WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Vinyl Finds: Mag & The Suspects - Erection/Thousands Dead (12" Maxi, 1981)

Steve M.'s house was the party house.  Through Steve and his sister J., a wildly diverse collection of disenfranchised suburban teens and twentysomethings had gathered there, some from "broken" homes, some runaways, some kicked out—others just looking for a good place to party.  This was our pre-River's Edge River's Edge, and though we never covered up a murder, we did just about everything else.  I lost my virginity under the big tree in Steve's backyard.  There were empty Budweiser cans and overflowing ashtrays all over the house, and for a while there was an "orgy room" set up in the attic (which was only moderately successful.)  I once hid in a closet in Steve's house to escape an ass kicking from a bikeless biker (for some reason, a breed so prevalent in N.J.) whose girlfriend I had slept with; I'd seen what he had done to a guy who owed him 10 bucks and I wasn't having any of it.

The inner sanctum of the house was Steve's bedroom on the second floor.  There he held court, and though the door was often locked and I wasn't always allowed in, I did eventually spend a lot of time in there, talking to Steve, who as we spoke would dole out samplings of the main feature of his room:  a staggering collection of several thousand LPs lining the walls, mostly acquired at garage sales and flea markets.  I was exposed to records like Ataraxia - The Unexplained, several years before I came to WFMU and found out who Mort Garson was.

One of the most dazzling chips off of Steve's monolithic collection was this 12" single by Mag & The Suspects, released by the very major London label in 1981, and clearly the label's singular stab at Rough Trade-style arty post-punk.  Both sides are absolutely killer, one an erotic recitation over minimalist thump, the other a deceptively carnivalesque commentary on how TV alienates us from global suffering.  This single should be at least as revered as The Normal's one-off classic "T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette".  Right now, you can't imagine yourself humming the phrases "burning corpses are missing" or "soon, it's gonna get in, real hard" over and over, but just you wait, wait and listen.

Mag & co. released only these two songs in several formats and have virtually no Web presence.  Any biographical or "where are they now?"-style information on the band would be greatly appreciated (though to me, the record screams L.A., and would sit comfortably amongst the Posh Boy discography.)  I have never seen this record since; these mp3s are ripped from a cassette dub of Steve's vinyl.

Mag & The Suspects - "Erection"
Mag & The Suspects - "Thousands Dead"

Magic Eye Paintings Are the Magic Eye Paintings of Magic Eye Paintings

I am so rarely in on the joke that it makes me sad.  I'm almost always on the periphery, wondering at the secret whisperings of others.  "What happened to Bill?  Oh, he put on weight; his wife is cute though."  No metaphor illustrates this unfortunate social marginalization better than that of the accursed Magic Eye Painting.  I hate you, Magic Eye Paintings; I am smarter, more complex and special than you'll ever be.  Still, I don't have an ethereal image of a schooner or a terrier "hidden" inside of me.

For example, in the pattern of roses to the right, one supposedly can see a ghostlike image of "Your Mother After I Fucked Her" –€“ just not working for me.  In the "trippy" pattern below left, if one takes great care not to look too hard, supposedly the image of "Bums on a Chow Line" will eventually reveal itself.  In the third image down on the right, if one presses one's nose to it and then slowly backs away while "unfocusing" one's eyes, the magical image of "Michael Moynihan Fan Base" will show up.  NO IT WON'T!  It just won't.  Ever.

People will tell you, "Don't focus your eyes!" –€“ "Don't look directly at it!" –€” "OK, do you want me to tell you?  It's a clown—€”don't you see it?"  Nope.  No clowny for William.  What I do see are the manufacturer's deliberately obfuscating "instructions" for "3D viewing" here.  The truth, however, and by this I mean an objective, The-Beatles-were-pretty-darn-good kind of truth, is that there's NOTHING THERE!  Excuse the caps, I forget myself...but really, come on:  there simply are no hidden images within Magic Eye Paintings.  There are, however, two kinds of people.

Good writing 101 tells us to never use clichés.  In fact, Paul R. Hensel, a damn funny guy from the Department of Political Science at Florida State University says, "Avoid clichés like the plague."  But in this case I couldn't resist saying that there are really only two kinds of people (I also couldn't resist starting this sentence with a conjunction—See!  Anyone can write advertising copy!): (1) Those who pretend to see the hidden images in Magic Eye Paintings, and with a wink and a nod conspire to continually mock and subjugate person type two; (2) those, like myself, who are honest people, freely admitting that there's simply nothing there and getting treated the fool for it.

Magic Eye Paintings are also a fine metaphor for all conspiratorial shams that pit one sector of the public (the "seers," if you will) against the other ("non-seers"), similar to the classic Emperor's New Clothes, but a move executed not out of courtly propriety, but rather a subtly malicious need to forge an elite subgroup (which is usually in fact the socially dominant majority.)

Take this sentence:€“ "Wilco are the Magic Eye Paintings of Rock."  This simply says that some are "in on" the less obvious, deeper meaning of the subject, and some are not—€”the perfection of my metaphor suggesting of course that there may indeed be no inner meaning to glean.  Philip K. Dick once said when asked for "a short, simple definition of reality":  "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."*  You all have my permission, in fact I encourage you, to stop believing and then see what's still there. 

