I finally got around to Soundclouding the most recent Damaged Tape releases. You can listen to them here:
25 July 2012
17 July 2012
Sunforest - 1969 - Sound of Sunforest
Quality: 3.25 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 3.75 out of 5
Ever see "The Wicker Man?" Not the newer one with the bees, and the bear suit, and crazy Nick Cage, but the 70's one with Christopher Lee. Some of this music makes me think of that movie's creepy-groove folk. I'd like to think that there's a naked woman banging on walls and singing some of the tunes here - but not all of them (like the ones with a dude singing). Be forewarned, however, that this is a wildly inconsistent album. Although some of the tunes dabble in pristine sunshine pop, psych folk, and a few other points in between, there are an equal number of tracks that dabble in awful. Let's see if we can parse those out.
Now let's get positive here. There is an album lurking among these tracks that would give the Free Design more than a run for its money. Go ahead and program these ones if you want to follow the doctor's prescription: "Overture to the Sun," "Where Are You," "Be Like Me," "And I Was Blue," "Magician In the Mountain," "Give Me All Your Loving," and "All In Good Time." Congratulations, you can now add an extra point, and maybe a touch more, to the quality rating. These demonstrate what Sunforest does really well - ghostly sunshine folk at dusk that Stereolab must've spun a few times in their heyday. "And I Was Blue" is the absolute "Nugget" here where everything comes together in the grooviest of witches' brew concoctions. If you want to pad the time, feel free to throw in "Bonny River," "Lovely Day," and "Garden Rug." They've got a slight touch of cheese but are still very enjoyable in the end. Great Moondog! Now we've got a prime 27.5 minute album, which would have been perfectly acceptable for 1969.
Then we've got "Mr. Bumble," "Lighthouse Keeper," "Old Cluck," and "Peppermint Store." These songs sound much like you'd expect songs with these titles to sound. It's not a pretty situation. I've never made it through a few of these, unless I was playing Tetris Battle while listening - that shizzle's timed so you can't just break away.
Man, I tell you there is a classic here. Just take advantage of the mp3 age and make yourself a groovy playlist. Sunforest may have been missing a proper editor, but that can now be you. No, you don't screw around with the track listings of "Sgt. Pepper's" or "Who's Next," but I think it's perfectly legitimate to screw around with the running order of "Sound of Sunflower."
High Wolf - 2011 - A Guide to Healing
Quality: 3.75 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5
Here's a bit of a trifle - just twelve minutes of electronic tetrahedrons sparking neurons in your mind. I can't even remember where this came from as I just stumbled upon it on my hard drive. I imagine that I found it on the Weed Temple blog, which deserves your undivided attention if you're not already a fan.
Anyway, back to this particular guide. Honestly, I'd probably head to some Indian classical, Alan Watts, or maybe something with throat singing and bells for the healing sound. High Wolf take the route with a lysergic ice pick to the brain. "Free You Energy Field" is just short of awesomeness. Not to come in with too strong of a 'should-a would-a,' but I'll be damned if this wouldn't be a celestial drone on the order of Spacemen 3's "Ecstasy Symphony" if not for that damn bouncing, sequenced pulse. Maybe a remix is in order? It eventually fades out in the name of bongos, though, so that's cool. "Swallow Pills With Ganges River Water" has a tighter hold on my attention. It's percolations of liquid sound would've fit nicely a 80's Cannon Films spectacular with David Carradine or Steven Segal (if you're unlucky) heading into the deep forest on a spirit quest/ass-kicking tutorial.
High Wolf probably have a bandcamp site or something, but I'm too lazy to look for it. You've got twelve minutes of time for this, though. Yes, it's the cover art that drew me in - the music fits 63% of the way towards matching the cover.
