Kinski & Acid Mothers Temple - Split "EP"

After my last post which featured some sweet-assed Japanese noise-rock, I'm gonna put up something with a similar flavor. Today's file represents something more on the psychedelic, exploratory free-form side of noise--a wonderful collaboration between Kinski (not Japanese) and Acid Mothers Temple (totally Japanese).

This is a cool split. It features just four tracks, most of which are fairly long. Kinski performs the first cut; they were in the driver's seat on the second, which features AMT in a support role; the third puts AMT in control with Kinski providing backup; the last interstellar cosmic explosion is AMT alone. I say "AMT alone" and it sounds like a couple of dudes warbling in a big empty space, instead of the ginormous musical fireball shooting across the universe straight at your brain that it really is.

In any case, you can get a copy here, and if this collection of MP3s doesn't leave your grey matter in too much of a disarrayed state to do so, I recommend that you pick up something else by each of these bands because they both rule on their own.

My Way My Love - "Hypnotic Suggestion: 01"

I guess the best way to describe Japanese noise-rock power trio My Way My Love is to place them somewhere between the Boredoms and Deerhoof. Or maybe they sound something like what'd happen if Melt Banana replaced their frantic, manic pacing with an alternating sense of playfulness/sense of menace.

My Way My Love is obviously influenced by mid-90's American alt.rock like Sonic Youth and the Jesus Lizard (with a noticable hint of Devo), but the way they approach the proceedings with a seeming lack of attention to traditional musical form makes this record somewhat refreshing. There are few, if any, verse/chorus/verse type of songs to be found here, if indeed there are any songs on display at all. Most of the tracks feel more like pieces of music or art or both, rather than carefully constructed ditties designed to work their way into your brain and bounce around there til you cave and finally buy the damn thing. In fact, a couple of numbers are only a few seconds long, but oddly enough, they're some of the best on the record!

You can get a copy here for a very reasonable price, especially in the used CD section. Enjoy.

Sly and Robbie - "Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone by Howie B"

So I've been reading a lot about a new genre in the UK that's being called "dubstep". The Wire (in issue 271) ran a short profile of Digital Mystikz, a duo who is currently acting as one of the major exponents of the dubstep sound, which mixes electronic and dance elements with dub's heavy bass and spacy reverb. They're releasing records and hosting club nights for their DMZ label, and it seems to be all the rage in the UK's underground scene. I hopped onto the trusty internet and started searching for some tunes to see what this new beat actually sounds like, and it turns out that for the most part, it's good shit. It strikes me as a weird combination of drum 'n' bass and trip-hop, using the rhythmic complexity of the former at the downbeat pace of the latter.

Partway through the track "Jah Power Dub" by Mala, who with his partner Coki makes up Digital Mystiks, I realized it sounded a little familiar. Conceptually, anyway. Y'see, back in the mists of time, around 1998 or so, reggae legends Sly and Robbie released a record with Scottish trip-hop guru Howie B manning the mixing board. That record was Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone. As every single available review of this record is so keen to point out, it's not a drum 'n' bass record; its title refers to the fact that Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare are (I'm pointing this out for the uninitiated) Jamaica's premiere rhythm section. They've worked on records by just about every reggae legend of the last thirty or forty years, and every white guy with a big enough bank roll to have them flown in has done so at some point in his career. And if you find Grace Jones records at all palatable (sordid confession: I do), you can thank Sly and Robbie.

So anyway, back to D&BSTTB: I've loved this record since it came out, and I always thought it was ahead of its time. Turns out, I couldn't have been more correct. There are moments on this one, say "Fatigue Chic," where it seems Messrs. Dunbar, Shakespeare, and Bernstein are pretty much telling us that this is where electronic music and reggae are going: some kind of weird future where hybridization is the norm and not the exception, where acoustic instruments are blended comfortably alongside electronic, impossible-to-actually build virtual ones.

The record blends classic heavy "riddim"-style playing with ambient textures and squalling electro-noise to great effect. Some people hear this record and think it's boring, but then some people think reggae all sounds exactly the same. And if you haven't heard much of it, I can see why you'd think that. But then again, if I'd grown up in Turkmenistan and moved to America in the 1980s, I doubt I'd have known the difference between Ratt, Poison, Kiss, Judas Priest, and Motley Crue. It's all about context and immersion.

Mr. B brings in a crew of studio musicians to fill out the arrangements, and this brings up my only complaint with the album: there are moments across these tracks where you wish the drums and bass were simply counterbalanced by some floaty, reverberated sound and left standing sparse and spacious. Sometimes more isn't necessarily more, and this is often the case with dub. But it evens out, because a piece like opening cut "Superthruster" just wouldn't be as cool without those little processed guitar bits that come up every few bars.