With respect to the fact that Magic Eye Paintings as a phenomenon are somewhat passé (and the perception of them as frustrating unquestionably the fodder of 90s sitcoms), this has been brewing within me for several years; I choose not when the information is ready to be released.  Let us not forget the multi-million-dollar industry in books, prints and other Magic Eye ephemera; the allusion to some sort of postmodern, sci-fi, Sharper Image-style psychedelia (whose blasphemy simply cannot be tolerated); and most importantly the cabal that unites those irritating ball-busters in a movement against us honest, truth-seeing and truth-telling people.
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*from VALIS, copyright © 1981 by Philip K. Dick.

Vinyl Finds: Boojwah Kids - Med Beat! e.p., 1980

My vinyl-rip posts of late have been—to say the least—leaning esoteric, so here's something with a backbeat for all you rockers in the room...sort of.

Boojwah Kids were a Captain Beefheart-influenced band from Stockholm, with a scrappy post-punk sound falling somewhere near the intersection of Rustic Hinge and early Scritti Politti.  This e.p. represents perhaps their most well-known release outside of Sweden, though the full-length LP that followed it, Till Skydd För Minnet (1981), is also excellent.

Nowadays, Boojwah Kids' bandleader Ralf Nygård plays with Michael Maksymenko of Kräldjursanstalten (the other Beefheart-obsessed band from 1980s Sweden) in a new project called The Reference Group.  Boojwah Kid Olle Stockman is still rocking postmodern in the band Tow Truck Two.

Linda
Boojwah Bas-Tu/Den Pölsan Glömmer Jag Aldrig
Pöjke Moter Flicka (Kärnkraften Gör Oss Alla På Smällen)
Hatten Av/Med Oasen Mot Asen

Download insert booklet: cover and back.

Vinyl Finds: Merzbow Singles

Why do I love Merzbow's music?  Total, uncompromising sensory envelopment.  The sheer aural bombardment and crafty sonic layering of Masami Akita's finest recordings seek and destroy in the darkest corners of my psyche, wiping clean my floating anxieties and pettiest earthbound concerns.  There's simply no room left for bad thoughts.  While many a listener is sure to find this music to be one long bad thought, I (and I suspect a great many others*) find sanctuary in the bleeps, crashes, blasts and buzzes—the explosion of sound that is Merzbow.

As promised in my last post, here are some of my Merzbow singles, not all of them (apologies to those expecting the mother lode; much of my vinyl sits in storage) but the essential two I keep at the ready to listen to any time.  Masami Akita has typically demonstrated a reverence for the 7" format (especially considering his style of not-necessarily-singles-ready music) such that both of these discs are zingers that make the most of the allotted space/time.  That said, one of the singles, SCUM - Steel Cum is available as disc 35 of the Merzbox** in a presumably full, expanded form, broken out into individual tracks.  Personally, I prefer the condensed wallop of this 7".  The other, Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' has never been digitally reissued anywhere.  Curiously, when preparing this post, I realized that both discs were release number 7 for their respective labels, and that both are pressed on see-through bright yellow vinyl.

SCUM - Steel Cum (Vertical 1991)
Side A
Side B

Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' (Robot 1994)
Side A (Fire; Burning Building of Waco, Texas; Taxi in the Car Wash)
Side B (The Beach)

(Be careful when clicking on the thumbnails of the sleeve artwork; some images are nsfw.)
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*Just take a look at this list from OkCupid.com of "Singles Interested in Merzbow."  Quite impressive, as never once in my single years did I consider my interest in Merzbow a potential springboard to dating.

**Incidentally, Merzbox 37 is Newark Hellfire - Live On WFMU, 1990.

Vinyl Finds: Merzbow - Dradomel LP 1992 (Hannover Interruption)

Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) is one of my heroes.  Not only is he one of the innovators of noise-as-music, with an incredible range of stylistic applications in his repertoire, he also shames most creative artists in terms of sheer productivity.  The amount of Merzbow/Masami Akita solo releases and collaborations on LP, 7" vinyl, cassette tape and CD is absolutely staggering, approximately 400 since 1980; that's an average of 14 releases per year, making him something like the Fassbinder of Noise.  The thing about his catalog, at least from this fan's perspective, is that so much of it is really very good, the constant experimentation and variation of his approach, and the collaborations with other artists bearing proof of an extremely bountiful creative spirit. 

This LP, apparently titled Hannover Interruption (at least according to Wikipedia and Discogs, though no such information appears anywhere on the package, not in English characters anyway) was a joint release of Dom Elchklang and the short-lived Dragnet Records label.  Almost everything both labels have touched is pure gold to me, and Dradomel in particular also released one of my all-time favorite LPs, Rowenta/Khan's Tiefpunkte Moderner Tonkompositionen (also 1992, now on CD.)

