Umar Bin Hassan

Be Bop or Be Dead
Axiom



Last Poets member Hassan's 1993 debut solo release on Laswell's Axiom imprint. Here he incorporates Jazz, Hip-Hop and even a little metal to back his spiels on racism, Black identity and family. Some old Poets numbers get updated here (This Is Madness, Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution) and some Axiom usual suspects show up (Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, Anton Fier and Laswell) as well as former bandmate Abiodun Oyewole.

Bebop

Devo @ Decoder

The always great Decoder has made available both volumes of Hardcore Devo as well as The Mongoloid Years live album. Great, classic pre-Warner Bros. Devo, unfiltered. If you haven't heard this stuff and are only familiar with their major label output, this'll amaze and shock you. Devo had it going on back then in a way that few bands could touch in terms of weirdness and retardo-shock imagery.
Go there and grab 'em while they're hot!

Bill Laswell

Lo.Def Pressure
Quatermass



Busy Drum N' Bass studio conglomeration from Laswell, utilizing Tabla player Zakir Hussain's beats and loads of electronica esoterica courtesy of Badal Roy and Laswell himself. The two long, dub-ish compositions are fairly ambient in nature and have varying tempos and sonic structures. Some of it sounds like recycled material (no pun intended) from other Laswell Drum N' Bass and Dub projects, but it's engaging nontheless.

Ganesha

Hashisheen

The End of Law
Sub Rosa



Fascinating blend of spoken word and Camp Laswell musicians assembled together around esoteric readings about Tenth-Century Shi'ite mystic Hassan I Sabbah.
Some of the artists involved:

Bill Laswell
Iggy Pop
Hakim Bey
William Burroughs
Patti Smith
Genesis P. Orridge
Jah Wobble
Anton Fier
Susan Deyhim
Nicky Skopelitis
Nicole Blackman
Percy Howard
Helios Creed

and more...

Don't listen to this expecting to get a clearer understanding of The Old Man of the Mountain, I think that's the point. Rather it's more of a meditation on the illusory nature of the reality around him and his disciples - then and now and some varying historical accounts of Sabbah and Mount Alamut. The music is lovely and exotic, the readings are always engaging, and the choice of text and performers reading it are appropriate and inspired. The spirits of Gysin and Burroughs are definitely in attendance here.

Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted

Late Night Blogging

Phew!
That's four posts in rapid succession....
I'm pooped!
I like doing this and hope to continue for some time. Right now I'd like to solicit feedback. If you like what you see here, or download, please leave some feedback in the comments. I'm curious if this is being read or the links utilized. If I get lots of response, I'll probably stick with it longer and not be distracted by some shiny object.
Also, I have a fairly large collection of beautiful and strange music, so try me- I may have something you're looking for and would be willing to upload it.
Sorry to go off on winge, but I really want to know if anyone's reading...
Makes it more fun for me.
Me go sleepytime now.

King Crimson

The ConstruKction Of Light
Virgin Total



Yet another configuration of Crim. Here they are in Post-Double Trio form - long-time members Tony Levin (Bass , Stick) and Bill Bruford (Drums) having departed - leaving Belew, Fripp and relative newbies Gunn and Mastelotto to hold down duties. This is one of the most dense and complex KC albums too date. Another stab at Lark's Tongue in Aspic and some not-too different sounding, multi-part instrumentals make up the bulk of it, and the vocal songs are great as well. Even though AMG gave this album a bad review, I find it more of a focused effort than the previous one, ThraK, which was an uneasy mix of KC's savage rock with meditative ballads that were more than a little overwrought. Also, it certainly sets the stage for the next album.
The version I'm posting includes a song that Adrian Belew wrote called 'I Have a Dream' that was subsequently cut from the album due to pressure from the label, among other things.

ConstruKction of Light

Bill Laswell & M. J. Harris

Somnific Flux
Subharmonic



Two long, droning atmospheric pieces by Laswell and Mick Harris (Scorn, Napalm Death).
Both are very spooky and futuristic and apocalyptic sounding. So minimal in execution, that I can't conjure up the words to describe it adequately. Suffice it to say, this was recorded at the height of Laswell's dark-ambient phase and is perhaps his best of its type.

Get it.

