Some MySpace finds

Yeah, yeah...
I know, MySpace blows.
You don't have to tell me.
But believe it or not, I've actually found some cool music on it, or should I say it found me.

One cool find has been Doktor Liborius & the Mutants, who hail from France.
It's consciously Residential music - indeed, members met up in the Residents fan club. They really sound like something you'd hear on one of those Ralph comps, circa 1979 or so. I dunno, this stuff is appealing at first, but could grate after awhile. We'll have to see if they put more songs up.
Check them out here.

Another is DJ Tapeslinger, who has the markings of a truly messed up individual. His tape inching, punchup recordings remind me of the audio messes I used to make to cheer myself up and annoy people around me. (make an otherwise normal recording with a cassette recorder, whilst punching the pause button on and off very rapidly, sometimes to the beat of the music).
Nice stuff.
He's right here.

I should mention that both pages feature downloadable songs.
Give 'em a listen and make comments if you dig what they're laying on you.

Hi All, Long overdue post.

Hi friends, Mr. Chardman here.
I'm so sorry for the slow down. I've been real busy. having to wrap my lobes around some heavy stuff for work.
Learnin' how to edit video, and shoot better pictures. Deadlines up the wazoo.

I have, however, acquired a shiny new hard drive, making storage and retrieval a breeze.
I had stuffed my poor ol' Mac to the gills, and didn't even have enough room to rip my latest project! I did have a clunky old USB hard drive that took as long as a it does to download a big file from the 'net as it did to transfer between it and my Mac. But thanks to Kill Ugly Radio's patron saint Ralph, I now have a beautiful new(ish) Lacie Firewire drive.
I do so love home computing, how 'bout you?
So now, grabbing zips out of cold storage will be easier, especially since I seem to be concerned with fulfilling Re-up requests, lately.
Yes, I said re-up requests. They are scattered about. I will get to yours as well, I promise.

Black Lung

Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
Dorobo



Another from ex-Snog member Thrussell. This one takes it's cues from a supposed document found left in an IBM copier in the eighties that allegedly dealt with a secret psy-op war to control the world population. It even gets thrown into uber-wacky conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper's kitchen sink bible of the New World Order, Behold a Pale Horse, one of the goldurned unintentionally funniest books you'll ever read this side of the Book of Mormon.
But what of the music? This time around, there's greater emphasis on spooky ambiances and glitchy, repetitive electronic noises. It's not unlike having a giant, Brazilian aquatic centipede inside your skull trying to gnaw its way out, with just a dash of Kurt Schwitters. Again, many song titles are evocative of the coming psychic battle for men's minds, as with the previous album, Depopulation Bomb. There's even a pretty- albeit creepy sounding - faux-symphonic piece Prozac Parade that features samples of a phone ringing and kittens.
Someone answer the damn phone and save the kittens, for christ's sake!

Everything you know is wrong

Ministry

In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (Live)
Sire Records



Maybe this slab sounds tame by today's standards, but to my ears back in 1990, this is what I thought was simultaneously the end and beginning of rock and roll. I had always been a big punk fan, and was saddened by the demise and/or co-option of punk. And most attempts to jump start the genre seemed to lack any danger, originality and was simply too nostalgic. Although I was marginally aware of the band Ministry, this album really caught me by surprise. It seemed to meld the best of industrial and punk and graft it to the power and fury of heavy metal, all with the political bent that seemed missing from that genre. Although they'd put out two studio albums that led Ministry away from British influenced dance-rock, this is the one that has a sound one could imagine hearing by sticking your head in the business end of a jet engine. It pummels and pounds the senses with precise and bombastic percussion from twin drummers, oodles of hard-edged synths, razor sharp guitars and psychotronic samples galore.
It also helps that it has more than its share of help with Killing Joke's Martin Atkins and Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly (in his John Lydon impersonation phase) and a guest shot by Jello Biafra (sadly not included on this disc).
The closing track Stigmata burns the venue down and leaves you shaking.
I dedicate that track and Thieves to the circle of tyrants thrown out in our last election and the hopes that it's just the beginning.