This album finds Merzbow in full-on, harsh-noise mode, at least at first listen.  The more one becomes acclimated to the sound, the more layers of activity emerge:  electric groans and roars, bird-call-like feedback, moog sirens, percussive analog static, thousands of pots and pans falling down a hill, even the occasional vocal.  It's this artful layering of sound (among other things) that separates Merzbow from some jag-off that just turns on a noise generator and walks away.  To my knowledge, these recordings are not included in the massive 50-CD Merzbox (Extreme, 2000) though the Merzbox does include a disc called Hannover Cloud dated 1990.

Merzbow continues his prolific tide, with some notable recent releases being Electric Dress (with Carlos Giffoni and Jim O'Rourke), Merzbuddha, and Merzbear (the latter two being part of his mostly animal-devoted Merz series on the Important label.)  In the past several years, Masami has also become an activist for animal rights, including the PETA url alongside his own merzbow.net on CD sleeves.  (Just imagining the Noise-God rubbing shoulders at a charity event with Pamela Anderson gives me a big fat grin for uncountable reasons.)

Side A Untitled
Side B Untitled

Next time:  My Merzbow singles!

Vinyl Finds: Gumpert-Malfatti-Oxley – Ach Was!? (FMP 1981)

The proliferation of good music blogs continues to stagger the mind.  Vinyl hoarders the world over are ripping and posting their collections and it's simply impossible to keep up, unless you're spending 100% of your time at the computer—even then you're bound to miss out on a lot.

Records that previously lurked only in the dark corners of my memory, my personal collection and/or the WFMU library are turning up on music blogs all over the Web.  For example, when impLOG's Holland Tunnel Dive e.p. showed up about a year ago on Mutant Sounds, I had what has now become a familiar "haven't thought about that one in years" reaction.

It's also become harder, from a blogger's viewpoint, to excavate recordings that haven't already been celebrated and offered for download elsewhere online, though I believe I may have one here.

This rarely seen FMP release turned up in the used vinyl new arrivals at Amoeba Music's San Francisco store when I was working there in 1999.  For the sheer gloat potential, I probably should have left the price tag on, which I think was $1.99.  With my employee discount, this record cost me, well—less than that—an obscene bargain to be sure.

While this LP finds drummer/electronic musician Tony Oxley at the more experimental end of his tether (i.e., not playing in a straight or out jazz combo), both sides have a warmth and delicacy that may make this record appealing to those typically wary of free-improvised music (though things do get a little wilder during the latter half of side 2.)  Personally, I have a real affection for the primordial plink-plonk of sessions like this one.

Pianist Ulrich Gumpert is a well-known figure in European jazz and a respected interpreter of Erik Satie's music, with a career that also includes compositions for film and TV.  Austrian Trombonist Radu Malfatti is another giant of European jazz, having collaborated with a veritable who's who of improvisers, but since 1981 has focused more and more on composition (perhaps this record blew his wad!)  All three players on Ach Was!? have lengthy discographies, including other recordings for FMP.

Tony Oxley continues to dazzle the world with his brilliant, intuitive playing, adding to his impressive catalog most recently with The Advocate on Tzadik.  Oxley's first releases as a bandleader, The Baptised Traveller and Four Compositions for Sextet (from '69 and '70 respectively) are personal favorites.  As an added bonus, here's a link to a download of Oxley's ultra-rare Ichnos from 1971.

Ach Was!?:
A1 - Luft Gebacken
A2 - Ach Was!?
B - Kookin' at Charly's

Jowe Head, Renaissance Man

I still occasionally (well, very occasionally) step out of my role as cubicle drone and Suburban Dad to make an artistic contribution to the world, and I'm pleased and proud to say that I'll be playing guitar for a series of performances this week with the great Jowe Head.

I first met Jowe by way of a live interview on my WFMU show in 1993, where I gave lame, super-casual interview (as was my "style" in the day) and Jowe proceeded to capsize the station's little wheezing chord organ, then rendering an impromptu performance of the song "Shiny Black Shirt," later immortalized on the Upsalapalooza compilation CD.  Jowe's mid-90s tours with the Television Personalities provided sweet entertainment and some post- and pre-gig opportunities for further socialization.  When the call came out in early 1996 to play a series of NYC shows with Jowe, I was more than ready.  I am eternally indebted to Hamish Kilgour and Lisa Siegel for this opportunity; a chance meeting with Hamish at WFMU's last record fair led to the current arrangement.  My long-time association with the station strikes again!

Jowe, as many of you know, was a founding member of the legendary Swell Maps (along with the brothers Epic Soundtracks and Nikki Sudden, sadly both no longer with us, and Richard Earl aka Bgls), blazing icons of the UK post-punk era, a "cross between Can and T.Rex" put simply, who created 2 brilliant studio LPS, a double LP of live sessions and jams, and several dynamite singles, all originally for the Rough Trade label (reissues and compilations available on Secretly Canadian, Alive, Munster and Overground.)  Jowe has gone on to front or contribute to a great many projects (The Palookas, Televison Personalities and The Househunters, to name only a few; Jowe currently fronts Angel Racing Food), as well as squeeze out a few unforgettable solo LPs, in particular 1986's Strawberry Deutsche Mark (tracks available on the Unhinged CD on Overground.)

