Tricky - "Pre-Millennium Tension"

I don't know if it's the holidays that do it to me, or if it's just something that happens with my brain chemistry relating to the time of year. Perhaps it's the New Year encroaching, forcing me to acknowledge my own mortality by taking stock of the deaths of people who held some significance to me over the course of the past 12 months--in 2006, we lost (among others) Syd Barrett, Kirby Puckett, Don Knotts, Gerald Ford, James Brown, Coretta Scott King, Steve Irwin, Peter Boyle, Robert Altman, Bruno Kirby, Arthur Lee, Desmond Dekker, Ali Farka Toure. Or maybe this mood has something to do with having spent another December in the retail industry, observing the celebration of capitalism's birth in a manger.It very likely has something to do with my re-reading Alien Agenda by Jim Marrs. Whatever the case may be, I always seem to come back to certain albums as this mood of impending gloom sets in. One of those records is Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension.

Trip-hop has been one of my great musical loves since the late 90's, when Tricky left Massive Attack and released his solo debut, Maxinquaye. The acquisition and subsequent enjoyment of that album drove me to look into other works in the genre, and I can say that I've enjoyed most of what I've found. The aforementioned Massive Attack, Portishead, DJ Shadow, et al have all released records I hold very near and dear. I think what I like about the form is that it combines the rhythmic elements I enjoy in hip-hop with the sonic palette and song structure of rock, all at a drugged-out relaxed pace that lets you process things as they happen. Or not--sometimes that hazy sound and lolloping beat can add an air of mystery and heavy weirdness. I like that too.

As far as trip-hop MC's go, though, Tricky is second to none. The guy's been through the ringer in terms of his personal life, and his early work reflects that without seeming to seek out pity. It seems he's all too aware of the dark side of existence and while it drags him down, he's not expressing those sentiments in order to make you think, "Aww, poor guy." Instead, he turns those ideas on their side and cloaks himself in that darkness, manifesting a dread and menace that applies to the global situation at large at any given moment. He's a victim and a killer and he's unrepentant about being either, but he's been driven to it and wishes it didn't have to be that way. Maybe things can change for the better, eventually. On PMT, though, there's no indication that the artist knows any more than the audience does.

Anyway, the production on this album is brilliant. It fractures the usual downbeat rhythms, using off-kilter drum loops and fuzzed-out guitars to create a wall of noise that stretches the tension to the breaking point. This is so much darker than even the darkest, most lugubrious mainstream American hip-hop that I'm both unsurprised and completely surprised that Tricky never caught on with US audiences. Plus that, Martina Topley-Bird's vocals are mesmerizingly pretty, bringing an emotional balance to the pathos and dramatic tragedy of the lyrics.

So here's to an immersion and emergence from dark days. May your New Year's Day festivities be all that you want them to be.

Tricky - Pre-Millennium Tension - 02 - Christiansands

Tricky - Pre-Millennium Tension - 04 - Bad Dream

The Associates - "Sulk"

Alright, alright. I know what you're probably thinking right now: "The Associates? Man, they were the gayest thing since gay came to Gay Town." And you're more or less correct. Vocalist Billy MacKenzie more or less gave Morrissey, Freddie Mercury, and David Bowie (when he was playing that particular field) a run for their substantial bank accounts. But that's cool, see?

I mean, the thing is, you have to admire the Associates' fearless attitude. Their music may have sounded like a bunch of Judy Garlandesque torch-songs filtered through then-current dance club mores, but it's awfully hard not to get at least a little taken with a band who did things like have their drummer play a kit composed entirely of snare drums, or play a guitar with a water balloon instead of a pick. Sure, they were making pop music--if pop music had originated on another planet.

Admittedly, the production values on this album are a little rough and hard to get used to. I remember the first couple of months that I owned this album, I couldn't get into it simply because I felt like I could barely hear any of it. Gradually, as I read about the making of this album (the record company put the band up in a warehouse which they duly decked out with tons of gear, crazy room decorations, and lots of drugs) it all started to make sense. There's a really ridiculous early 80's haze hanging on this record, and I don't think it has much to do with the reverb unit.

All the same, I really like the best parts of this record and I find it hard not to get carried away by this band getting carried away. Enjoying some of these tunes feels like getting away with something you shouldn't be able to. Not in that typical, "Well dude, I've never told anyone about this before... but I really like the song 'Ice Ice Baby'" way, but in more of a "I wonder if any of my friends, even the actual gay ones, will still talk to me if I put this up on my Myspace profile?" way.

