Sorting through submitted new music here at FMU has evolved into a much more daunting gig than it was years ago for a whole lot of reasons, first and foremost is confronting the multitude of sources available and having to filter it all, physical and the very growing well of digital material (which is now an increasing avenue for labels and artists to submit their sounds). In the immediate neighborhood, for example, we've got the plethora of free MP3's here on the blog (especially excited about seeing the recent avalanche of
Tony Coulter's deep archives manifesting itself here), the constant flow into the
Free Music Archive and just everywhere
else in general. The day to day here at WFMU also of course gets overrun by mail that we get to open and check out. Remember that? Physical packages. With records and CD's in them. And tapes too. One even came in a big furry box this week. It kind of smelled like a wet dog, so we're keeping the empty in the stairwell for the time being because it's too nice to trash. New music doesn't completely make up the WFMU universe of course, there are plenty of shows that focus on and mix in the classic, the old and obscure, the intangible, but we usually add about 70-100 actual newish releases into the station's new bin weekly for the staff to check out at their leisure and people play and comment on 'em freely. Lately the vinyl bins especially have been overflowing which is an interesting turn of events. In the older days (when labels were seemingly pumping out mailed releases endlessly) there was one single bin for LPs and 7"s together. Now there's two teeming LP bins, a full 7" bin, and a cassette bin. If anything it seems the invisible and visible means of disseminating music remain equally healthy despite the fact labels struggle these days (I'm sure many will argue the latter), though the chore remains to try to find the goods wherever they are hiding that don't wind up in our lap automatically. I guess the purpose of these posts (which I hope to do regularly if possible) is to get some MP3 permissions of some recent goods and get 'em up. Anyway, read on, and if you dig what you find, by all means contact those who put these releases out. And you can always contact the music department here at WFMU via PO Box 5101, Hoboken NJ 07030, or email me at bt (at) wfmu (dot) org. Thanks.
Up first, Juanito Wau! One Mouth Band and the "Reverb Pool" 7" out on the I Shit In the Milk label (ahem). Juanito has been shaking it up for a while in his Wau Y Los Arrghs combo (hailing from Valencia, Spain), this thing appears to be a live solo jam of the most baffling (dis)order, almost as if this guy got a hold of the wheezy Troy the Wonder Boy 12" from the 80s and decided to make it a live rock model. Foam n spittle, overdistorted mouth beatbox, acapella wah-wah, it sounds like Jud Jud joining Suicide. Check the live "Quiero Un Pub" (MP3).
NYC's post-scumrock has been re-rising to the surface more often lately, and after a few touted gigs and the arrival of the swank Wheelchair Night cassette, I finally asked the Landlords just who do they think they are. The reply: "Well, we all really like that GG Allin song, Needle in my Cock. We have been playing music for about a year or so now, but there could be some dark times ahead, when Andrew decides to live out his dream of becoming a southern teenage hairdresser. I have been helping Johns Hopkins students run simulated sex change operations on Laerdal electronics mannequins, to prepare for his departure. Pat woke up at SXSW with a black eye that he didn't know how he got. Tony still manages to handle tuning his guitars, despite sustaining massive hearing loss from being in the Navy. We have sold out of our cassette, and have a limited tape release on Econore set for late this summer. Appearing with occasional drummer
Brandon, on loan from the Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft society. Come and see us at the Charleston April 23rd." Well, uh, I for one now know a miniscule amount more about 'em, but "Crimson Cream" (MP3) definitely has some AmRep/Buttholes style nods not unlike the way Clockcleaner took it on a few years back, with some added industrial puddles hinted at by neighbors Sightings.
When I caught Throbbing Gristle's NYC shows last year I was really taken aback at not only how well the general gist of TG's vocab stayed intact despite the upgrade from ye olde days of sputtering electronic analog gear, but how much everything swirled and drilled at the same time in a way Eno could only have had attempted should he had not been surrounded for those years by models. And Bowie, always wanting to go sit in cafes and do haphazard donuts in Berlin parking garages. So when a CDR called Mysterious Place dropped in from a fellow named Scott Freeman recording under the name the Sky Does Not Care About Me, it set off some familiar bells and opened a few new windows. Drifting, burnt-out buggy moonscapes whoosh around with various soundbombs evoking some Iancu Dumitrescu moments, arrhythmic loops, fluttering synths and alien sound fx abound. Lurvely stuff. "Ignite the Sky" (MP3).
Speaking of soundscapes, a package from Graham Lambkin's Kye label brought in the second in a series of reissues by Moniek Darge, a Belgian veteran composer, art/music professor and visual and sound artist who's been active since 1970 on her own and with various Logos Ensemble/Duo-related projects. Crete Soundies is her newest collection of recordings taking place on the island between 2006-2009. Like Lambkin, Darge's sounds take inspiration from an almost eavesdropping quality of assimilating one's self into surroundings and the transportative nature of combinations of like and unlike sounds in a ghetto/concrete way. "East Crete" (MP3) is rife with crickets, water, tourist voices from afar mixed with distant folk music from pubs. Whereas the previous Kye issue found Darge melding electro-acoustics into her nature sounds, this one finds her stepping back to let Mother Nature take front and center; like Douglas Quin or Chris Watson's releases, it's selective and completely psychedelic stuff. Don't have a site link for Kye, but Graham sez you can email him at hawkmoths (at) yahoo (dot) com. And check out some of his Shadow Ring and solo/collab jams while at it if you haven't.
Harlem's Chinese Restaurants get the Flipper/No Trend tag, but aside from the fact they probably don't rehearse much and drop an elongated sample around a jam (in this case an Obama speech), I hear plenty of Ohio burn on their River of Shit 7" (S.S. Records). Mattin (Billy Bao) scuzzifies the production to a nice flat scree, and while the credits claim playership of one "synth bass", that particular element sounds like it's been boiled in the pot with everything else. "Work Is A Drag" (MP3) might be the more plodding of the three cuts here, but it's the one we're being told to put up, so think of it as the more sensitive of the sides. I keep hearing that this band is now evolving into a Doors tribute act (?) Musical or personal cues? Not sure there. Hopefully that will not mean a wine-bloated LF Restaurant will be found dead in a tub and in a filthy French grave. Or that their keyboardist will issue 2CD spoken word disc about what it was like to go buy pants on Venice Beach with the Lizard King.
Sacred Bones' 12" series continues to chug with this latest installment from Chicago's Daily Void called the Eclipse of 1453 EP. Featuring a slice of the Functional Blackouts, DV delve into darkly doom n' gloom corners of punk, chattery reverbed guitars especially prominent amidst the swirling new wave aspect of things. The Rudimenteri Peni references oft made definitely are on the mark, but there's a more lo-fi stumble/garage aesthetic thread happening through it all. All in all some wildly swinging stuff, check out "Spiral Staircase" (MP3) and get down with the general post-punk nods that purvey much of the Sacred Bones catalogue (who have also recently released some styling reissues of Batcave-era troubadours 13th Chime).
amazing insight of college radio station
week to week in this new environment of mixed media
cool
Posted by: scott freeman | April 24, 2010 at 02:17 PM