Talk Talk..."Laughing Stock"

i have nothing remarkable to say concerning this album, other than the fact that i am heavily indebted to its charms and mesmerism. another one of those indispensible listening experiences for the late hours of the evening, when everyone across the world is inert, asleep or otherwise dead.

download "laughing stock":
http://www.mediafire.com/?agrzsyebj29

Albert Ayler..."HIlversum Sessions"

speech is insufficient:



working with the quartet that was responsible for ayler's previous album, "vibrations," this session was recorded live in europe and presents an elongation on the themes of the prior work. it's debatable whether it reaches the disorienting, paramount heights of "vibrations," but i find its variations to be enlivening and sometimes favor it even more. ayler himself was a mercurial figure, and the wordless melisma and vocalizations of his playing leave me hollowed and immobilized. his playing definitively embodies the term "free jazz" in a much more appropriate way than either coltrane or coleman (at least to me), as there is nothing short of pure celerity and motion in his phrasing, an unbounded cry from the depths of the human body. though his renown is comparatively pale and bare alongside coltrane, there has been something of a renascent interest in his music (notably, there was a documentary a few years ago called "my name is albert ayler," though it is frustratingly rare to come across). i recently discovered that he's buried about 45 minutes from where i'm living now, so i intend on visiting his grave in the near future.



download "hilversum session" by albert ayler

http://rapidshare.com/files/217521741/Albert_Ayler_-_The_Hilversum_Session.rar

(this link is an advertisement for the wonderful "albert ayler depot" blog, which sponsors nothing but ayler's music...mercifully, they even have the holy ghost boxset):

http://albertayler.blogspot.com/

Tim Buckley..."Lorca"

mournfully, this is the only track from "lorca" available on youtube, and therefore the only piece i can offer up for purposes of preview:



opinion tends to vacillate and unsteadily stammer back and forth with tim buckley's work, as there are some (myself among them) who think the majority of his discography is an unprecedented success, while others think his improvisational and experimental aspirations were beyond his means and only mildly successful; still others think all of his work is utter shit, saving their allegiance for the well-known covers of perhaps buckley's greatest song, "song to the siren" -- famously rendered by this mortal coil and innumerable others. a swarm of people also neglect tim in favor of his son, jeff, which i am stymied to even contemplate (understatedly, i am definitely NOT a fan). "lorca" preceded "starsailor" - his most ambitious and beautiful album - and divines some of the territory and depths he would later mine. initially my response to "lorca" was one of reluctance and modest admiration, due mostly to the confounding title track that commences the record, but i've evolved to it, i suppose, and it strikes me as one of his best efforts. the first side of the record is the more difficult of the two, with the latter half evoking the stylings of his previous release "blue afternoon" and some of the work on "happy sad." the focal point here is obviously buckley's voice, his characteristic hysterics and lunacy, his unfettered paroxysmal wailing. though living happily in the shadow of "starsailor" (or "goodbye and hello" for some people who wouldn't let him live down past glories), "lorca" is as good as the source of its namesake (frederico garcia lorca). ideal for late night solitude, as is most of his work.

download tim buckley's "lorca":

http://rapidshare.com/files/185148235/Lorca.zip

(i was feckless and took this link from singer-saints, a fantastic blog you should check out)

TALK TALK..."SPIRIT OF EDEN"

slow, submerged english music to which you can ably sit around and decay on a late night. their last album "laughing stock" is usually subject to most of the laurels and praise, but this one is every bit as good (some nights i enjoy it slightly more). if all you remember of Talk Talk is their single (later covered by no doubt) "it's my life," this will be an alarming surprise, as it has virtually none of the qualities that distinguish the early incarnation of the band.

this is a vinyl rip that i picked up off the terrific blog holyfuckingshit40000, in two parts. well worth a listen.

talk talk "spirit of eden"

part 1
http://lix.in/-7e5d8c

part 2
http://lix.in/-76bc71

beautiful.

DREAMIES..."PROGRAMS 10 & 11"

seriously...words would disobey any attempt to express the fragility, hebephrenia and warmth of this music



somewhere hovering over 3 years ago i began an itinerant, almost blindfolded hunt about the greater record stores of toledo and ann arbor, terribly disdainful of my own life and stoic as to its outcome, embalming my self-worth and esteem within the vestments and rewards of music, finding myself only slightly appeased (on any significant level) when stumbling across something remarkable. i was denuded of internet access and wary of accessing any of the computers within campus labs, so i began blindly purchasing things for their aesthetic qualities, finding albums that had unique covers, wondering what the music behind that artwork signified, where it went, what minor world it conjured for itself. fortuitously, it was with this haphazard method that i became ingratiated to the company of this heat, united states of america, susan christie, jean-claude vannier and dreamies. glazing over the artwork - which at the time looked as if to be some ludicrous mock-up of a cereal box - observing the white, hollowed out head that contained the words "program 10" and "program 11" within its respective hemispheres. i listened to the album before reading the inserts that accompanied it, and i'm still immeasurably happy that i conducted things in such a manner. appropriately, this music does affect a state that resembles the logic and pathology of a dream; ambient and electronic noises merge with an acoustic guitar and samples taken from a transistor radio - somewhere among the fog and density trembles a small, double-tracked, cracked alabaster voice; and though the lyrics are inscrutably recited, nearly obscured by the atmosphere, somehow this all makes perfect sense.