Get yourself a copy here.

http://storeandserve.com/download/652617/Associates_-_Sulk_-_05_-_Nude_Spoons.mp3.html

http://storeandserve.com/download/652622/Associates_-_Sulk_-_08_-_Party_Fears_Two.mp3.html

http://storeandserve.com/download/652623/Associates_-_Sulk_-_09_-_Club_Country.mp3.html

http://storeandserve.com/download/652627/Associates_-_Sulk_-_14_-_And_Then_I_Read_a_Book.mp3.html

Indian Summer - "Science 1994"

So this marks my first blog in the newer, faster, sleeker format. I hope you enjoy it as much as the older ones.

While the truth is that Indian Summer never titled any of their songs, per se, they did title several of the releases and the liner notes (note?) to Science 1994 is less than clear as to what are album titles and what are single titles. So I've taken the liberty of assiging the three tracks going up today with the titles that seem to directly precede them on the little piece of colored paper included with the band's discography CD.

This band was a group of young fellas from Oakland, California who helped to establish the modern "screamo" sound. Not like "My Chemical Romance are so screamo!" screamo, but like Orchid and Bucket Full of Teeth screamo. You know, the kind that involves actual screaming and not a lot else. Their music is chaotic (and from what I understand, largely improvised), churning and wildly dynamic. Indian Summer really knew how to start with a whisper and build up so loud that they'll take you to the brink and back on just about every song.

What's especially clever about their recorded work is the motif that runs between the tracks--a crackly old Bessie Smith record wails mournfully after each piece ends and the next one starts. Now, I don't know how old these kids were when they recorded this stuff, but I think it's a damned neat thing to do. The use of an old blues record shows the connection from old black music (which the white establishment laregely viewed the same way people nowadays tend to view real screamo--which is to say, a whole lot of noise and whining) with this modern strain of expression. Employing a classic "outsider" record really effectively adds to the sense of alienation and desolation to be found in Indian Summer's own songs. It's a very post-modern idea, but it works; part of why it works is the contrast between the styles, though after a few listens it really is the similarities that stand out.

Anyway, I obviously found out about Indian Summer through fourfa.com, which seems to be the best online guide to the emo genre around. At least, insofar as Andy Radin (the site's proprietor) seems keen on providing lists of bands and their better records. This makes it easier when you're trying to track down and study the better elements within a given genre. I'd always thought emo meant Dashboard Confessional until I heard Drive Like Jehu, and then I had to hear more stuff like that. While I never found anything quite as good, there were a few bands that came close and to me, IS is one of them. You can obtain a copy of Science 1994... well, just about nowhere, anymore. Apparently it was a pretty limited edition run, what with the cover being hand-stamped and all. I bought my copy on eBay from a dude who used to be in the band, he had about 800 of them up for sale but he said after those ran out, that'd be it. They have, however, just recently released a set of live recordings which I will likely obtain and which you should consider getting, too. Word on the street is that it's pretty good stuff.

http://storeandserve.com/download/638285/Indian_Summer_-_Science_1994_-_01_-_Science_Fiction-Digital.wma.html

http://storeandserve.com/download/638290/Indian_Summer_-_Science_1994_-_04_-_Blue_House_%

http://storeandserve.com/download/638294/Indian_Summer_-_Science_1994_-_07_-_Untitled.wma.html

Can - "Radio Waves"

Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury...

The defendant in today's trial, a German band by the name of Can, stands accused of being a completely kick-ass band. While I am certain that you will agree and help to convict them, I would like to erase any potential doubts you might have by offering up several pieces of evidence. This should cement Can's "guilty" status in your mind.

At this time, I would like to call your attention to Exhibit A, the opening track on Radio Waves. This particular number is called "Up the Bakerloo." It was recorded live for John Peel's BBC radio show and one need look no further than its 35 minute, 19 second running time to grasp the diabolical minds at work here. Can's singer at the time, one Damo Suzuki, is if not the ringleader than certainly a primary driving force. He vocalizes at great length in English, German, Japanese, and (one suspects) even verbal tones with no literal meaning. This piece of music builds and builds, at points positively seething with creativity as though there were too many ideas in the studio on that day for the band to commit to any of them for too long.

Exhibit B follows later in Radio Waves' running order--witness, if you can without turning away, the glaring brilliance of the track called "Entropy." This particular piece, while it is half as long as "Up the Bakerloo," is still as long as one side of most other bands' albums and it too is full of manic, wild instrumentation and more of Suzuki's meta-linguistics. After hearing the guitar playing of one Michael Karoli on this particular piece, I firmly believe that any remaining jury members who have not yet decided on a verdict will quickly find themselves swayed.