Nicky Skopelitis & Sonny Sharrock

Faith Moves
CMP



I'd always wondered what this collaboration between these two guitar giants would sound like and now I know. Nicky Skopelitis is responsible for most of the string sounds on peak-era Material's albums, playing guitar, oud, baglama as well as Coral Sitar, a cheesy, sixties novelty which Skopelitis has mastered and forged a distinctive sound all his own.
Sonny Sharrock was undisputedly the John Coltrane of the six-string guitar. He could summon up a brain frying barrage of jazz notes one moment and the next beautiful, soulful passages worthy of Bird or Ornette Coleman, all with a fat, warm overdriven guitar tone that would've had Fripp or Santana green with envy.
This album features surprisingly upbeat, bright sounding compositions with Skopelitis providing exotic, multi-ethnic beds of music for Sharrock to solo over or at times play counterpoint to.
Beautiful.
Fans of the nineties incarnation of Material will undoubtedly love this album as most of that era's crew is on board.

It's here

Praxis

Metatron
Subharmonic



Buckethead: Guitar
Laswell: Bass
Brain: Drums

What more do you need to know?
This one is more stripped down and mind-pummeling than previous Praxis releases. Without Bootsy and Bernie Worrell, it's lacking in funkiness, but more than makes up for it in raw aggression.

"We are not sick men"

Dust to Dust...

...has bit the dust.
Nice Guy Eddie is calling it quits (for a while at least):

I'm taking some time off. Not sure if I will return.. My links are dying left and right due to leeching and reposting on other message boards and blogs..Some of the comments lately have been a lil ungrateful and greedy..If I do decide to call it quits..I will post all submissions before I go...

That's a drag...
I've enjoyed his shares of soundtracks, Hip Hop and the like. He'll be missed.

Biochemical Dread (Richard H. Kirk)

Bush Doctrine
Cocosoli1dc1t1



With things heating up in the Middle East, and our dear leader doing his Little Dictator act, I thought I'd dust off this rather apocalyptic CD and give it a listen again.
Another Richard H. Kirk project, this one sounding more like Cabaret Voltaire than, well - the last few Cabaret Voltaire albums. Bush Doctrine has a live, jamming quality to it, as if he was tinkering with the samples in real time with the master tape rolling. Which indeed he may have been. The album is raw and anarchic, as it should be, given the subject matter. And, as with other Kirk projects and Cab Volt, he uses samples for texture, rather than context. So the piece as a whole is intended to document our showdown in the Gulf, there is not a single recognizable voice or sound bite. Instead we hear eerie, disembodied shortwave radio voices, blips and beeps and distorted, dissonant ambiances. It provides the perfect soundtrack for channel surfing the apocalypse. The closing track, We Got Weapons is a meltdown of distortion and heavy drum beats that brings to mind a cybernetically rebuilt Nag Nag Nag, coming in to finish us off.
Highly recommended.

Right here.

Buckethead

Day of the Robot
Submeta



A mostly ambient (if that's possible) album by hyperkinetic guitarist Buckethead, where his free-association riffing is sliced, diced and re-sequenced into five spacey instrumental tracks. Lots of breaks n' beats supplied by DJ Ninj, with Laswell presiding over it all. I really enjoy this album more than his straight ahead solo rock albums. It's more on par with Praxis or Death Cube K, but a little more subdued and trippy and more than a little funky. This is Buckethead's Bitches Brew. Out of print and rare.

Can electricity be destroyed?

Goran Bregović

Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals
Universal International



Details are sketchy on this one. It's listed as a soundtrack, but I don't have any information on the film it says it's from. Any ideas?
However, fans of the earlier posted Underground soundtrack will no doubt enjoy this album as it is in a very similar vein, with lots of traditional Balkan sounding music and Roma-style Gypsy brass and Croatian vocals.
I think I bought this off of a Russian pay site a while ago, and noticed that the bitrate is 128, but sounds fine to me.

Check it out

Philip K Nixon: A New Hope

Go and get it here.

Philip K. Nixon - the audio equivalent of taking a magnet to a TV screen, only done to your brain.
Use only as directed.

David Lynch & Alan Splet

Eraserhead Soundtrack
I.R.S.