as with most "lost" albums, this one has a story behind it. dreamies is the work of one man, bill holt, who upon hearing the beatles "white album," emerged from a suburban coma, quit his reputable job (allegedly at a fortune 500 company) and assembled an acoustic guitar, sampling device and one of the first commercially available moog synthesizers. his aims weren't particularly modest, as he intended to make a continuation of the song "revolution number 9" from the "white album," composing two side-long musical suites (26 minutes each) that take the structural device of the infamous, widely abjured lennon tune - the careening samples of dialogue and electronic coruscations - and impart pop sensibilities and melody within the ambient noise. to say this had even the scantest ripple or effect on anyone when it was released in 1973 would be an act of divine revisionism, as only something like 100 copies of this were privately pressed. quitting his job and recording an album of what is often called aural collage proved to be an impecunious decision, as he ended up bankrupting himself, falling to penury, eventually waddling back to a normal job. he left this as his living testament, and luckily he has been afforded the opportunity to record another dreamies album recently, entitled "program 12." i've yet to hear it and am somewhat reticent, especially given the immensity of my love for this album. as far as "lost" albums go, this is exceeded by nothing and no one - remaining one of my absolute favorite curiosities and listening experiences, and i can only marvel at the ambition it displays. please, please - if you enjoy this record, please purchase it from holt's website. the cover alone is worth the 10 dollars, and this man deserves any penny you can spare for putting something so hypnotic into this sad, grey world.

download dreamies' "program 10 & 11"
http://www.mediafire.com/?oyyrm1nw2rk

FAUST..."IV"

oh how can you not love this goddamn song



this is an old favorite and hardly an undiscovered relic of any kind, but you never know - someone may have been deprived and never had the good fortune to hear it. krautrock is such an undesirable epithet of classification, but as far as music that hails from sunny, smiling germany goes its certainly high up there with my favorite works of the time and region, expressing and exploring as much or more than "tanz der lemminge," "tago mago," neu's first record, or any of la dusseldorf's marvelous albums. la dusseldorf is still something of an acquired taste among many people, so their first 3 records will probably materialize soon here.


download faust "IV" and stay alive

http://rapidshare.com/files/165234375/Faust_-_IV.rar

CATHERINE JAUNIAUX.. "FLUVIAL"

(here's another of my favorites. apologies, i couldn't find any appropriate videos to attach to this post.)

my knowledge of catherine jauniaux is scarce, and i plan on abstaining from any investigation that would demystify her. i'm not even vaguely aware of her discography, let alone if she has one that is extensive, non-existent, etc. i know only that she is an improvisational vocalist, that she is french (self-evident, really), and that she has contributed vocals to a few other groups. i know that this music, this album, is bound by nothing remotely terrestrial. the instrumentation is alternately bleak and lyrical, which measures out the incantatory vocal hysterics; some of it employs principles similar to musique concrete, some of it has eastern undertones. it is triumphantly defiant music, sharing a miasma and spirit that is found in yoko ono's "plastic ono band," nico's solo work, dagmar krause's vocals on slapp happy's "acnalbasac moon," tim buckley's "lorca" and "starsailor," walker's latter day work and fellow chanteuse brigitte fontaine (whose albums will be uploaded soon).

download "fluvial"

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SHC0KC0B

JANDEK...JANDEK...JANDEK

kurt cobain once sagely imparted that "jandek makes music that is completely unpretentious, but only pretentious people listen to him." cobain's remark is seemingly fatuous, but actually rather incisive. jandek's mere name is inextricably woven to "obscurity" and the barest notion of "difficult music." quite a few profess to having heard and enjoyed his music, though that statement could reasonably be tempered with suspicion.

about two years ago i was disgustingly fortunate to see jandek actually perform with a drummer and trumpeter in ann arbor, michigan. the show was being sponsored by the university and was - to the best of my recollection - free of charge (i'll still have the poster that i pillaged from the coffee shop down the street advertising this exceedingly rare occasion). without even attempting to enumerate the audience that showed up, i could safely gauge about 3/4 of the small theater was brimming with people (most of whom had adopted the whole world-weary with windblown hair, excess of scarf and thick black glasses look). jandek arrived onstage and began to play...well, jandek music. after less than 20 minutes, half of the place was emptied. in another 15 minutes, about 40 to 50 people remained amidst the pocked fissures of vacant seats. jandek played for approximately an hour and a half, verging on two hours. none of the compositions were even remotely familiar, but even then i'm not sure if anything that was played was on any of his recorded albums (given that i've heard roughly 10 of his 60 available records). i'm fairly confident that it was all an extemporaneous, improvisatory performance, especially given the look of sheer confusion and uncertainty that periodically swept across the gently tanned face of the trumpeter. jandek sat hunched over a guitar, propped up on a stool to the right side of the stage, intermittently mumbling or emitting bizarre squeals and glossolalia. in all honesty, it was one of the top 5 concerts i've yet attended, and though i had only a cursory grasp of his discography, i knew precisely what to expect. the point is that anyone who has listened to more than 2 or 3 jandek records would indubitably expect the same, so given this idea why would so many people attend a concert that would entice them to leave after so short a period of time?