10 July 2012
Sferi - 2012 - Sound of the Spheres
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5
Howdy, everyone! This is Dr. Schluss. And when I want to trippily trip on down to Tripsville, nothing trips me out like this tripped out collection of trippy tunes! The ambient onslaught of Sferi does a pretty fine job of bundling together several of my stranger obsessions. Looking straight up at the title we've got the music of the sphere (er, 'sound'), so that's a check. Not only does much of this sound like what they'd play for you in the planetarium to destroy your fragile, eggshell mind on the elementary school field trip, but a fair amount of it also sounds like what you'd hear in that dark, creepy room in the back with the dinosaur stuff. And yeah, all of the psychedelic, world of sound crap that I usually ramble on about is perfectly present as well on this set of synthesized and found sounds. At least that's what I think I'm hearing - I always dig music where I'm not quite sure what's going on. I suppose my musical goal in the end is for extreme disorientation. To me, that's the music of the spheres and that's what we've got on this set.
The tracks themselves take us on an ever evolving, orbiting journey on a trajectory out of the cosmos. After some light industrial pummeling on "Merkur," Sferi goes the full Vangelis on "Venera." Not that this is a problem. If you're traveling into interstellar synth space, you'd be lost without your Vangelis and Sferi does that riff just as well as the bearded man himself did in his prime. "Jupiter" is one of those tracks that tosses your brain onto a tray in the liquid nitrogen oven. Getting back to the creepy dinosaur museum room, "Uran" puts your straight into that faux-primordial ooze before the cosmos finally opens up near the end of the track. I dig everything here, but I'm not sure the delicate (if discordant) harpsichord tones on "Mars" quite live up to the god of war nomenclature. But it's still perfectly groovy if you discount the title.
I'm down with Holst, but sometimes I want to glide through the solar system with a little less bombast. This album is the place to be if space is the place for you and you're not in a Sun Ra mood. The cover art is a touch geechy, but for the past ten years I've had random planetary stickers showing up in my guitar case, the back of my synthesizers, my suitcase, my backpack and so on. I'm not sure where they cam from in the first place and I really don't know why they keep appearing. I think I've thrown away Jupiter at least three times now. Anyway, it makes me think of the album cover and I now think these events simply occurred to herald this album's appearance. At least I think that's the simplest explanation.
You can download this collection at Sferi's bandcamp, which is here:
Sferi - 2012 - Sound of the Spheres
21 June 2012
Glaze of Cathexis - 2012 - Canyons in the Sonic Whirlpools
Movin' on to some more original music from the psychedelic garage. The goal is to take you on a psychedelic journey through folk-rock, surf music, and straight up rock n' roll. This set originated from the same sessions that produced I Often Dream of the Apocalypse, and again feature Gonzoriffic filmmaker Andrew Shearer drumming away. I thought about making it double album length, but I'm more of a fan of shortish, 35-40 minute rock albums, so I split the tracks. These tracks include all the work I did with my regular collaborator Scott Atkinson. These are all his lyrics (as well as album artwork), so I'll present you with his strange, 13th Floor Elevators-inspired rant on the music:
Beyond the event horizon... beyond the border of the Unknown and Known... lies the Canyons of the Sonic Whirlpool. The bustling, dark confines of a Saigon cafe - the mind's images turn into floating waterways of fluid Engroovied Mandalas. Ceramic pots in a forlorn windowbay alcove above speak of high plains of Midnite Blue. Seizing the present moment in the shimmering light soars the Dream's Vision. Patterns of creation and decay echo across the ancient tiled floor, motes of dust sparkling... Chromium Lightning blazes like an inspired demigod's trident. Thoughts wheel in Hurricanes of Disorder, white horses flare on the seas in my mind... Waves of Moonlight shine... All becomes Sunflowers and Rainshowers in the primal gardens... call of the deepest Mekong beckons. Bright voices of light read from the Akashic records beyond all delusion, the Inner Shaman's Guide to Perception proclaims Don't Stand Down... in Saigon in mossy alleyways and thick, soupy canals amid the flurry of racing Xe Oms, like points of light, we find ourselves bathed in light on the Turbid, Shingle Beach.
Anyway, I'd love to hear your comments, and if you dig the tunes, do share them!
19 June 2012
Lighthouse - 1971 - One Fine Morning
Quality: 3.25 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 3.25 out of 5
Well, I've got to admit that the buttons that Lighthouse press are not really the ones that send my spirit soaring. First off, I'm not really a fan of "horny" rock - y'know, like Chicago or Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Lighthouse has a very prominent horn section tootling away through much of the album. They are also notable dabblers in the bar-band-blasting-with-a-blues-growling-white-dude sort of vibe. There's nothing particularly wrong with what these Canadians were up to if the previous things are a few of your favorites. Fortunately, there's also a touch of light psych to keep my attention.