I don't have to explain any of this to you, do I?
This is one of the few movie soundtracks that stands up well without its visuals. It's a brilliant piece of Musique Concrete all on it's own. And this is also the way I first encountered Eraserhead, thanks to a very outre radio show host (Daniel Flessas, Outside World). Lynch wisely chose to simply sample two long samples of the film itself, rather than isolate out any musical elements (largely made up of borrowed Fats Waller organ music). the result is a creepy industrial soap opera, set in some limbo-like hell. the oft-covered In Heaven song was penned by the late, great Peter Ivors, of Vitamin P and New Wave Theatre fame.

In heaven, everything is fine.
(re-upped 11/12/06)

Don Joyce

Mort Aux Vaches
Staalplat



A commissioned piece for Dutch radio station VPRO assembled by Negativland's Don Joyce in the long running Mort Aux Vaches series. Here Joyce builds a sonic timescape utilizing WWII era recordings, juxtaposing music and radio commercials with first person accounts of the liberation of European concentration camps. Uneasy listening to be sure, but with an artistic intent:

"We'll Be Right Back' was inspired by watching months and months of TV reports on the troubles in Bosnia, including mass executions, mass rapes, concentration camps and the same old fascist deceits and ethnic genocide familiar in World War 2. These reports were constantly interrupted by commercials and so was World War 2.
Recorded in 1994, and uses only source material for this recording originated during World War 2. Only effects have been added.

Re-upped 9/30/06

Henryk Górecki

Symphony No. 3 - Opus 36 (1976)
Elektra Nonesuch



I know bupkis about classical music. I do know I tend to favor 20th century composers overall, and one of my favorite pieces of music is Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3.
I originally heard it on a coworkers taped-off-of-the-radio classical mix tape and neither of us could figure out who it was or where it came from. later I heard a bit of it (the second movement, probably the most beautiful, moving piece on the disc) used in a film. But rather than attempt to describe it and display my deep ignorance of classical music, I'll let Wikipedia do it for you:

The first movement, at twenty-six minutes, equals the combined lengths of the second and third movements, and is based on a late fifteenth century lament from the Lysagora Songs collection of the Holy Cross Monastery, a prayer revolving around a mother mourning the loss of her son to revolutionary battle. Comprising three thematic sections, it opens with bass, then followed by a string motif that subdivides over it's course, building into ten separate voices playing that single motif at ten separate times. The climax of these voices is the second section libretto, followed by a gradual return to the plaintive basses that opened the first section.

The nine minute second movement is written for soprano, with libretto formed from a prayer found incripted on a cell wall in the basement of the Gestapo's Zakopane headquarters, signed "Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna 18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944". The soprano voice is dominant, supported by strings that ache until a final resolution, a chord held without diminuendo for over two minutes.

The third movement is taken from a Opole folk song and again the subject matter is a mother's prayer for a lost son. The tempo of this movement is higher paced than the previous two and subtle changes in dynamism and mode make it a deceptively complex and involving piece.

Henryk Górecki - Symphony No. 3

For those interested, Moogpower (who inspired this post) has got more Górecki available here.

Underground

Goran Bregovic
Mercury, France



An excellent soundtrack to one of the greatest movies of all time, Emir Kusturica's Underground, aka Once Upon a Time There Was a Country.
If you've ever had the pleasure of seeing this film from the former Yugoslavia, the sound of the Gypsy brass band that is in virtually every other scene will be stuck in your head for months. The raucous sounding Kalasnjikov, which is heard throughout the film, is here, as is the haunting War, complete with a tragic children's choir.
Here, rather than simply lift the songs from the soundtrack, many have been recreated and in some cases rearranged completely by Bregovic and his band.
Some songs are a beautiful fusion of Balkan folk with electronica, such as The Belly Button Of The World with great sounding Middle Eastern percussion as well as a pulsing electronic beat, which sounds oddly appropriate for a film that covers fifty years of the history of Yugoslavia.
Missing in action is the German hit song Lili Marleen that crops up throughout the film. First heard when the protagonist's city falls to the Nazis and later when the Allies defeat them, it's used throughout the movie to underscore the tragi-comic events. I've included it inside as a bonus track.
Lovers of traditional Balkan music, Euro-Folk, Klezmer or any exotic music will find this soundtrack enjoyable whether they've seen this film or not.

"A catastrophe!"