However, if that is not enough evidence, I offer up Exhibits C and D: "Little Star of Bethlehem" and "Shikaku Maru Ten". The former is a piece recorded with Can's original vocalist, Malcolm Mooney; Mooney, it is worth noting, was a tall gentlemen of African-American origin whose delivery could not be more different from the subtle, flowing cascade of Suzuki. Mooney's vocals are much more choppy and rhythmic, and certainly more forceful. "Little Star" represents a live alternate take on a song that was originally featured on the group's aborted debut album Delay 1968. The latter piece, "Shikaku Maru Ten," was a B-side to a single from the Tago Mago album, and is clearly a prelude to the work the group would do on their following record Future Days. Drummer Jaki Leibezeit employs a light, jazzy shuffle and keyboard player Irmin Schmidt's use of steel-drum-like tones clearly predict the direction the band would head in shortly after Tago Mago.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you have before you are six of the most notorious musicians ever to pick up instruments in front of microphones. These men have committed unspeakable crimes against boredom and safe formats, and I recommend that you take action for the rest of society: convict them. If you find them guilty of the charges brought against them, hopefully they will receive the punishment they deserve at the hands of justice--that is to say, a few million people buying this record here and making the surviving members of this band as wealthy as they deserve to be for subjecting us to such... such... such superior musical experimentation.

These men are guilty, and I trust that your verdict will render unto them the fate that they deserve.

I have nothing further, Your Honor.

Cabaret Voltaire - "Red Mecca"

In honor of the swearing in of Robert Gates as the new defense secretary, I'm posting this record because of its provocative title. The guy says we're losing in Iraq, and implies that we should maybe come up with some kind of time-table for withdrawal--then he gets the job, and makes a speech about how he's gonna whack the hornets' nest of "Islamic fascism" some more. Should be a sweet few years under this guy...

I'm also posting this album because it kicks a whole lot of ass. Opening (and ending) with CV's take on Henry Mancini's "A Touch of Evil" (a theme the composer originally wrote for an Orson Welles picture of the same title), the atmosphere is immediately established: this record is clearly going to be one of those dark, visceral trips into places most people don't like their psyche to go.

While I have no idea what any of these songs are actually about, the overall tone is pretty menacing and pretty well suited to times of doubt and uncertainty. "Sly Doubt", the second track, is one of my favorites, as is the diptych "Red Mask"/"Black Mask". Stephen Mallinder's in top form here, all rambling digitally-effected vocals and low, dread-filled bass.

I wish Cabaret Voltaire had stayed closer to experimental and improv music, based on the results evidenced by this album. Instead they went on to found modern industrial music and to this day, every major metropolitan area still has a club where kids with shitty haircuts/bad dye jobs, eyeliner, and fishnet t-shirts can go and dance with hot young ice queens decked out in tall leather boots and Vast merchandise. Well, thank god for progress--if not for CV's later generic-sounding crap records, we might still be grooving to awesome stuff like Red Mecca!

Aye-aye-aye. So anyway, this is the second-to-last full album I'm planning on posting before I revert to a "two-to-four songs per post" format. The one I plan to put up last (probably on Saturday) is so bitchin' that you won't want to hear anything in its entirety again, because your mind will be so fragmented by processsing the first track alone that you won't be able to handle anything other than three-minute singles anyway.

Tangerine Dream - "Electronic Meditations"

It's been brought to my attention that three reasons Just Another MP3 Blog might not have an established readership at this point are as follows:

1. There isn't a specific musical focus (i.e. Krautrock, emo-core, post punk, etc.). I tend to jump around a lot, meaning that someone who's way into a certain genre will probably look at a blog with a more consistent approach. Mine would be hit-or-miss to a person like that.

2. I don't follow the format established by other MP3 blogs. Even a cursory glance at Post-Punk Junk, Strange Reaction, or Pop Zeus will reveal that the "standard" method of operating one of these music-sharing forums seems to involve Lester Bangs-esque writing that provides information about the artist and/or work in question, but freely delves into other subjects that the author feels are important at any given moment. (Essentially, it appears that my little history lessons here appear a bit too dry.)

3. It would seem that posting two to four songs from any given record, as opposed to the whole thing, is common practice and I guess that makes sense. I guess it's pretty naive of me to think that if I post the audio files for a full album and thoughtfully include a link to a website where said album can be obtained quite legally, maybe you'll support the artists by purchasing their work... Anyway, not posting just a few songs will prevent Just Another MP3 Blog from appearing on blog search engines such as The Hype Machine, which are good places to pick up random readers.

To make a long story short, there may be some changes made around here in the near future. One of them is that I'll probably start posting fewer tracks from the records I'm profiling. I mean, should the RIAA come knockin' on my digital door, I don't want to come across as a complete asshole--my goal here is in fact to support artists and labels by providing a preview of their products to consumers who might be interested, rather than letting challenging works waste away in obscurity. Obviously some of these artists and labels don't have the means to get their stuff on the radio in these days of legal payola; in my mind, the internet and specifically MP3 blogs are like a modern version of radio where the playing field has been levelled. (And what is radio, really, other than an advertising platform that makes you think it's not an advertising platform? At least I'm honest about what I'm doing here.) In any case, this post may contain the last full record I'll be putting up.