Listen to this record, love it, buy it. If you'd enjoyed it two years ago and wanted to find more like it, my answer would have been "tough titty because the team that brought you Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone hasn't worked together since that album." However, thanks to Digital Mystikz via DMZ, there's now a wealth of electronic ambient dub just waiting to be discovered. Support this scene!

Iggy Pop - "Heroin Hates You"

According to my research, opinion among Ig-o-philes is split pretty fiercely over this particular live recording. The sound quality (or strange lack thereof) is obviously a point of contention, and rightly so; the announcer at the beginning tells us it's a live show being recorded/transmitted by KROQ, so it ought to be a soundboard recording. Nonetheless, a strange haze hangs over the proceedings. It's like listening to a concert from just outside a venue with relatively thin walls--which, in this case, happens to be L.A.'s Stardust Ballroom on November 30, 1979.

Another problem is that the CD reissue of this infamous bootleg released by the OPM label (available for purchase at a very reasonable price here) presents an incomplete version of this set. The original vinyl version was spread across 4 LPs, the last side of which included four tracks from a show in Paris on September 23, 1977.

In any case, if you're adventurous of heart/used to listening to live recordings of dubious quality, this is a pretty cool document capturing a really odd band lineup. Behind the Iggster: Glen Matlock, original bassist for the Sex Pistols who got kicked out for being a pretty-boy and just a little too competent at his instrument; Brian James, of the Damned, on guitar; Ivan Kral, who has served as guitarist/keyboard player to not just Iggy but also Patti Smith and John Cale; and lastly, on drums, Klaus Kruger (who I'm pretty sure is only otherwise famous for being a Daredevil villain). In the liner notes, Iggy himself is credited as providing "vocals, flesh."

Good times.

There are some really cool performances here, and in true Iggy fashion, it's all either cathartic rock bombast lacking any subtlty, or restrained musical backdrops perfect for crooning. Witness, of all things, a jazzy, Beat-inspired version of "One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)" (which, I'll grant you, starts as a quiet shuffle but ends with still more unsubtle cathartic rock bombast). There's also a kickass version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", and some pretty great between-song banter after "New Values" where Iggy's trying to get some thugs to back off. "You know what, fellas? This stage is fallin' apart... Let's keep going," he says to the band. "I'll tell y'all what, it gets to look a little strange [unintelligible] because there's only these little bits of the stage left." At this point, someone yells something that's now impossible to hear, but it obviously gets Iggy mad. "Oh shut up, you cunt!" he retorts, to applause. "Y'know, my mom and dad taught me not to be nasty, but your cheeks look like a mole or a big fat mouse or sum'n." More applause.

Bon apetit!

Die Kreuzen - "Die Kreuzen"

If the world was a fair and just place, the following might just have been true:

A) File sharing wouldn't be a problem because everyone who downloaded tracks they enjoyed would immediately run out and buy an album or two by the artist who created the work in question. This, of course, would alleviate tension on both sides of the mixing board.

B) The people elected to run democracies would be more interested in what the general public wants (for better or worse), and less receptive to the cloying hands of wealthy lobbying corporations.

C) Britney and K-Fed would have filed for divorce much sooner, and absolutely no one would have cared.

D) Die Kreuzen (German for "the Crosses") would be as oft-cited an influence on modern bands as, say, Black Flag.

Today's file is DK's first full-length LP, produced by the legendary Corey Rusk and originally released on Touch 'n' Go in 1984. This manic debut is cleverly titled Die Kreuzen. You'll have to pardon my sarcasm there; the thing about this record is, it's very easy to be sarcastic about. The lyrics are borderline stoopid-- the kind of earnest observations comparing groups of jocks and hippies in school to the fragmented wider political spectrum that could only be produced by an angry,white,male teenage mind-- and the music is unsurprisingly fast and furious.

The thing is, it's faster and furiouser than the work of almost any other band of the era, and the vocals are screamed in a way that essentially predicts the future of hardcore/emocore: all articulation of the actual words goes out the window in favor of stark, howled emotion. And this, my friends, is what elevates Die Kreuzen above their station and makes them innovators.

Even with the embarassing lyrics/worldview made painfully clear, DK pushed things further along than Black Flag ever did by playing crazy, chromatic riffs at a remarkable speed, but their musicianship rarely ever faltered. (This is, of course, not to say that being a better guitar player will make you write better songs; but sometimes it helps.) These guys really helped draw up the blueprints for thrash, speed-metal, and hardcore as we know them today. And while I dislike about 90% of the extant records in each of those genres, I'd be lying if I said Die Kreuzen wasn't a compelling thrillride of a record.

So download the file, and then go buy the CD remaster (which, in point of fact, includes their second record October File where DK had the guts to vary up their successful sound quite considerably) either here, here, or here.

