John Coltrane – “No Wave” (featuring Weasel Walter)
according to the info doc included here-in, Weasel Walter has released a series of projects that essentially consist of him overdubbing his own drumming and mixing it in with previously existing recordings. this particular release is evidently Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space” (originally recorded with Rashied Ali) + Walter’s later contributions from 2005. what’s not made too clear in the info is whether Ali’s drum tracks were left intact – this sounds to me like Walter recorded two individual drum takes for each track and hard-panned them, one to each ear. I wasn’t very successful at finding much info online regarding this release – if anyone has more info than I do, please fill me in. in the meantime,
get it here
Flying Luttenbachers – “Infection and Decline”
probably the most well-known of Weasel Walter’s wide variety of projects, here is a 2004 release from the group that seems to be presently unavailable, at least according to their homepage. in the meantime,
get it here
Denison/Kimball Trio – “Walls in the City”
Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison and ex-Laughing Hyenas/Mule drummer Jim Kimball team up on this now-unavailable mid-90s Skin Graft release. Kimball’s playing on the Hyenas’ later releases always had a jazz-y element to it – here, that comes to full fruition.
get it here
Temple – s.t.
re-ripped with scans of the art this time, so I thought it deserved a fresh post. the liners don’t specifically list Genesis as performer or producer, but with all of the obvious pseudonyms mentioned, he was maybe trying to hide his involvement. to be honest, at times another thought has crossed my mind about this release: the production seems to be unusually top notch for the period, enough so that I’ve wondered if some people didn’t get together in the studio during the mid-90s krautrock revival and decide to put together a “hidden gem” that they would later mysteriously “unearth”… the other theory is that it happened when it says it happened and was kept under wraps during the 80s, because none of these “industrial giants” wanted to cop to their “hippie” roots…
anyway, get it here
Eyeless in Gaza – “Photographs as Memories”
re-issue of another overlooked classic. well, they may or may not be overlooked, but it’s rare for me to run into people who’ve heard of them.
get it here
March Violets – “Electric Shades”
a bit more on the earlier goth today. this group wasn’t particularly obscure, at least not compared to stuff posted by the likes of Pheonix Hairpins… but enjoyable nonetheless and… you know what? I’m sorry, but it is too goddamned hot in here right now for me to get into a huge missive on any of today’s posts.
get it here
Friction – live, 7″s, demos
there are four folders of miscellaneous work from Reck & co. here: their 1st EP, their “You Can Tell” 7″, a live set from 1979 and some early demos. if you liked the self-titled and “Skin Deep“ albums of theirs I posted earlier, there’s more of the same here, albeit in varying degrees of quality.
get them here
Bondage Fruit – “I”
here’s something else I reviewed in the earlier version of the blog. this is their first album – if it gets a lot of hits, more may follow… but I suspect a lot of folks might have these already. if not,
get it here
V/A – Japanese New Music Festival: europe tour
apparently this was released in a limited edition of 1000. given the incredible performances it contains, I’d be surprised if there are any left. featuring Zubi Zuva, Tatsuya Yoshida, Akaten, Tsuyama Atsushi and Ruins.
get it here
Optical 8 – “Bug”
though intermittently available for purchase here, this release doesn’t seem to garner much attention these days. a shame really. to make a long story short, if you can track down a copy of the CD you’ll probably want to make room for it in between Happy Family and Omoide Hatoba… even that isn’t quite right, but it’s as close as I’m gonna get in my present state of fatigue - to which I might add, this very album is presently about the only thing keeping me from succumbing.
EDIT: due to the comment that the original link wasn’t working, I’ve re-upped this one.
get it here
I.S.O. – “Gravity Clock”
after searching for what seemed like forever, I finally managed to lay my ears on this - another Otomo-related project – thanks to a kind soul who pointed me to it while I was seeking. this, in short, feels like what Filament should have aspired to be. still very experimental and quite minimal at times, but this time there’s some musicality to the whole thing and it becomes an entirely different (and better, IMO) experience for that fact. I’m not doing this much justice considering how much I really like it, so maybe it’s best to hear for yourself.