On the other hand, changes that won't happen revolve around the first item on my list: a narrowing of my musical field in order to draw a specific audience. The thing is, as a modern guy living in a modern world which comes closer every day to resembling a William Gibson novel, I enjoy having access to a multitude of music across a wide variety of genres. I enjoy the fact that I can listen to a folk song, then a hip-hop track, followed by a hardcore band's EP, and wrap things up with a German prog-rock record from the late 70s. Some may argue that by refusing to specialize, I may never grow to appreciate the specific pleasures of a particular kind of music--the kinds of details and motifs that only reveal themselves after 20 years of being obsessed with something--but I don't care. I'm content to have a working knowledge of several different musical arenas, even if it means never having the kind of in-depth insight some folks have.

Also, I'll try not to go too far off the deep end in terms of my writing (this post being an obvious exception) the way some other blogs do. Don't get me wrong, some of them are very entertaining and, in fact, informative; however, I'd far rather give you what I know of the facts than too much of my own opinion. My goal is to set the reader up with just enough contextual information that they might be able to appreciate music that would otherwise seem totally strange and abrasive to them. On the other hand, I try to keep the summaries short so that if you skip them, you're not missing much. As Brian Eno once observed, sometimes music is at its best when it comes without context--it seems much more mysterious and interesting that way. It frees us, the audience, from having to absorb the ideas and intentions of the author (which, while they may indeed be the inspirational force behind a creative work, may ultimately reduce the enjoyment to be gleaned from said work).

Alright, now that you're up to speed... Tangerine Dream. My, oh my do they have a healthy work ethic. Edgar Froese probably keeps a list of his band's album titles on a scroll so he can impress visitors by unfurling it and letting it roll across the floor. And let's not kid ourselves here--most of their later work blows pretty hard. Unless you're really into namby-pamby new age gobblediegook and shitty instrumental versions of Hendrix tunes.

However, there are some damn cool records in their discography going right up to 1980's Tangram (which is where, to me, the obvious cracks started appearing). One of these lovelies is their debut album, Electronic Meditation.

The TD lineup on this record features some real heavyweight Krautrock muscle: the aforementioned TD captain Froese, Conrad Schnitzler, and the mighty Klaus Schulze, all of whom need no introduction (and if you think they do, feel free to look here or here).

The title of the album is a bit misleading; it's not quite an electronic record. Rather, like the first couple of Kraftwerk albums, the material leans toward rock with an emphasis on digitally processing signals produced by acoustic and electric instruments. But like other Krautrock albums of the time, there are only five tracks, which tend to be somewhat spacy, lengthy jams. If that's the kind of thing you dig, though, this record should be right up your alley. It's actually pretty accessible in terms of musical content, if you're a little patient.

You can get a copy of Electronic Meditiation Amazon, Newbury Comics, or Half.com, probably at a fairly reasonable price. There are a few "deluxe" remastered editions floating around, and while I'm sure the sound quality is higher, if it's a product that has been put together by Mr. Froese in the last 20 years or so, I'm warning you--stay away from it, or risk death by boredom!

Nirvana - "Wild Tales (Live in Amsterdam, November 1991)"

So I didn't post Thursday... I know, I know, I've broken your trust. But it's okay, today's file really ought to make up for it. This here's an awesome live recording of Nirvana playing some small-ish place in Amsterdam in 1991. Don't the early 90's feel like another lifetime at this point...?

This is a pretty high-quality recording, sound-wise. I don't know if it was done up for radio or just committed to tape by an ambitious guy behind the boards, but whatever the case may be, the audio here is about as good as you could hope for from a concert bootleg.

Some highlights include a bitchin' rendition of "Aneurysm" and a wild take on "Floyd the Barber". While they were never the kind of band to expand on songs in a live format, choosing instead to provide audiences with close approximations of the music as heard on record, it's downright impressive how close Nirvana could come to sounding like a slightly sped-up version of their discography. The material from Bleach is well represented, but it's when you listen to the stuff from Nevermind--presumably because it was relatively new at this point--that it becomes pretty clear what a solid live band these guys were.

In short, there isn't a bad version or a major mistake on this entire recording. This comes as a surprise only because they were in Amsterdam, of all places. The idea that a band like Nirvana could be set free in the opiate capital of the world and not be a total trainwreck by showtime is a happy surprise, but then again Kurt just lived to confound expectations didn't he?

I'd normally include links to buy the disc, but because the artist in question wouldn't get anything from your purchase this time out, I'm gonna forgo that tradition. (It doesn't help that I can't seem to find the damn thing listed anywhere--perhaps I have a rarity on my hands.) In any case, I hope you enjoy this and if you've only got time to listen to one track, I recommend skipping straight to "Breed" and turning your speakers up about as loud as they'll go. If it doesn't make you want to smash every piece of furniture in your house, I guarantee your money back...