So, for that little pinch of psych, check out "Little Kind Words" and "1849." Still, they float around on poofy clouds of woodwinds and lounge swings that's a little bombastic for my tastes. The seem to telepathically tune to their fellow Canadians in the Band on "Hats Off (to the Stranger" and Show Me the Way, but with lots of Rock of Ages horns, of course. The opening tune and "Old Man" come forward with the full-scale jazz rock big band thing, while the closing "Sweet Lullaby" gets a little too big for its britches.
The very trippy album cover pulled me in, and now here I am writing about an album that I don't particularly like. Still, Lighthouse does a pretty fine job of accomplishing what it set out to do. If evoking Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears does get your heart all a flutter, then I think that you may be the sonic receiving candidate that this vinyl is waiting for.
30 May 2012
Sapphire Thinkers - 1968 - From Within
Trip-O-Meter: 3.75 out of 5
I have to admit that I'm a sucker for the candy-coated harmonies of sunshine pop, but the happiness, and often cheesiness, is typically too overwhelming for regular listening. Sapphire Thinkers definitely has the sunshine harmonies right up front, but this is 1968 and starting to get a little late in the game for AM radio rainbows. Perhaps prepping themselves for an afterlife on AOR, (which unfortunately never happened), the groop has a wonderfully beefed up command of their instruments, giving the music some power with shades of acid rock and harder psychedelia. Yeah, this is still a confectionary, but there's a bit that you can sink your teeth into.
These fine fellows (and lady) seem to be at their grooviness while riding sunshine harmonies and fuzz guitar utop an organ groove. Fortunately, we get plenty of that right up front with "Melancholy Baby," and a few more heaping servings of the vibe on "I Feel A Bit Strange," "Not Another Night," and "Blind With A Borrowed Light." There's a fine interlude of trippy lite-psyche with the title track and "I Got to You," along with a wonderfulyl half-assed hippy jam out on "Doin' Alright." The only time when the cup of cheese doth overrun may be on "Get Along Boy."
We're coming out of the synthesized aether for you city folk and this is a fine slab of neglected psychedelic sunshine pop. The harmonies shine, the lead guitar is fuzzed out, and man, they've got a big organ!!!... wait, that doesn't sound quite right.
16 May 2012
Iasos - 1978 - Angelic Music
Quality: 4 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5
We'll send our spirits a little deeper into the aether of transcendental existence with this undeniably early new age effort from Iasos. Now, I know 'new age' tends to be a bit of a dirty word, especially for us music heads, but this release has the fortune of coming out at magic moment when there genre was pretty much fully formed, but analog synthesizers and tape hiss dirtied up the sound's pristine face a little bit. This really helps to humanize the music in a way that would end up mostly lost once John Tesh fired up his arsenal of keyboars, spewing them out onto sterile digital gloss. Not so here: the tones will relax you, and perhaps mystically lobotomize you if you're into that sort of thing, but they also sound like they're oozing out of the misty primordial forest, and not sproinging off of the D.A.T. (anyone remember those?) of a middle-aged L.A. power hipster with sunglasses and a pony tail. Still, you'd best ignore the cover art, which seems to have come from a Shopping Channel special on crystal angel sculptures.
The tracks are split right into two thirty minute long album sides. You can care that the track titles are "The Angels of Comfort" and "Angel Play," but knowing that probably doesn't matter for a whole lot as the music's spinning. The sounds will greet your ears with giant pads of synthetic string sounds and the occasional babbling brook. My hook for the whole affair was reading the notion that some of those who have had near-death experiences have apparently equated this album with the sounds of moving on. That's got to make the thing worth a listen in my book.
Once upon a time, I rippity rapped a bit about an older Iasos album on this blog. Really, I've still got to give that one the distinction of being better, but I'd admit that this one is a little more profound. Perhaps a touch more mind expanding. It's straight out of the short, halycon era when 'new age' might have ended up with a place in the lexicon of groovy instead of the dustbin of the Nature Company.