get it here
Filament – 1
beginning a trio of Otomo Yoshihide-related posts today with this, my least favorite of the bunch. to be honest, this will probably be one of the few things I post that I don’t care for all that much. I’ve certainly heard worse (I did spend some time involved in mid-90s cassette culture, after all) but this is by far blown away by the other two related projects I’m posting today. minimal sort of noise, maybe experimental that often has absolutely nothing going on at all… well, I’ll leave it to you to find some intellectual justification for it, if you’re so inclined…
get it here
Essential Logic – “Wake Up” 12″
when Lora Logic left the infamous fem-punk group X-Ray Spex she started her own project. going through some line-up shifts during their existence, this particular incarnation of the band featured none other than William Bennet (who my devout readers and noise fans in general will recognize as none other than Whitehouse).
get it here
Spizz Energi – “Where’s Captain Kirk?” 7″
keeping things brief today, here’s the classic single from these new-wave/punk stalwarts.
get it here
Bartok – “Insanity” 12″
I’ve owned this 12″ for about 13-14 years but, as regular readers know, I’ve been unable to play any of my vinyl for quite a while (plus with two kids constantly thumping around, I wouldn’t play it even if I had a functioning turntable). when I came across Phoenix Hairpins, I asked if they had a digital copy of it. they didn’t, but they pointed me to Wiel’s Time Capsule, who had posted it this past January. not to steal Wiel’s thunder, but I wanted to post it here as well to make sure it would remain available for a while longer.
as mentioned over there, Bartok was John Grant and Simon Werner of punk band The Straps, with Rat Scabies of The Damned and Jah Wobble also appearing on the title-track/A-side. they were also one of the finest post-punk/goth/whatever projects out of the UK during that time period and sadly, AFAIK, have only this 12″ to show for their existence.
get it here
Forgotten Silence
a slsk friend recently turned me on to this excellent, widely varied Czech band; some of whose releases seem to be unavailable at the moment. their label’s merchandise page for them has no mention of these two releases and the band’s own site mentions them as being available, but has no links to actually order them.
two releases here: “Bya Bahame Neem” which is ambient-folk with a few heavy moments, and “Kro Ni Ka” which takes a turn toward prog and is reminiscent of some Cuneiform luminaries such as 5UU’s, Motor Totemist Guild, etc… enjoy. I sure am.
Pylon – “Gyrate”
great early-80s post-punk band from Athens, GA who were so good that even R.E.M. covered them sometime before the latter became a total joke. apparently there are two versions of this album – on the second version the song “Driving School” is replaced by another track called “No Clocks”… at any rate, this is the “Driving School” version of the album. great stuff, not to missed if you haven’t heard them already.
get it here
Silicon Teens – “Music for Parties”
no-wave-ish toy-keyboard fuckery from Mute Records founder Daniel Miller and some cohorts. some originals peppered with covers of old 50s tunes I was subjected to endlessly on the “oldies” station during numerous childhood car trips with my parents… fun times, all told.
get it here
Ruinzhatova – “Close to the RH”
Tatsuya Yoshida and Seiichi Yamamoto – i.e. Ruins, Happy Family, YBO2, Koenji Hyakkei, Knead, Mainliner, Vasilisk, etc and Omoide Hatoba, Rovo, Boredoms, respectively… do you really need any other reason to get this?
you do? ok – how about amazing covers of “Trance Europe Express”, “Sex Machine/Larks Tongues in Aspic” (one on each side of the stereo spectrum, simultaneously!) and “Closer to the Edge”???
still not convinced? then why are you still reading?
(thanks to Dust of Igor for these last two)
get it here
V/A – NY Scum Rock
(in?)famous NYC comp featuring live recordings of such luminaries as Lunachicks, Ed Gein’s Car, Deans of Discipline, Reverb Motherfuckers and Traci Lords’ Ex-Lovers, among others… I had a copy long ago that has since been lost to the perils of moving – nice to find it again.
get it here
Nosferatu – s.t.
just to alleviate any confusion, this is not any of the 80s goth groups who used the same name – this is a 70s krautrock group, on the heavier/more prog side of things. apparently fairly rare, but well worth a listen.
get it here
Thunderpussy – “Documents of Captivity”
early 70’s prog/psych release I reviewed a while back. it was re-issued, but seems to be o.o.p. again. I’ve had a few search hits on it, so:
Crash Worship
two releases here from these percussive madmen: “Triplemania II” (1992) and the “Pyru” 7″ (1994) which were both released on the Charnel Music label. “Triplemania II” is out of print. the 7″ is still available – it’s included here as a bonus for the vinyl-impaired (I’ve had my copy for over a decade but been unable to spin it anytime recently) – but if you’re vinyl capable, it’s only $3 USD to get it from the label (scroll down the left sidebar of the above link to the singles section and click on the title).
and the music is here
Morphogenesis – “Solarisation”
one of my favorite experimental/electro-acoustic/improv/whatever releases here. I’ve owned this disc since not long after it came out and it’s always stood at the top of this particular genre for me, using acoustic sources and electronic processing to create new and interesting timbres and tracks that stood apart – and still do – from most others dabbling in the genre. as far as I was able to tell, although the group’s releases on the Paradigm label are still available (click here and scroll to the bottom), this one – which came out on Streamline, is out of print.
get it here
77 Boadrum!!!
I’m going to take a rare opportunity here to point to another blog post that I think will be of interest to at least some of my readers.