Charles Bukowski

Hostage
Wordbeat
(Random-play friendly version)



One of my most treasured possessions in my collection is my cd of the late, great Charles Bukowski's Hostage.
Recorded at the height of his fame, both as a published poet and as a performer, this is a wonderful document of what a reading might of sounded like.
Here he spars with rowdy, drunken hecklers almost as often as he reads actual poetry.
Both are equally engaging and hilarious.
Here's a snippet from the original liner notes:

In Los Angeles especially, his poetry readings became parties themselves, with "poet and audience both drunk." As you'll hear on this album, fans and poet come to these readings prepared to compete. "Is there anybody tough enough here to try me?" Bukowski taunts the crowd. "try some shit, do some anger."

However, the CD - as originally issued by Wordbeat - had the entire performance as one long track, making random access or selection difficult. Perhaps they intended to reproduce the integrity of it's original vinyl release (in 1980), but it made it hard to isolate a favorite track to - say - include on a mix for friends.
Here's a version of that CD presented as segmented album, with each poem or tirade as a separate track. Where applicable, the tracks are named after the poem, or said tirade.

Try some shit, do some anger.

Eugene Chadbourne

Vermin of the Blues
Fundamental



The good doctor joins forces with one Evan Johns and his H-Bombs for a rollicking country-tinged rock and blues album. This is Chadbourne at his most accessible; he is being backed by a battle-hardened Texas bar band led by hot-shit guitarist Johns. Late eighties US foreign policy is lampooned via Johnny Cash, Bo Diddley and others. Eugene also does one of the most straightforward (albiet a little creaky) covers of his career (My Mother's Eye's), with some beautiful Dobro work. Also the mystery of the Rake is demonstrated on some podunk country radio program with callers responding. Hilarious fun.

Obey the Rake!
(re-upped 1-3-07)

Bill Laswell, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshigaki Yasuhiro

Soup
P-Vine Japan



Four lengthy, fairly dirgey jams from Laswell, Yoshihide and Yasuhiro. Otomo's an amazing guitar player! Who knew? I always assumed he was more of a turntablist/manipulator, but as an axe-grinder he's no slouch.
Sometimes the tunes take on a dub-like quality - a Laswell trait.
This sounds like music made while coming off of a bad acid trip in Yokohama, Tokyo or a sushi joint in New York.

Right here, Jim.

Last Exit

Iron Path
Virgin


Peter Brotzmann - Sax
Ronald Shannon Jackson - Drums
Bill Laswell - Bass
Sonny Sharrock - Guitar

From AMG:

Their sole major-label release, their first studio recording, and a record that iconoclastic critic Chuck Eddy considers one of the 500 greatest heavy metal albums in the history of the universe. But that doesn't mean you should invite all your Deep Purple and Iron Maiden loving friends over for a listening party; they won't be amused. Using the studio to their advantage, Last Exit explores sonic texture on "Prayer" and "The Fire Drum," but never loses sight of the power and energy that makes their live recordings so memorable. If you were to have one Last Exit recording, this might well be the one. But any one of their live records would enhance your appreciation of this great record immeasurably

Right here.

Share and Enjoy

Er...
I've said in the past that I didn't want to do an MP3 blog, per se....
...but I'm slowly testing the waters with this, just sharing some relatively rare stuff I have.
Mainly I'm interested in sharing with the community (that being the MP3 sharrity world) some stuff that I don't see out there to often.
And I don't know how long I will do this. It all depends on three things:
How much spare time I can manage to squeak out of my schedule (that's highly variable),
how much/little of a hassle it all ends up being, and lastly how much interest it generates.
I will try my best to post things that are actually on my shelf, or otherwise paid for and/or that I don't generally see in the shari-sphere. Generic disclaimer applies.; If anyone feels that a file infringes on their copyright I will gladly remove it, if asked.

Negativland

Negativland
Seeland Records



The debut album from this central California noise combo is a far cry from their cut-and-paste latter-day efforts. Here they eschew anti-commercialist culture jamming in favor of noisy bedroom noodling with elements of audio verité, tape manipulation and homey ambiances. At times they sound like they've been listening to Krautrock such as Faust, Kraftwerk or their namesake NEU! Released in 1980, each record was wrapped in an individually packaged sleeve (with wonderfully out-of-date wallpaper and cookbook artwork attached ) and all tracks are simply titled 01, 02, 03, etc...
It's hard to believe that this is from the band that would later become such big media prevaricators and free culture activists.