Transmuteo - 2011 - Cymaglyphs
Quality: 4 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.75 out of 5
Here's another spun sliver of ambient cosmic gold from the world of hissy cassette tape experiments. Transmuteo trades in some extremely chill sounds, for the most part, this album sends the synthesized sequences to the background and pushes forwards with environmental and found sounds. While there is a fair amount of interesting sonic sculpturing going on here, the main effect is best experienced as a sonic jaccuzi. I bet the Dude could've thrown this one in his bathroom cassette deck once the songs of the whales had ended.
Although a few intentional tape glitches humanize the mix a bit, most of this just glides through like mental butter. "Zone Temple" introduces us to a slow, synthetic sequence that serves as musical DNA and that the album will regularly revisit. So, we'll just cut to the chase and target "Lightworker's Meditation," which also features a variation of the main motif. The star attraction of this one, however, is the exceptionally trippy voice sample, giving meditation instructions to, uh, lightworkers, and insisting that we fill our upper tetrahedrons with stuff like indigo light. What is a lightworker, anyway? Are they just replacing street lamps or dancing the dimensional dervish twirl on another plane of there? Can I be a lightworker? The "Boards-of-Canada-on-downers" vibe drifts along into "Starseed," the next track as well. But the whole album drifts along nicely, really. Sometimes we get a touch of gamelan like in "Zion Hologram."
This is one of those discs geared at those of us looking for that out-of-body experience. There's very little here that you can really gnash your teeth into, but if you're going to be into this sort of thing, that's probably the way you want it. Transmuteo brews a light blend that simply wafts through the starshone tropical breezes.
They've got a website for this one over nyah:
http://transmuteo.bandcamp.com/album/cymaglyphs
01 May 2012
Rehabilitation
27 April 2012
Between - 1974 - Dharana
Quality: 4.5 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5
Between continues their decent down the rabbit hole here, cranking up their world fusion voltage on this LP. I certainly wouldn't accuse these Germans of copying Mike Oldfield, but the dense walls of arpaggiated sound does echo some lessons learned from that artists "Tubular Bells." Of course, here they relieve the tension by juxtaposing that sort of thing with tricks like throat singing. The rugged krautrock vibes of their last album are played down here for a journey to the center of your soul. You need to be up for a meditative ayahuasca space ride when you throw this one on the turntable (or more likely hit 'play' on your mp3 player).
Again, the star of the show is probably the title track, running more than 20 minute and giving you the closest experience that you'll get to mind dancing with the Peruvian Amazonian shaman short of hiring a boat in that direction yourself. "Joy... Sadness... Love" recalls a touch of Terry Riley-like oscillating organ set amongst a chant and flute led drone. "Listen to the Light" presents us with a dew-dripped mind voyage into the primordial garden of delights, while the closing "The Voice of Light" is a stew of ambient sound and chanting that encases your being into warm carbonite.
This music existed a few steps outside of typical existence when it was released, and it still sounds like it's being broadcast from a hyperspace cosmic bubble. It's a very groovy thing to massage your mind and presents us with a intriguing alternate history of the boundless musical scene pulsing out of Deutschland in the early 70's. But what do I know? I'm just sitting here slamming chu-hi and rambling about tones that you've just got to hear for yourself.
Between - 1973 - And the Waters Opened
Quality: 4.5 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5
This is an early effort in the fields of what we now call world fusion and new age. The group originated from Germany and definitely had a hint of the krautrock vibe that emanated from acts like Popol Vuh, Can, and Tangerine Dream, but I wouldn't quite put this under the banner of krautrock. Basically, the rock is missing. Fortunately, this doesn't turn out to be a problem. Between gives us some very groovy early ambient vibes and this music exists in that rarefied air when new age still had a worthwhile hangover from the hippy supernova of the late 60's and before it curdled into a layer of cheese. Strange sound effects and tribal drumming run rampant here.