Jowe's band this time consists of myself, Hamish Kilgour, Lisa Siegel and Danny Tunick, though the lineup will vary a bit from show to show.  Here are the dates:  a studio session for WFMU (interview with Jowe to air this Saturday, 4/12, recorded set to air in about 2 weeks, both on Terre T.'s Cherry Blossom Clinic), two nights at Cake Shop NYC (this Friday and Saturday, 4/11 and 4/12, 8 p.m. shows), Sunday 4/13 at Eat Records, 124 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn NY (5 p.m. show), and Friday 4/18 at Claude's Bar in Phoenicia, NY.  Also at Cake Shop, and The Arts Upstairs in Phoenicia, an exhibit of Jowe's artwork will be on display and available for purchase.

To further dangle the carrot, here are a few tracks on mp3 that should provide enhanced enticement to savor this very rare musical experience in the flesh:

Baby Bounce  |  Merman Blues  |  Swiss Air  |  The Palookas - Virginia's Wolf

What's On My Portable mp3 Player, Part 4

Here's me phoning one in a bit, as I had the flu for a week and didn't feel much like writing about anything.  I no longer own a Zen Micro (which started malfunctioning within a week of the warranty expiration) but I won't say which player I do use now, as the last time I did the comments section turned into an iPod defense/bashing session (and people asking me questions like "what do you use as a jukebox program?"), which I guess I started.  To put it simply, if I still did a weekly show on WFMU, this is some of what I'd be playing:

Bayan Mongol Variety Group
Originally posted on the Waxidermy blog in August 2006, then re-posted on Prog Not Frog, where I found it.  So good that it warrants re-re-posting here.  Released in 1981.

Bayan Mongol Variety Group

Bleak - Austere I & II
Epic, atmospheric Black Ambient from California 2004.  Neo-classical nightmare music.  Forget the genre labels and just listen to it.

Of Darkness...

Born Heller
Folk duo featuring the haunting voice of Josephine Foster, CD from 2004.  Where Shirley Collins and the American plains meet; gloriously languid and more than a little bent.

Good Times  |  I Am a Guest in Here

Franz de Byl - Und
NWW list obscurity (Germany 1972) that was recently made available again on vinyl.  Most of the tracks are surprisingly standard post-psychedelic folksinging.  This song, however, is great.

Birthday (The World's Gates) (File removed upon request of author)

Kuusumun Profeetta
Mellifluous, hypnotic, jazzy space-rock from Finland.  Vocalist Mika Rättö, a formidable talent in the contemporary Finnish underground, is also a member of Circle and Rättö ja Lehtisalo.  CDs available on Ektro Records.  K.P. @ MySpace and Last.fm

Kysymysten Sali

Leaden
Italian Depressive Black Metal.  This track is from their first, self-titled full-length from 2004.  Oddly engaging and crammed with lo-fi weirdness.

My Life In Darkness

Marianne Faithfull - Rich Kid Blues
Recorded in 1971, while Marianne was living on a wall in Soho, a homeless junkie and anorexic.  Not released until the mid-80s, several years after the success of Broken English.  A lost masterpiece, with some chillingly frail renditions.    Beware of Darkness  |  Rich Kid Blues

The Great Black Hope

It's a great time for fans of Black Metal.  Dozens of bands, new and old, are spattering off in dozens of new directions, revising and revitalizing the much-maligned stepchild child of metal.  As an adjunct to my post on Lugubrum and Silvester Anfang a few weeks ago, here are a few more great bands leading the charge to new era:

Drowning the Light
Drowning the Light is a great one-man Australian project that mixes the traditional lo-tech Black Metal sound with a mush of guitar euphony that's absolutely Kevin Shields-y, almost shoegazer in nature.  DtL are part of the "depressive" or "suicidal" movement in Black Metal, a subgenre that's brought mournful melodies and slower tempos to the forefront, rendered with a passionate intensity that's excited a lot of fans (myself included) in a manner reminiscent of the initial Norwegian explosion of the early-to-mid 1990s.  (Many of the depressive bands are quite good, and there are a lot of them, each with their own unique take on the sound:  Défaillance, Whisper, Leaden, Animus, Strid and Voluntaria are just a few of the great ones that I've heard recently.)  Drowning the Light often favor slow, circular rhythms, and chord progressions that churn along in a spaced-out, almost 50s ballad sort of way.  It's all in the ear of the beholder I suppose, but the cyclical repetitions of these songs, especially the longer tracks, are easy to get lost in.  DtL turned a corner into this interesting musical territory with four monumental full-length releases in 2007.  Of those, A World Long Dead, Of Celtic Blood & Satanic Pride and To the End of Time are my personal favorites, all sampled below.

