Recent WFMU New Bin Faves

Alberorovesciato - Tigers On Acid In The Hell Of The Brushwood  (Singing Knives) This band is two Italian chaps currently residing in Berlin whose business is seriously primal percussion escapades (they even play in caves). I posted a scorching video of their work on BotB last year and it's a real pleasure to see Tigers on Acid make its way into the new bin. Reminds me of a brawl scene in an old cartoon, where you just see a tornado cloud of dust and a leg or a shoe now and then. The record is like a high fidelity field recording yet it's very intense and totally free, full of tiny percussive instruments and various ethnic drums with a smattering of gutteral screams and the occasional low drone adding a flavorful depth. Pretty amazing that it's only two people stirring up this ruckus, but when you play with tree branches instead of drumsticks, I guess it's like having many hands. Audio from the album here. (Scott McDowell)

La Gritona - Demasiado Tonto Para Los Ninos Listos (Tortuga)  - La Gritona emerged from Boston on the heels of grunge, tossing out a walloping, cohesive amalgamation of Voivoid, Black Flag, Swans, and Butthole Surfers into zones closest to metal. They were definitely evoking some of the unruly chaos to be evident in later acts like Converge (one member went on to Hydra Head recording artists Keelhaul, the label's sister imprint Tortuga put out this definitive anthology). Like Harvey Milk or Gore, La Gritona may have been around in the wrong time, when the rest of the word was focusing on some common and overdone influences, these guys were taking cues from not-so-evident dark corners. Artful, powerful stuff (and great X and Misfits covers) herein. Audio: "Jupiter".(Brian Turner)

Stan Hubbs - Crystal (Companion) Reissued 1982 LP originally recorded in Stan Hubbs' Sonoma County CA living room with a group of younger players. "A few years after making the LP, Stan Hubbs became one of the few persons in history to smoke so much pot that he died" -Acid Archives Audio: "Seems Like It's A Rich Man's World" (Jason Sigal)

BJ Nilsen/Stilluppsteypa - Big Shadow Montana (Helen Scarsdale Agency) Not having been to the Treasure State myself, I am guessing that Big Shadow Montana is not a site-specific reference. Instead, the two untitled tracks might present a vision of Montana's big skies and open spaces as dreamed up by an oppositional android with a penchant for the surreal. Having collaborated numerous times before, Nilsen, Sigmarsson, and Thorsson sound like one hive mind at work here. Not sure who's doing what, but it hardly matters. The ever-evolving stew of processed sound, a fantastic array of washed-out analog keyboards, disembodied voices, menacing drones, and what sounds like field recordings, electronic bird calls, and fragments of sitar, accompanies the troubled dreamer's imaginings. An analog bubblebath this ain't. Traces of chiming clocks and Geiger counters mix with phone static and stretches of dark turbine drift. Out of nowhere, the android emerges in an underground reservoir with only dubbed out bass floatation devices for company. Within minutes he is alone with hundreds of stars collapsing around him - brightening and fizzling out to reveal whispering tree trunks and snatches of opera. Was that a trumpet or just a tweaked teapot boiling? Bam! The automaton is transported to a ghost town saloon where an electronic music box trio plays to a roomful of heavily-accessorized and somewhat sedated grizzlies dancing with each other in slow motion. The Montana tourism board may not want to adopt this psychotropic dreamscape as its official soundtrack, but I bet all the haunted ghost towns would finally feel enfranchised! Audio: Side B (excerpt) (Daniel Blumin)

 
Dawn Culbertson - Return of the Evil Pappy Twin (cassette, Silvox) One of the more puzzling covers collections in some time, Culbertson (1951-2004) cassette offers Ramones, Devo, Stooges, Sabbath all performed by a woman classically trained in ealy Renaissance music from Italy, Germany, and France. Far from being a yukfest of tongue-in-cheek academic appropriation of these songs, nor a postmodern cutesy-fication ala Nouvelle Vague, the appeal for me in this cassette I suppose is that fact it's tough to peg why exactly there's a lute version of "Mongoloid" et al. Hearing the vocals, I can ascertain a heartfelt approach as well as a distant one at times, certain lines and phrases ring out in a whole new refreshing way. Witness: "Hot For Teacher" (audio)

Comments

[owen]

yeah, me too

[nix]

me? not so much.