Kraftwerk - "Live Early Appearance on Beat Club"

Alright, I'll start off by apologizing for not posting on Thursday like I said I would; I realize it's bad business to set expectations and then not follow through. However, I'd like to think that today's file will more than make up for my transgression.

Y'see, what we have here is a relatively rare bootleg recording (very high quality) of Kraftwerk playing live on the German TV show Beat Club. "What's so great about that?" you may find yourself wondering. Well, feast your brain on this, my friends: this early lineup of the band features one Michael Rother on guitar, and a certain Mr. Klaus Dinger on drums. These two, FYI, would later go on to find almost-fame as the highly influential Neu!

Is it wrong to use the word "supergroup"? I know, I know: the connotation these days brings to mind Audioslave and Velvet Revolver (which, I have to say, have to be two of the shittiest band names ever committed to a best-seller chart). But don't let that discourage you from downloading this file. This is a Krautrock fan's dream team. It's a lot more rock-oriented than anything Kraftwerk would ever do again, but that said, it's absolutely brilliant. Four tracks of total space-rock one chord madness, with Rother laying down some of the coolest and most ferocious guitar work he's ever recorded. Trust me, these are jams you don't want to miss.

This boot is also apparently the only recorded evidence that this lineup ever existed, and for some reason it gets talked about a lot in the hushed tones reserved for those most sacred of arcane secrets, but it's relatively hard to find.

Whatever the case may be, I hope you all enjoy today's special and if I get ambitious enough, I might post another file up later today to make up for lost time. A double-dooper would be something special, wouldn't it? I'll see what I can do...

Gratitude

I just want to say thanks to the good folks who've left me comments. What an exciting thing to discover that my efforts are not only not in vain, but actually appreciated! You guys rule. Please spread the love, and feel free to interact via the comments function. That's what this big, crazy web of information is about, after all-- communication.

Alright, now that I'm done spreading my good-times vibes around, I just want to inform you that my posting might get a little sporadic during the run up to Xmas. My job gets a little demanding around this time of year (something I'm sure all you other retail serfs can relate to) but nonetheless, I shall do my best to keep bringing you kickass tunes on a fairly regular basis. My next post will be on Thursday, and it's gonna be pretty awesome so point your browser back here again in the near future.

Thanks again, all!

The Chameleons UK - "The Fan and the Bellows"

In the history of cash-ins that backfired by actually being good and not selling any copies, The Fan and the Bellows by The Chameleons UK has to be near the top of the pile. Apparently, shortly after the group disbanded (the first time), their label decided to release this collection of singles, B-sides, and demos to recoup some of the money they'd spent on promotional costs. Or possibly cocaine, I don't know. It was the 80's.

A short history: The Chameleons UK were formed in 1981 in the post-punk capital of the world, Manchester, England. Only a town that bitchin' could give the world a band like The Chameleons and have so many other great bands that people barely know their name anymore. Anyway, vocalist and bass player Mark Burgess recruited guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding from some local bands that had recently broken up, and with the addition of drummer John Lever, the group was off and running.

They did some BBC sessions that built their reputation before recording their first EP with the master of the big 80's drum sound, none other than Mr. Steve Lillywhite. (It's kind of a shame that he doesn't mix records that way anymore; the last U2 album could have had a lot more punch but the "poppy" radio sheen really takes away from the overall vibe.) From this point, they started releasing albums that arguably just got better and better even though they got slicker and slicker, culminating with the release of Strange Times on Geffen Records in 1986. A badical collection of great songs it may have been, but it also proved to be their swan song.

Well, at least until 2000 when the Chameleons reunited and did some acoustic gigs. They also released a record in 2001 but I haven't heard it and I don't think I ever . I have a feeling it's exactly what you can expect from a band that's been dormant for 15 years-- the kind of much-improved musicianship that results in excruciatingly long ballads where entirely too much attention is paid to details like, "I know, I'll try playing an interesting inversion of the chord progression on the third chorus. that ought to spice things up." Mix in a really bad, generic drum machine beat to show that the group is incorporating "modern influences" like "that rap music that the kids all love" and voila!

Actually, I'd like to be proven wrong on this one so if anyone out there knows it's not that bad, let me know.

In any case, if you're into new wave, post-punk, or good ol' fashioned pop rock with some brains, get this file and then go buy some Chameleons UK at Amazon. Remember to add the "UK" to your search field, otherwise you'll get a bunch of listings of stuff by some obscure folk group.

P.S. I recommend checking out a site called Pandora Internet Radio. It's this service that's supposed to recommend new music based on bands you already like. For instance, you type in "Metallica" and a bunch of shitty music starts playing. It's not always very accurate, but I'll tell you this: everything I've heard this morning on the "Neu!" station has knocked my socks clean off.