The Haunted Ruins of a Vampyric Soul from A World Long Dead
In the Fallen Kingdom from To the End of Time
To the End of Time part II from Of Celtic Blood & Satanic Pride

Wolves in the Throne Room
Wolves in the Throne Room's newest disc, Two Hunters, was released in late 2007 on Southern Lord.  In underground Metal terms, this means you've officially arrived.  The label has both great distribution and a reputation for high quality.  WitTR are from Olympia, Washington, and have a much richer musical palette than your typical BM band, one that cements them into a larger pantheon of classic rock and heavy metal music.  This is not to say that they don't have more than enough hi-speed blast beat takeoffs to satisfy the fans, only that they weave in acoustic passages, keyboards, melodic female vocals and some slower tempos to great effect, the heavier side of their sound never losing its potency.  Their epic, suite-like songs, many clocking in at 12 minutes or longer, recall Sigur Ros or Dead Can Dance about a third as often as they do Enslaved or early Ulver.  Their band page at Encyclopedia Metallum describes their ideology as, "quite different from many Black Metal bands.  In interviews Wolves in the Throne Room have shown respect for left wing politics, radical environmentalism and "eco feminism.""  Ha!  Now that's progressive.  I've posted one track from 2006's Diadem of 12 Stars below.  Also included is a track from their 2004 self-titled demo, a great piece, which nonetheless gives only a glimpse of the focus and diversity to come on their more recent albums.

Face in a Night Time Mirror Part 1 from Diadem of 12 Stars
If This Dark Age Conquers We Will Leave This Echo from Wolves in the Throne Room demo 2004

My Night at the Sleep Lab

So I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping.  Fortunately, I have this forum wherein I can compel our global readership to share their related experiences and advice.  The basic problem is this:  I don't usually have difficulty falling asleep, both due to work-related mental exhaustion as well as the fact that I take a prescription medication for anxiety also often prescribed for insomnia.  However, after anywhere from three to five hours, I wake up, and that seems to be that.  My pulse is elevated, though my mind is not particularly troubled or racing; I'm just awake, and can't get back to sleep—no way, no how.

I decided after six weeks or so of this mounting hell to avail myself of a local sleep lab, one affiliated with and on the premises of a reputable local hospital.  I'd read about these places before, and went in aware that they are basically designed to diagnose and treat a condition called sleep apnea, which I didn't really think fit my particular symptoms—but who knows, right?  I needed help and thought that it might even be an interesting experience.

I checked in to the sleep lab at 9 p.m. per their instructions.  The first thing that aroused my skepticism was that no one bothered to take my blood pressure or ask for a list of the prescription medications I take (I take a low-dose antihypertensive that I've been taking for years, plus the aforementioned anxiety pill—possibly relevant?!?!)  The room itself was less like a single hospital room, more like a single room at a really cheap motor hotel, I guess in an attempt to simulate the conditions under which most of us sleep.  (The techs kept saying, "you can watch TV now," as if this was some great gift.)

I was then hooked up to a variety of wired contacts, all connected to my body with surgical tape:  one behind each ear, two or three on various points on my skull, one below my left eye, one above my right eye, two on my chin, two on my chest and one on my back.  Then adjustable elastic strips were applied around my neck, chest and waist.  Now it's time to go to sleep!  Any time I needed to pee, Mohammed (not the Prophet, the sleep lab tech) had to unhook 2 main wires, so that I could carry the central receiver box (about the size of a VHS tape) to the bathroom with me, do my business, then come back and get re-hooked.  I was out for the first 1.5 hours, up for another hour and then basically asleep for another four hours until 6 a.m. when the techs woke me up.  Mohammed said, "Mr. Berger, your sleep was excellent."  If I'd been thinking, I might have asked him to qualify that statement.

A Personal Struggle (with Parenthetical Phrases and Italics)

A Buddhist and a Satanist walk into a bar (let's call it a juice bar, as serious Buddhists avoid all intoxicants, and both characters in this non-joke represent me, a non-drinker.)  They would both very much like a drink (though the Buddhist has eliminated all desire, he is nonetheless very thirsty; the Satanist, for his own, believes only in savoring the enjoyment of the here and now, the material life—the only one he knows exists for sure.)  The line at the juice bar, however, is impossibly long, the service is slow, and actually getting a drink might take a half hour or longer.

The Satanist says, "with the force of my will, I will my make my desire manifest; the drink shall come unto me, for I will it to be so."  Of course, nothing happens.  The Buddhist, seeing* the interconnectedness of all things, and being possessed of great compassion for all beings, resolves to wait patiently (though he knows he must soon leave to go to his Right Occupation.)

Still, the wait is long and ultimately both the Satanist and the Buddhist must leave empty-handed and dry of throat.  The Satanist curses the herd, and years later dies embittered and penniless.  The Buddhist, in time, loses everyone that he loves, grieves appropriately, but does not suffer deeply as he has long ago eliminated attachment from his mind and understands the impermanence of all things.  He too eventually dies, knowing that a drink perhaps awaits him upon rebirth into the causal continuum.

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*Author Steve Hagen must own all italicized variations of the word "see," as they appear in his book Buddhism Plain and Simple over 205 times.  (This is not to say that I didn't benefit from reading it; I've only failed thus far to "see.")

