ok, here goes the first round of “reviews”. perhaps more appropriately called “me trying to sound witty while talking about what I listened to today”… I might eventually get ambitious enough to include links to labels and websites and stuff like that, but I just started this thing and spent a bunch of time typing up the “pages” so give me some time to ramp up on stuff like that. or just repeat after me: google is your friend. google is your friend. google… ok. anyway…
Acid Mothers Temple – “Close Encounters with Mutants” as far as Acid Mothers releases go, I can’t say this one is outstanding or anything I would consider a “must own” from them (for reference, my top 3 ACM releases that I own are “IAO Chant from the Cosmic Inferno”, “Have You Seen the Other Side of the Sky” and “Magical Power from Mars”)… I’ve been lazy about figuring out the chronology and discography for ACM and I honestly have no idea where this one falls. stylisitically it reminded me a lot of “Magical Power…” and while the latter is one of my favorite ACM releases (my introduction to them actually), this one just didn’t strike me as being “essential”… I might come back to it a couple more times to see if my impression changes, but the initial listen was underwhelming.
DJ eYe – “weirdo mix” I’m not even sure if this was a sanctioned release or a soundboard recording of some live thing or what, but one thing is pretty clear: even if it’s not something he does a lot of, Eye Yamatsuka should be making a lot of other DJs out there just give it up. granted, these tracks (two 25-minute-ish long sets) are a bit heavy on “the chipmunks do punk rock classics”, but when it gets away from that it’s brilliant. all kinds of juxtapositions of different genres and elements you’re pretty sure you recognize from somewhere but can’t quite put your finger on… a fun listen that I’ll no doubt be going back to. I think even the kids might enjoy parts of it 
Government Alpha – “Alphaville” I grabbed this because I remembered the name from the mid-90s heyday of the Japanese noise scene… listening to it reminded me why I never got too deeply into that scene. if you have the patience to dive into the patterns and intricacies of harsh noise produced via radio static vs harsh noise produced by other random sound sources through heaping amounts of distortion, more power to you. once upon a time, I had a bit of patience for it on that level too. today, it was a nice tool to block out other people’s annoying conversations at work and concentrate more on what I was reading on the internet.
Testu Inoue – “Datacide II” I can’t remember if it was this or the just plain old “Datacide,” but I remember the one community radio station I had a show on in the mid 90s getting one or the other and really loving it back then. I don’t know if I was revisiting or following up with this release, but in either case, you can pretty much take the Government Alpha comments and substitute all occurences of “harsh noise” with “ambient” and get the general idea. which, lke Government Alpha, is not to say this is anything bad… just nothing spectacular and not something I’m sure I’ll feel a need to come back to. I’ll probably give it another chance or two since releases like this sometimes tend to reveal hidden layers that I won’t have caught the first time around.
Clutch – “From Beale Street to Oblivion” Clutch are just fun. that’s all. there aren’t worlds of variation from one release to the next. they aren’t a band I obsess over or feel a need to have a complete discography of. but I always feel like I’m having a good time when one of their albums is on, even if it’s in the backround in some public/social setting or I’m just sitting here typing on my computer like the loser I am. I feel like I could see them live and recognize all the songs they’d play even if I have no fucking clue what half of them are called. “Power Player” “When Vegans Attack” and “Mr Shiny Cadillackness” are highlights for me on this one.
tttttttttttttttthat’s all for today folks. we’ll see if this “blogging” habit sticks.