Take Your Shoes Off was an attendee at this monumental event and has taken the time to provide us with a recording of it. head on over to grab it and remember to thank him profusely.
you can thank me for pointing it out as well, if you wish 
Avarus – “III”
as best as I can tell, this was a vinyl-only release by this group, who seem to hover near the center of the so-called “new wave of finnish heavy metal” – which is actually a rather large and cross-referencing scene of freak-folk/psych artists from, you guessed it, Finland. given that this is the same country that brought us the likes of Circle and Xysma, it’s no surprise that there’s a lot more to be found when you scratch below the surface. other groups/artists from that scene, such as Kiila, Lau Nau, Kuupuu and such are all equally worth investigation.
in the meantime, the vinyl-impaired can get a small taste here
Third Ear Band – “Alchemy”
enjoyable late-60s album from this group, who incorporated drones, eastern influences and classical into a vaguely psych/prog context.
get it here
Blacklight Braille – “Songs for the Longhaired Suns”
I don’t even remember how they caught wind of me, but back in the 90s when I was doing a fanzine, Owen Knight (leader/figurehead/whatever of the group) started sending me their discs to review. many of them. I’ve lost track of some (probably still buried in boxes from one of my 10 moves in nearly as many years) but managed to unearth this one when I noticed that Mutant Sounds were searching for them. I ripped it and sent them a copy but it never showed up over there, so I figured I may as well share it here. self-coined as “fringerock”, that term barely scratches the surface of what we have here. one really only need look at the entire insert-page of instrumentation to get an idea of what went into the songs here. there’s a good retrospective here and this lends to the impression that the collective is still active.
fans of all this new-fangled “freak-folk” stuff from the past few years can find a whole different take on it here.
Kak – s.t.
pre-Blue Cheer band here. anyone who knows a bit about music probably knows who this is, so I’ll spare you any of my witless pontification and get straight to the music.
get it here
Michael Garrick Trio – “Moonscape”
obscure mid-60s “lunar”-jazz 10″ record that was recently re-issued – but until the re-issue, only 99 copies existed in the world and they apparently fetched ridiculous prices among collectors. makes you wonder how something this good was overlooked back in the day. for a reference point, anyone who enjoyed the background music in the old Spiderman cartoons should probably check this out. it’s short but sweet and trust me, you’ll thank me later.
get it here
William Hooker – “Radiation”
I first came across this album via a review in a magazine that had almost nothing to do with jazz as a genre. in the mid-90s there existed for a short while a publication known as Thorazine. it was basically a confluence of drug-culture and music – I picked it up for an interview with Eyehategod, a band I was really into at the time – and wound up reading all about their drug habits and their take on “nawlins” culture. somewhere in there was a full-page review/write-up on this album. at the time I was beginning to discover the Knitting Factory Works label and some of the artists associated with it. I was also beginning to discover noise gurus Borebetomagus, of whom I had just obtained a 10″ picture disc from RRRecords mailorder. all of those associations (Donald Miller plays guitar here, btw) were enough to cause me to seek it out and I soon ordered a copy from… somewhere (memory fails me on some details at my frail age). it came out on Homestead, so most likely from them. it loomed pretty large in my collection back then and still does. and now I share it with you, my loyal readers
get it here
William Parker & Hamid Drake – “Piercing the Veil”
I first became aware of William Parker’s work over a decade ago when I encountered him as part of the David S. Ware Quartet. seeing the quartet live (including Susie Ibara on drums and Matthew Shipp on piano) was nothing short of a revelation at the time… at any rate, Parker’s wiki entry covers the basics of his career well enough that I’d feel redundant repeating it here.