Go Flemish! - Lugubrum, Funeral Folk, Hellvete and Silvester Anfang

[mp3s above & below the fold]

Pop rock, electronica and even so-called experimental music have swallowed their own tails to the point where endless repetition, imitation and a generally uninspiring postmodernism rule the day, i.e., every new artist is a clone of a clone of a clone, with easily cited and often unfortunately chosen "influences."  Black Metal, on the other hand, is perhaps young enough that exciting new mutations and enthralling new sub-subgenres continue to emerge weekly.  This is not to say that there aren't hundreds, perhaps thousands of Black Metal acts who willfully describe their sound as "hateful, old-school Black Metal," or "similar to early Darkthrone"—just take a browse sometime on blackmetal.com.  The point is there are still a great many bands expanding and challenging the boundaries of what has often been a sound with rigidly defined parameters.

More than any other band, Belgium's mighty Lugubrum exemplify this rabid creativity, while still keeping one foot in the shrieks and exaggerated vigor that earned Black Metal its global notoriety (incinerating houses of worship notwithstanding.)  To the uninitiated or curious (or those put off by fire-and-frost breathing, corpsepaint-sporting blast-beater legends like Norway's Immortal), Lugubrum may be a way in to this most fertile and creative contemporary music.  In many ways, the band break away from the tried-and-true BM aesthetic:  their sleeve paintings (rendered by the band's guitarist, lyricist and assorted string player Midgaars) blend the surreal with a European folk art quality, abandoning the standard b&w band shot accompanied by an unreadable logo (the latter also usually set in a dark forest, castle or graveyard.)  Their CD inserts are filled with bizarre and curious imagery, found photographs and the like, a thought-provoking aesthetic that's both arresting and haunting, and not necessarily promoting of an agenda of never-ending Blackness and anti-Christian fanaticism (in fact, they're definitely more about "Brown" than "Black".)

Lugubrum's Music is no less uncompromising to the BM standard, incorporating elements of rock, progressive rock, poetry, drones, free jazz, noise and European folk music.  Several of their discs, including their most-recent full-length CD De Ware Hond (2007), feature alto sax, banjo and accordion among other decidedly non-metal instruments, and somehow it all works to the point where the listener doesn't even muse, "Am I listening to Black Metal?  Do I care?"—one simply accepts the presentation in earnest.  Below are a few of my favorite Lugubrum tracks on mp3:

Holy Fools Embodied (from Heilige Dwazen, 2005)
De Vette Cuecken (from De Vette Cuecken, 2004)
Dust Binst Drinken (from De Vette Cuecken)
Gekloofd (from Bruyne Troon, 2001)

For more on Lugubrum, and lots of entertaining reading, see the band's Web site; the News updates alone should make it clear to anyone that these clever lads are thriving off Black Metal, while pushing its boundaries, and poking more than a little fun (gasp!) at it, too.  Their page on Encyclopedia Metallum refers to their lyrical themes as "Alcohol, Filth, Totems, Decay."  Also see: Lugubrum on YouTube!

Another more recent discovery for me in the Flemish arena is the Flanders-based Funeral Folk label, especially the artists Hellvete and Silvester Anfang.

On Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mindful Listening, Eschewing Duality, 9/11 etc.

[One mp3 album below the fold]

In his book on David Bowie's Low album, Hugo Wilcken refers to Karlheinz Stockhausen's work as "dryly cerebral" and the composer himself as "more admired than listened to."  A bit harsh to this fan, though my guess is that the latter statement is basically accurate, i.e., the name-drops and influential tags far outnumber the instances of mindful, attentive listening to Stockhausen's recorded works.  As a part of my lifelong quest for new musical forms and languages to explore and assimilate, I have spent the past 20+ years trying to counterbalance this unfortunate statistic.

When he passed away on December 5, 2007, at the age of 79, Stockhausen left behind a monumental body of work that includes compositions for electronics (Telemusik, Gesang der Junglinge); pianos (the Klavierstücke, Mantra); vocal ensembles (Stimmung, Chöre für Doris); small ensembles (Aus den Sieben Tagen, Mikrophonie I); and large orchestras or multiple ensembles (Gruppen, Sternklang, Hymnen (Third Region).)

To the diligent and focused listener, Stockhausen's music reveals an unpredictable, organic universe, packed with arresting dynamics and subtleties of timbre, wild rhythmic exchanges, bursts of soul-shaking noise, as well as surprising innovations of melodic and meditative envelopment; endurance tests (Mikrophonie I) and warming spiritual journeys (Sternklang) present themselves in equal measure.  It's my belief that a full and enduring appreciation of Stockhausen's work must go beyond mere listening, beyond what is immediately pleasing to the ear, into an understanding and embracing of the concepts and processes that were the life's blood of every one of his compositions.

