elevators cover)" – 4:56
"Starship (Demo Version)" – 5:01
"Take Me to the Other Side (Demo Version)" – 3:50
"Velvet Jam (Previously Unreleased)" – 4:46
"I Want You Right Now (Previously Unreleased)" – 6:10

Rachel's Music for Egon Schiele

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Rachel's is an American band that formed in Louisville, Kentucky in 1991. Former Rodan guitarist, Jason Noble, played music individually and referred to himself as Rachel's but then began collaborating with now core members, violist Christian Frederickson, and pianist Rachel Grimes.

The group's work is strongly influenced by classical music, particularly inspired by the minimalist music of the late 20th century, and its composition reflects this. While the trio forms the core part of the band, the group's recordings and performances feature a varying ensemble of musicians, who play a range of string instruments (including viola and cello) in combination with piano, guitars, electric bass guitar, and a drum set that includes a large orchestral bass drum.

Family Portrait
Egon & Gertie
First Self-Portrait Series
Mime Van Osen
Second Self-Portrait Series
Wally, Egon & Models in the Studio
Promenade
Third Self-Portrait Series
Egon, Edith & Wally Meet
Egon & Wally Embrace and Say Farewell
Egon & Edith
Second Family Portrait

http://www.rachelsband.com/

Tortoise Glass Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:17:00 +0000

Tortoise Djed

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:22:00 +0000

Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:17:00 +0000

Out to Lunch! was Eric Dolphy's only recording for Blue Note Records as a leader and was originally issued as BLP 4163 and BST 84163. Today it is generally considered one of the finest albums in the label's history, as well as one of the high points in 1960s jazz avant garde and in Dolphy's discography.

The title of the album's first track, "Hat and Beard", refers to Thelonious Monk; the song contains a famous percussive interlude featuring Tony Williams and Bobby Hutcherson. "Something Sweet, Something Tender" includes a noteworthy duet between Richard Davis on bass and Dolphy on bass clarinet. The third composition, "Gazzelloni", was named after classical flautist Severino Gazzelloni, but is otherwise the album's most conventional, bop-based theme. The second side features two long pieces for alto saxophone: the title track, and "Straight Up and Down", intended, according to the original liner notes, to evoke a drunken stagger.

A few months after recording this album, Dolphy went on a European tour with Charles Mingus. He died shortly thereafter of a diabetic coma.

"Hat and Beard" – 8:24
"Something Sweet, Something Tender" – 6:02
"Gazzelloni" – 7:22
"Out to Lunch" – 12:06
"Straight Up and Down" – 8:19