The opening title track makes a strong case as the main event. It comes across a little like the first couple of Popol Vuh albums, rife with percussive craziness but replacing the Moog tones with flutes, a touch of acoustic guitar at the end, and God knows what floating layers of sound to mark it as a minor masterpiece. With "Uroboros," the group takes us through an astral dream flyby of a caravan on the Silk road, while "Syn" brings in the bass synths to send warbling ripples through your mind. I suppose "devotion" ranks as their echoing, should've been, would've been, chanting drum circle hit single in an alternate dimension. The epic length "Happy Stage" and "Samum" make up a mini-suite that drops your wandering spirit into a ancient faux-Indian court where the blue smoke of sacred opium wafts through the air.
This music exists at a happy crossroads that puts firm pressure on more than a few of my aural pleasure centers. Hopefully it does the same for you. The spinning reel-to-reel recording and the consultations from krautrock pioneers set it several squares apart from the saccharine bliss merchants that would come to define the new age sound by the mid 80's. You can fill your ear with the real deal here.
04 April 2012
Damaged Tape - 2012 - The Floating Existence
There's no particular concept to this album, it's really just a set of psychedelic musings. Pretty much all of the music here spilled out rather effortlessly over the past few months. Making music for me never feels too much like work, but this one was even more fun and games. I think it helps that everything here is analog hardware (with the sole exception of the robotic voice on the first track), so I didn't have to endure any programming cyber-headaches. There's also more guitar present than on other Damaged Tape records - I honestly can't really play keyboard that well, but I can rock it funky on guitar. I've also included a few tracks with lead vocals, which is a first for Damaged Tape. If my music evolves, I'm happy, and I think this one has a somewhat different vibe from other sets I've done for the Damaged Tape project. Here's some track-by-track notes for your perusal:
1. Shadows of the Future - Probably the closest we get to this dance floor on this set. The opening sample is from Alan Watt's brain-blowing "Om" from "The Sound of Hinduism," which you'll find elsewhere on the blog. My image for the second half of the track is of a bunch of robots blasting you with lasers while pontificating on their robot philosophy.
2. Craters of the Sun - I sit around playing Tetris and listening to classical Indian music a lot. Of course, many of you know that I have a sitar obsession. Unfortunately, I don't have a sitar, so my electric guitar will have to do for this faux-raga.
3. Melted Into Angel Form - Here's another second solar track in a sort of mini-suite of hymns toward the sun. I was trying to get my Eno on a little more than usual for this one. If you can figure out what movie I based the lyrics on, then you may have ESP.
4. The Solar Petroglyphs - I guess this really makes more sense as a Glaze of Cathexis tune, but the track did start with the percolating synths and I like it here. The lyrics are a mixture of good and bad advice. It's up to you to parse out which is which.
5. Sharkfasting of the Wyld - It's a shojam! This one has kind of a weird swing that I don't think shows up in electronic music too much. You'll have to ask Scott what he's talking about on the track.
6. Bohemian Astronaut - Not quite a hippy in space - a little sharper than that. We'll dedicate this one to Harrison Schmitt, the only scientist who made it to the Moon during the Apollo program. Maybe that made him seem a touch bohemian amongst all the navy and air force dudes.
7. Tara Poets and Edo Priests - Or maybe it's the other way around as the file name says. Honestly, I sort of forgot. Hell, both ways are fine with me. Until Scott made his contribution, I had an unfortunate urge to name this track "The Hippy Revolution," but it has to be an exploitation revolution like you can see in the double feature DVD "Wild in the Streets/Gas-s-s-s"
8. Conversations With the Psychedelic Wyzard - All of these tracks started off with the file name "cheecream," but this one really earns its title. We've got a question posed by the lead synthesizer, and answer from the lead guitar, and another response from the synth over the course of the track. You can decide which one of these voices is the psychedelic, uh, wyzard.
9. Magnetic Vulcanology - The initial tune made me think of a synthesized communist anthem or something, and then I decided to do the Cookie Monster for the vocals. I don't think I can touch Tom Waits Cookie Monster impression, but I am a big fan of both of those iconic figures.
10. A Dedication of the Deserts - I may need to get Scott to post a bit about the intentions of his words. Although it is ostensibly about the deserts, I keep feeling that it's more of a peace, love, and tantric sex thing. I don't know, the artist is typically the worst person that you can ask, "So, what does it mean?"