as for Hamid Drake, I’m almost embarassed to admit that this was my first knowledgeable encounter with his work. he’s played with many jazz heavyweights and I undoubtedly heard him on many recordings when I was more heavily into jazz a decade back; but back then I often paid little attention to anything beyond the musician whose name graced a recording. regardless of my own ignorance, this interview does a good job summarizing who he’s played with during the introduction and is a good read overall.
as for the album, why don’t we let the instrumentation speak for itself:
William Parker - Bass, Dumbek, Shakuhachi, Drums, Balafon, Bass (Upright), Bombard
Hamid Drake - Percussion, Drums, Tabla, Bells, Frame Drum
please note: what I’ve posted here is the original edition of this release, which is now out of print.
there is an expanded 2xCD edition that is currently available here:
http://www.aumfidelity.com/aum039.html
it contains material that is not included in this post.
my hope with this one is that if people enjoy the original version, they will want to purchase the expanded version above and get the extra material as well. I plan to, as soon as funds permit me to do so.
get the original version here
In Camera – “13: Lucky for Some”
Teenbeat Records re-issue of material by this overlooked UK post-punk quartet. marred somewhat by the questionable inclusion of some early-90s remix material tagged onto the end, this is nonetheless a worthwhile listen for the original tracks if nothing else.
get it here
Comsat Angels – “Waiting for a Miracle”
1980 debut full-length from this Sheffield band who had major-label support from Polydor at the time.
get it here
Section 25 – “Always Now”
re-issue of 1981 debut album from this Factory group who, to my surprise once again, are still together.
get it here
The Veil – “Surrender”
a bit of a personal story behind this one. in the mid-90s, I was making regular weekly visits to the store of a collector/DJ friend who ran the place (this is the same guy who got hold of the 50 Ft. Hose album for me). at the time, I was mostly interested in/purchasing experimental, psych and free jazz albums. at one point I was looking through his vinyl selection and he said “you like some goth stuff right?”… “well yeah,” I said, “but mostly the earlier british ‘batcave’ type stuff”. he said “ok, right. you should get this then” and handed me a copy of this album with a $5 price tag on it. The Veil – “Surrender”. I figured for $5 it couldn’t hurt. took it home, played it, and the rest is history.
being vinyl impaired, I haven’t been able to play my copy in quite some time, so I found this on soulseek a while back. while making my plans for this post yesterday, I googled it and came across the excellent Phoenix Hairpins blog, who posted this last November. still going to post it here, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of what they have available over there. if you like the ‘batcave’ style goth and enjoy today’s posts, I highly recommend that you also pay them a visit and fill your hard drive up a bit more. in the meantime,
get this gem here
Theatre of Hate – “Revolution”
stepping again a little outside of our usual fodder for a bit of a “goth day” here at the Sector. to be clear though, we are talking about earlier goth in the 4AD, Factory etc etc – the good stuff that spun out of the UK and European post-punk/new-wave scenes in the late 70s/early 80’s, not the metalhead-melodrama of the 90s.
Theatre of Hate were a punk-ish goth group along the lines of 45 Grave with a decidedly politcal bent to both their lyrical themes and album-cover art. this great LP was released in 1984.
get it here
V/A – Commodore 64 Game Music
bit of a deviation from what I usually post, but I came across this gem a little while ago. not going to say much else - I think the title gives a pretty good idea of what you’re getting yourself into.
get it here
V/A – Greasy Truckers
infamous double-LP compilation of live performances by Camel, Henry Cow, Gong and Global Village Trucking Co. I seem to recall a series of Japanese psych compilations on Alchemy called “Osaka Greasy Truckers”… that should give you an idea of how influential this document was, in case you somehow didn’t know already.
get it here
Aihiyo – s.t.
Keiji Haino project formed in 1998. our “regular customers” should know who he is and all that his name entails, but just in case: Fushitsusha, Knead and several other solo albums and collaborative projects throughout his 30+ year career. let’s skip the preamble and get straight to the excellent music…
… which can be found here
People – “Ceremony: Meet Buddha Rock”
this group featuring guitarist Kimio Mizutani (who also played with Love Live Life + One – an album of theirs was recently posted over at Mutant Sounds) was shrouded in relative mystery – apparently no one knows for sure whether it was a studio-only project or an actual live band. either way though, we have another psych masterpiece on our hands.
get it here
Defunkt – “Live at the Knitting Factory”
another disc I ordered from Knitting Factory Works eons ago… this version of the group doesn’t have Melvin Gibbs on bass as previously mentioned in Tuesday’s Power Tools post. regardless of that though, it’s definitely still worth a listen.
get it here