Seat Bee Sate (MegaUpload)
Re-upped 10/19

Cabaret Voltaire

The Arm of the Lord
Mute


1985's The Arm of the Lord finds Cabaret Voltaire at the crossroads between their early experimentalism and all out dance and nascent techno, and certainly much further down that latter road than Red Mecca and 2 X 45 or even Micro-Phonies.
But as 'normal' as it sounds, it's much weirder than most eighties pop records of the time, with many samples of Charles Manson, movie clips and lots of signature Cab-Volt noise. This is definitely the record that served as the template for a young Alain Jourgensen, when creating Ministry 1.0.

Check it out.

Rest in Peace Syd

Syd Barrett is really gone now.

After many years of not really thinking about Syd or early Floyd, I had just started listening to his stuff again, owing mainly to reading a recent article about him and also lending Piper to a friend of my son's who had never heard of Barrett.
I hope he found some happiness in his solitary years and finds the peace that eluded him on this plane in the next life.

Lots of his solo albums are available here:

Syd Barrett - Wouldn't You Miss Me? (2001)
over @ Past Tense

Barrett and Madcap Laughs
@ Musikalia

Syd Barrett - Opel
Over @ Modern Music

PINK FLOYD - Early Singles (mostly Syd)
SYD BARRETT - Peel Session (1987)
Can be found at Zinhof (No permalink on their site, so scroll, baby scroll!)as well as the above albums and an audio rip of the fantastic (post-Syd) Live at Pompeii DVD!

You know the drill...
...grab 'em while they're hot, as Rapidshare files have a short shelf-life these days.

Most of these links gleaned from the imminently indispensable Totally Fuzzy.

News from the Sharitty Front

More cool blogginess and a possible end of rapidsharing.
The big news is that lots of better MP3 blogs are suffering from having their Rapidshare files being whacked at a fearsome rate. Some have even thrown in the towel as a result. 'Tis a shame. Go and grab what you can until the situation changes (one way or another).

Here's my field report:
One gottendammerung find for me has been Dinosaur Gardens. Not only has this great blog (apparently a team effort) offered up the soundtracks to Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain and El Topo (!), but also the craptacular Conquer the Video Craze, which was sampled on Negativland releases (among others), a great english translation of Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera and an audio recording of Nabakov reading Lolita and other bits.

Puritan Blister is a great theme-based MP3 blog that offers up lots of cover songs and probably the most impressive on-going collection of mash-ups you'll find anywhere. His post titles are a real hoot, as well. Priceless.

Our favorite Brussel-Sprout Pax has got lots of Front 242, some Infectious Grooves and more. Go check him out and tell him Andy sent you.

Another truly awesome find has been Decoder, which features the great, long-lost album Miniatures:

"The concept for Miniatures involved getting artists from all across the board to contribute tiny vignettes saying as much as possible in the shortest space of time. Featuring contributions from the Residents, Andy Partridge, the Damned, Robert Wyatt, and Michael Nyman, among others, this may give an indication as to the diversity of this project."

I remember hearing lots of this album being played here and there on my local listener sponsored radio station KBOO, back in the day. Now I know who these people are and who did what. What a find!
They also offer the soundtrack to the wonderfully crappy German movie Decoder, (the site's namesake?) starring Einsturzende Neubauten's F.M. Einheit, Genesis P. Orridge and the good Doctor Burroughs. G-Pod (who has hit the big time) previously offered up the movie here.

Have you ever fallen in love with the unearthly sounds of shortwave radio, but find owning and maintaining a SW setup more trouble than it's worth? Me too, and this (apparently dormant) blog has lots of amazing finds which are all handily described for us: "....Suddenly, a crowd of Daleks emerge from a volcano in the Tardis and break into song..... And what's the deal with those vocals, anyway?" , which accurately sums up the intercepted song.
Lots of amazing sounds from around the globe can be heard here.
The site's owner is a gifted sound sculptor in his own right.

Another really handy resource has been Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music, a flash-heavy interactive music map of all things electronica. Now you can forget making the social faux-paus of confusing Jungle with Acid House, etc...
Also includes loads of info on gear, for inquiring minds.