Fresh Maggots – “… Hatched”
british acid-folk duo who imploded quickly due to rapid and unexpected overnight “success”, which was followed by mishandling and mismanagement of their sole LP release by RCA, essentially causing their star to fade before it had even risen. they managed to squeeze out an additional single before calling it quits and it, along with a handful of live recordings are included as bonus tracks for this re-issue.
get it here
The Maze – “Armageddon”
in a seemingly never-ending deluge of obscure psych re-issues popping up anywhere and everywhere, here’s one that stands above the inevitable mediocrity that comes with such quantity. there’s not much info included in the re-issue aside from some recording anecdotes and background on the bonus tracks, which basically amount to outtakes and/or earlier takes from the same sessions as the “proper” album tracks. at any rate, there’s enough of this psych-reissue stuff floating around that I wouldn’t post these if I didn’t think they were worthwhile, so…
here ya go
West Coast No Wave (UJ3RK5, AKA, Monitor)
well, if there’s a silver lining to the demise of the first version of Spending Loud Night, it’s that Jake made it a little easier for me to decide what my own next posts would be. I enjoyed this handful of bands so much that I wanted to get them up here ASAP now that his posts are gone. sadly, these bands hadn’t entered my awareness prior to his posts and his info is gone… wiki turns up this page on UJ3RK5, but as I’m sure you can guess the other bandnames are a bit too generic to lead to anything useful via google. oh well, at least we still have the most important thing: the music itself. all of these bands are fantastic in their own right and without being too glib about it, anyone who enjoys No New York should consider this to be “No L.A.” (so to speak).
get it here
X-X “discography”
details are sketchy in my memory now that Jake’s post is no longer there for reference (and google was about as useful as my noggin on this one), but…
EDIT: see the comments for some insight from Mars. many thanks for the missing info.
get all 5 songs right here
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – “Talk About the Weather”
debut full-length from one of my favorite post-punk-cum-goth bands. not much more to say about this record, really – it topped the indie charts in the year of it’s release (1985) and there’s good reason.
hear for yourself.
Sisters of Mercy – “Vision Thing”
third and final album from the band who are probably most responsible for all the gone-wrong yank-melodrama referred to below… as usual though, the originators usually do it the best. I personally find this album gets overlooked in the Sisters catalog quite often in deference to the first two, when this one in fact has some of their better songs.
get it here
World of Skin – “Ten Songs for Another World”
this still stands – in my opinion at least – as one of the best Gira/Jarboe collaborations ever set to tape. drawing a distinction between the brit-spawned “batcave” style (as often featured on the excellent Phoenix Hairpins blog) and the later American “melodrama” style of goth that went so horribly wrong in the 90s; this is a rare example of the latter done in all the right ways.
get it here
Sonic Youth w/Yamatsuka Eye – “TV Shit” 7″
this was apparently a pretty big deal when it came out. probably due more to the participants than the content. but whatever. for the youth of today.
get it here
Lifetones – “For a Reason”
I’m pretty sure this came from another blog… in fact, I’m almost positive that it did, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one… but regardless of the fact that I might not be the first one to post it, it’s still one I think my readers should become familiar with if they aren’t already. in a nutshell, this is Charles Bullen’s post-This Heat project. picture This Heat doing their take on dub, and you’ve pretty much got the picture here, though it’s way better than that description might suggest. essential listening at any rate…
get it here
5.6.7.8’s – “Teenage Mojo Workout”
made somewhat famous by their appearance in some movie by some jerk named “Quentin” or something, these gals probably need little in the way of an introduction.
get it here
Total – “Hard and Low” cassette
earlier project by Matthew Bower (of Skullflower, Hototogisu, etc etc). his body of work pretty much speaks for itself, no use in any further pontification on our part.
get it here
Microstoria – “Model 3, Step 2″
collaborative project between Markus Popp aka Oval and Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars… 11 some odd years later and this is one release on which I still can’t really discern the original sound sources. maybe you’ll have better luck than me on that front…
get it here