i have my personal affections for jandek's music on the basis of what his sound evokes, and the way in which it marks me. his music reminds me of a line that burroughs wrote about america, that it is "evil before the settlers. the evil is there waiting." old black music, particularly skip james and leadbelly, managed to capture this subcutaneous, indefinable evil, this mysterious and shadow-laden america. skip james especially, evoked sentiments and atmospheres, a part of the living world that is dark and deeply stowed away. i liken jandek to both james and leadbelly for these reasons (though leadbelly certainly had his more amiable moments), in that he reflects what greil marcus called "the old, weird america." the basement tapes of bob dylan elicit a similar response, and all of the aforementioned works and artists have all reached to the center of the american earth. jandek's music is more atonal, absent of structure and meandering than any of those artists, but the territory that he mines is indescribably similar. i'll probably upload the entirety of dylan's basement tapes in a few posts, given how taken i am with them. for now, however, if you haven't heard jandek, please give him some consideration and approach his music with a bit of flexibility.






download "ready for the house" from sendspace:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8m9itv

SUN RAAAAAAAAA

space is certainly the place for sun ra's exploratory, incandescent and erratic music. i'm still fairly unversed with his large and varied discography, but i have a current fondness with "night of the purple moon."



discarding the fact that sun ra claimed to belong to the angel race, the music is - on its own account - unpredictable and beautifully strange. even if you have absolutely no affection or tolerance for jazz music as a whole, sun ra communicates something singular, engrossing. the atmosphere on "purple moon" is like walking around a zoo filled with foreign creatures and undiscovered species encased in glass bars staring unevenly as you pass -- pure curiosity. it also seems to have a uniquely colored sound, something like daguerreotype. anyhow, hope you enjoy.

here's a link from forestroxxx:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vmdkyrmq50n

SCOTT WALKER WALKS AMONG US

being as i have an incommensurable love and appreciation for everything related to scott walker, i thought it'd be appropriate to represent a charitable section of his discography. scott walker is a name that rings with a certain familiarity now, but i've still yet to encounter many people who have actively listened to his work. the main point about scott walker is that his music is meant to be devoured with an almost reverent appreciation, and listening to his latter work especially means committing yourself, challenging yourself, experiencing the atmosphere and miasma of what he presents, of all the ghosts and unnameable worlds he conjures.



walker's early work with the walker bros. has its moments, but he began to develop more when he tore apart from the group and pursued a solo career (which saw him covering jacques brel and ornamenting his own morbid lyrics with bombastic string arrangements). his first two records are fairly hit-or-miss for me, though not without disorienting heights. his third and fourth solo records are where the real vertiginous, almost hallucinatory depths begin.



when the walker bros reunited in the late 70s, they completed an album called "nite flights," and it began an entirely different, unnavigable direction for his work. the first four songs from "nite flights" are all walker originals, and are unlike anything i've ever heard. they share affinities with some of the work bowie was doing with eno and the usual krautrock pioneers, but they are a world apart, unbelievable. the rest of the album isn't remotely as good as the first four tracks, but based on the strength of those, the rest is forgivable, forgotten.





following the walker bros. dissolution, scott went on to record "climate of hunter," elaborating on what he began with "nite flights," but in no way anticipating the direction he'd pursue on his two subsequent releases, "tilt" and "the drift." the nature and atmosphere of both, the latter especially, is tenebrous and inescapably dark, operatic, dizzying, unpredictable. the instrumentation varies and flits from crushing density to haunting austerity, demonstrating a kind of adventurousness that has been long absent from music.



i can't begin to convey even a fraction of my enthusiasm and love for walker's work, and i hope his music affects more people in the manner it effects me.

here's a link to "nite Flights" from icoulddietomorrow:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zwfny13zain

here's a link for "tilt"

http://rapidshare.com/files/230956334/Tilt.zip

and finally "the drift"

http://www.mediafire.com/?dzmdmllj1dz


"climate of hunter" and walker's third and fourth solo records are also worth seeking out, and will invariably be uploaded here soon

salutations, greetings, felicitations...and peter hammill "future now"

as it stands, i'm more inclined towards peter hammil's solo work than van der graaf generator. even though the structures and compositional lengths are significantly simpler, it seems as though hammil's work has an animus and enthusiasm that is adventurous in its own right. "future now," from 1978, is currently my favorite work of hammil's. the allmusic reviews - generally colorless and anemic, no exception being made in this case - fail to do justice to the spirit of this work and especially the first track, which is blighted in their review (confusing, confusing, confusing).

there's more peter hammil solo work available at newmoodswings.blogspot.com in the event this piques your interest. his work is pretty erratic, sometimes irascible, unstable, dramatically different in mood and tone, but always worth a listen.


link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/176613628/78PHTFN.rar