Download

Thieves

Thieves, thieves and liars, murderers Hypocrites and bastards [in laughter] Hey thanks for nothing! Morals in the dust Two-faced bastards and syncophants No trust Thieves! liar! Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know My side, your side, their side, we don’t know Which side are they? which side are they? Which side of their mouth do you suppose that it came? Which side are they? which side are they? Which side of the grass is greener? Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know My side, your side, their side, we don’t know You’re like a great big fucking gun, Just waiting to get squeezed! Breathe, forfeit erection! Toxical injection Geriatric fuck-fest We still believe in lies Thieves! liar! Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know My side, your side, their side, we don’t know Who started it? who started it? Which side are they? which side are they? Which side of their mouth do you suppose that it came? Which side are they? which side are they? Which side of the grass is greener? Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know My side, your side, their side, no one knows You’re like a great big hit of acid, Waiting to be taken!

Blog report, short form

So many fine blogs folding up their tents and calling it quits...
What a shame.
Mr. Lucky has finally decided to cease Oranj Aural and Squeezo. We wish him all the best in whatever he turns his talents to.

Totally Fuzzy cannot be subdued by any change. It keeps coming back like a beast from Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead).

But my own blog seems to be neglected. My job is getting busy and my hard drive is reaching the breaking point. I have plans to get a bigger one, but that's in a few months. I'm also thinking about hosting KUR elsewhere and maybe going Wordpress. But I'm not that web-savvy and it might mean long outages as I fuck up the code from time to time.

Plus, I'm reaching this saturation point with music where the more I find, the less I listen to and enjoy. The hoarder instinct is an ugly, maladaptive monkey trait that makes us miserable at times. I really need to just settle down and try to enjoy the music I have and stop compulsively looking for more.
I go through this phase every year or so and the acquisition of broadband and the share scene has just turbo charged the dynamic.
But don't worry to much, this is also the phase where I take all my neglected, unwanted CDs and vinyl down to a decent used record store (we still have a few in Portland) or a swap meet and trade it in for new stuff.
So you will be in on the process one way or another. I'll have new sounds and perhaps some discoveries that are new to both of us.

In the meantime, I'll continue to plug away with a post or two a week as I find stuff, rip the ocassional record or a CD jumps off my shelf that I've overlooked.

Various Artists

Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2
Mute



This followup to 1994's Kraftwerk tribute album Trans Slovenia Express features many new artists and of course Laibach, who are the best known outside of Slovenia. Like the first album, it's split pretty evenly between straight up homages and complete reinterpretations of this very influential German band. Laibach - a band unabashedly influenced by Kraftwerk - is the purest examplar of their Kling klang muzik on their Bruderschaft, an apparent original (it sounds like Brat Moj, to my ears) very much in the style of Kraftwerk. The band Silence is also there, which is fitting as they now constitute half of Laibach's current configuration. Hard rock band Siddharta turns The Robots into a balls-out arena rocker. It's a fun update to the fascinating original concept and broadens our scope towards the Slovene music scene.

Tracks:

1. Laibach - Bruderschaft
2. Silence (Featuring Anne Clark) - Hall Of Mirrors
3. Siddharta - The Robots
4. Stroj - The Metal On Metal
5. Octex - Computer Love
6. Torul - It's More Fun To Compute
7. Rozmarinke - Radioactivity
8. Moob - Telephone Call
9. Alenia - Home Computer
10. Bast - Mitternacht
11. O.S.T. - Metropolis
12. Lara-B - Hall Of Mirrors
13. Sequan - Metropolis
14. iTurk (Featuring Maya) - Sex Object

Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2

This post is dedicated to the amazing Kristof, a reader who was kind enough to post Trans Slovenia Express 1 here. (scroll down through comments in link)
Thanks so much!