11. Tribal Physics - I think I figured out how to make my Roland Juno 60 sound reasonably like a Fender-Rhodes electric piano - at least that's what I was going for. Something deep inside of me thought about naming this album "The Happy Bongo" as well. This track is further support for that idea.
As always, I'd love to hear your comments, and if you dig the sounds, you're welcome to repost. Let me know if you do.
Listen to me:
30 March 2012
Robert Fripp - 1980 - God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners
OHMYGODTHISALBUMHASTWOCOVERSIDONTKNOWWHATTODO!!! Quality: 5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5
I have a pretty weird perception of Robert Fripp. He most certainly ranks among my favorite guitarists, but I'm not into that much of his main project King Crimson, and even his solo albums tend to sound a bit spotty to me ("Exposure, " anyone?). The gold to my ears is when he's working with Eno, or Bowie, or the Talking Heads (whose leader David Byrne also appears here for one shining track). So, I find this amazing album to be Fripp's shining solo journey into transcendental sound. Much of the album revolves around Fripp's meditative, ambient Frippertronic guitar sound, but there are a couple of serious art rock ringers rearing their heads at the end.
Side one of the LP is completely devoted to deep space guitar explorations. You'll never remember what "Red Two Scorer," "God Save the Queen," or "1983" sound like, but you may very well dig the sonic journey anyhoo. It's of note that each track comes across a bit more menacing than the one before it.
Now I heard a Talking Heads song on the radio about ten years ago that completely blew my young, eggshell mind. I went on a hunt to find the damn thing, and even bought the Talking Heads horrific "Naked" album, hoping it would be there. Turns out that it's not actually a Talking Heads track, and in fact appears on this album as "Under Heavy Manners." David Byrne guest in a long, strange rant about '-isms' and jizm. His band was originally called the Artistics, which many people tweaked to the Autistics, due to Byrne's freaky stage manner. Anyway, this track has me thinking that maybe that name wasn't a joke. Closing out the set is "The Zero of the Signified," which hits us up with seven minutes of afro-beat groovin', followed by another wall of ambient Frippertronics.
I think this album has been greatly obscured by the dust storms of time, but it really does present Robert Fripp at his best, with a fine chaser of David Byrne at his most freaky-spastic. Give it a listen.
Hawkwind -1975 - Warrior at the Edge of Time
Quality: 5 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.75 out of 5
I'd put this album up as the moment when Hawkwind were directly bathed by the cosmic rays of the celestial one-mind. Y'know, we need a good sci-fi way to call this their best album. Everything we need for prime Hawkwind is present and accounted for. Long-winded, psychedelic heavy metal anthems? Check. Weird, rambling Michael Moorcock spoken interludes? Check. Insane 70's analog synthesizers screamin? Check. Lemmy? Check. Yeah, in many ways Hawkwind was (or is, really) the real life Spinal Tap, but that equates to nothing but awesome on this platter.
Some of Hawkwind's most impressive, epic astral clouds of rawk show up on this record. "Assult and Battery" and "The Golden Void" sort of blur together into one heavy metal epic. "Mangu" and "Spiral Galaxy 28948" also pack in the Hawkwind punch in its pure, iconic form. The thing that really gets my groovy prog blood racing, though, are the sci-fi interludes from the amazingly named Michael Moorcock (aw ladies, you've gotta meet Moorcock backstage). I'd be perfectly happy to play you the trio of "The Wizard Blew His Horn," "Standing at the Edge," and "Warriors" until you COMPLETELY understand reality, or your brain falls out. Whichever happens first. At the end of the disc, we get a fun seven minute preview of Motorhead as "Kings of Speed" rock pretty wildly, and then we're treated to an outtake of Lemny black leather-howling called "Motorhead." Of course, he would soon leave the group via the drug ejector seat and form the real Motorhead. The only tune that doesn't really do it for me here is the acoustic-tinged psych ballad "The Demented Man." Hawkwind really shouldn't touch acoustic guitars.
This album is pretty much a psychedelic beacon standing tall amongst the wasteland of the mid-70's. Yeah, Hawkwind sound sort of ranks with the contemporary dinosaur band, but they rock it out in such a deranged manner that their hawk spirit is more one with the punk rockers. Anyway, this is an absolute psychedelic heavy metal masterpiece.
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