Many of Stockhausen's 1960s works were scored with non-specific instructions for the performers which allowed for individual "intuitive" expression and improvisation within a pre-prescribed environment.  Here is where, for me at least, things start to get really interesting.  This approach is at play in works like Prozession, Kurzwellen and Aus den Sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days), the latter being a series of 15 "text" compositions for smaller ensembles, wherein the composer-prescribed settings sometimes included actual physical conditions imposed upon the players themselves.  This is perhaps best exemplified by the piece Goldstaub (Gold Dust), and it's worth quoting the score, if only to provide a window into the composer's mind and the new levels of composition and performance he was continually striving at in his work, often eschewing the standard duality between art and its environment, between the composer/performer and the universal:

live completely alone for four days
without food
in complete silence, without much movement
sleep as little as necessary
think as little as possible

after four days, late at night
without conversation beforehand
play single sounds

WITHOUT THINKING which you are playing

close your eyes
just listen

© 1973 Karlheinz Stockhausen

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part XI - The Electronic Eggplant

The Electronic Eggplant - Aristotle, 1988 [.zip archive, 52MB]

The Electronic Eggplant was one of several solo-home-recording aliases for John Beekman, a sonic wizard and founding member of the band Fly Ashtray (1984–1998.)  I have a mini-stack of John's tapes, ostensibly submissions for my Lo-Fi program, but also quite obviously the necessary ventings of an over-fertile creative mind weaned on 60s-70s rock and post-war avant-garde composition and electronic music.  The Electronic Eggplant was the experimental, "anything goes" foil to John's more song-oriented recordings under the name Skooli Descartes.

This tape, Aristotle, melds Pierre Schaffer-like sound collage (presumably done using a stereo cassette deck and pause-button magic) with electric/acoustic guitar riffage, blasts of tape noise, chanting and other vocal hijinx—the whole thing peppered with clips of the artist's own pre-teen audio vérité.  There's also some excellent guitar-driven mantra rock in the mix, with the track "Boy Ling Be-In" being a personal favorite.  Though Aristotle strings together a mass of shorter pieces, it unquestionably has a cohesive artistic vision, one, I might add, that is best enjoyed through stereo headphones.  The tape also came with a gloriously hand-decorated case and insert that I have to assume are both one of a kind.

These days, John usually operates under his Azalia Snail-given moniker of Hyena Sparerib.  At that link, you'll also find some recordings of John's longstanding collaboration with James Kavoussi, the Bosco Brothers.

(Note: Though multiple individual track titles are provided for this tape, seeing as the material just begs for the "sonic continuum" treatment, each 15-minute side of the cassette has been ripped as a single mp3.  Track titles are provided on the scan of the insert and in the "Comments" field of the mp3 tags.)

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part X - Terence Karl Folger

Terry Folger - Folger/Armchair Macedonia, ca. mid-80s (2 .zip archives, download Side A and Side B, total size 112MB)

In the summer of 1983, when I first rang the doorbell at WFMU, it was Terry Folger who answered the door.  He was music director at the time, and seemed to be the only person there.  I was starting classes at Upsala that coming fall and was interested in getting involved with the station.  Terry gave me a little tour of the studios and offices (situated at that time in the basement beneath the freshman dorm in Froeberg Hall), and we didn't meet again until classes started, Terry also being an Upsala student at the time.  At that first meeting, I was sporting shoulder-length hair and a full beard, and Terry would later confide in me that he thought I must have been some sort of "classic rock freak."  We quickly became good friends, drinking and talking for hours at a time in one another's dorm rooms.

Terry often encouraged me to start doing a show on the air, and I finally began my on-air tenure at WFMU in March of 1984.  Sitting in on Terry's shows was always a treat for me, and I learned so much by just watching him test his own limits (and the patience of then-station manager Bruce Longstreet) and by observing the emotional transformations (and sometimes collapses) he would go through while on the air.  Terry was also the first person to play me The Minutemen, Wire, No New York, James Blood Ulmer and Lester Bowie, as well as introducing me to the work of so-called "decadent" writers like Alfred Jarry (a passion that I pursue to this day.)

Lest he be remembered mostly for his infamous 1980 jump from the roof of the Hotel Chelsea and his untimely passing in 1994 from AIDS-related illness, I must add that I think of Terry often, and when I do it's his comic misanthropy, his abstract and bileful wit, his passions for NY baseball, subversive literature and unusual music, his writing and songwriting, his predictions of the coming "econo-cataclysm," and his capacities for free association and psychedelics consumption that most define him in my memories.  All of these exceptional qualities are on full display with this tape, which was not so much a "release" as a tape he made in a various configurations over the years for different people.  While Terry would some years later form the combo Van Gelder, these early solo recordings (many of them done via primitive multitracking in WFMU's old production studio) are hilarious, bizarre, gut-bearing blasts of idiosyncrasy.  If there's one point I've been trying to make in this series of posts, it's that home recording at its best gives the listener a microscopic view into the mind and soul of the artist, a view that is most often diluted when professional studio recording comes into play.  This tape by my old friend Terry certainly bears that out.

Highlights of this tape include: a few WFMU station-related promos; early versions of the mini-classics "Whose Birthday Is It?" and "Here Comes Fred"; the mind-bending "Clean Your Genitalia/The Undertaker's Instructions"; two versions of the song "Where's Kerouac When You Need Him?"; "Naked" (an R. Stevie Moore cover); and two tracks from Terry's slushy blues-piano alter ego, Ol' Prik McTig.  Hope you enjoy.  (Note: Where tracks ran together on the original cassette, they have been ripped as a single mp3.)

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part IX

The Sharmuta - 3-song cassette, 198? (.zip archive, 31.3MB)

I was always impressed at the amount of contributions for the Lo-Fi show that came from outside WFMU's listening area.  Even in the pre-Web days, the station had a global reputation that helped tremendously to build our music library and in the same way aided in my acquisition of some exceptional rarities in music cassettes.  This tape from The Sharmuta came to me from Israel, and though the original mailer and letter that came with the tape are long lost, I recall having no reason to believe that the stated origins were anything but completely legit.  The music on the tape consists of three tracks of what I would call post-No Wave noisecore, similar in style at times to Mars or Missing Foundation.  If there was a larger Israeli underground noise scene in the 80s, I'd sure love to hear more about it.  The three tracks all run together, and have been ripped as a single mp3.  The intended submissions also seem to have been recorded over one of the band's rehearsal tapes, so I include that material here as well for posterity.  (Note: the track titles on the archived insert were transcribed (in my own hand) from the original letter that came with the tape.)

Tobin Karicher - Heliopolis, 1985 (.zip archive, 66MB)

Tobin Karicher [pronounced care-ricker] made catchy, evocative instrumental music in a variety of styles.  Returning to this tape some 20 years later, I have an even greater appreciation for the maturity, and yet beautiful simplicity, of the sonic structures employed.  The tunes are reminiscent at times of Cluster, The Residents, Peter Frohmader, or Michael Rother, though whether or not Mr. Karicher consciously funneled these influences only he could say.  This tape is a fine example of the care and precision that articulate the one-man-band cassette ethos; made out of necessity, though precious few would hear the end result.  Today, Tobin Karicher is a successful painter residing in the Arlington, VA area.

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part VIII

Ray Zinnbrann - Takedowns, 1986 (.zip archive, 43MB)

Ray Zinnbrann first came to the attention of WFMU's staff and listeners with the song "I Fell in Love at WFMU," popularized on Irwin's show.  Ray proved to be far from a one-note novelty act, being a skilled guitarist with psychedelic leanings and an idiosyncratically reedy but note-perfect vocal delivery.  At the Lo-Fi event I organized in 1988, Ray, decked out in a gold lamé vest, played a bombastic fuzztone rendition of "Also Sprach Zarathustra."  Not too long after their first meeting at that event, Ray and fellow Lo-Fi star Jet Screamer (aka Mark DeAngelis) formed The Living Guitars, a dynamic duo coupling surf-rock buzz and twang with some great original songs (and sadly few recordings.)  Ray has always produced tasty cover versions, and this tape of carefully selected and thoughtfully rendered covers (with some pricelessly funny intros and outros) bubbled to the top of my Ray Z. tape collection as something that all ye blog punters should enjoy.  I think I may even like Ray's version of "Elemental Child" more than the Marc Bolan original.  See the insert on the right for more information and a track listing.  Ray (now known as Ray Brazen) is still making music, and also maintains an in-depth fan site for legendary New York band The Godz.

Smegma - Morass/In Performance 1985–1987, 1988 (.zip archive, 52MB)

Portland, Oregon's Smegma have defied easy categorization for their 30 some odd years of existence.  Are they a rock band?  Well, yes, of a sort.  A free noise ensemble?  Absolutely.  A bizarre performance troupe, with an often crass aesthetic?  Mmm-hmm.  A "tape" band?  For sure.  Were they embraced by the 80s–90s post-industrial avant-garde?  Unquestionably.  The material on their many releases ranges from pure sound collage to heavy, Krautrock-inspired one-note 4/4 jams, with everything in between being up for consideration as well.  The Morass cassette, with its large, tri-fold insert, was the first release for the now world-renowned Soleilmoon label (also Portland-based.)  The "studio" side of this tape was recently made available on the CD reissue of the Nattering Naybobs of Negativity LP.  The other side of Morass, the "in performance" side, is presented here in all its sodden glory.  With Smegma's recordings, distinctions between live and studio material become less relevant than with some other artists, and I personally find this side of the tape to be the more enjoyable one.  (Note:  Since the silences between tracks are few and mostly filled with applause and audience patter, this has been ripped as one continuous mp3; song titles are given on the insert and in the "Comments" field of the mp3 tags.)

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part VII

F/i - Meridian Channel, 1987 (.zip archive, 52MB)

Years before the proliferation of postmodern space rock bands, Milwaukee's F/i were perfecting their blend of 80s-style power electronics and chunka-chunka-chunka Krautrock-cum-Hawkwind-style rhythmic freakouts.  As with France's DDAA, highlighted earlier in this series, F/i were a band that unquestionably released some fine LPs (Why Not Now?...Alan! (RRR, 1987) and the split LP with Boy Dirt Car (RRR, 1986) come immediately to mind), but also issued some of their best work exclusively on cassette.  Meridian Channel was one such tape, an early release for SSS Productions, a Pittsburgh-based label with an impressive discography.  F/i are still at it, though if I'm not mistaken, founding member Brian Wensing now steers the ship, with founder and original guiding light Richard Franecki having moved on sometime in the early 90s (though he returned to the lineup for the 2003 release A Question for the Somnambulist.)  The CD Out of Space and Out of Time (rel. 1993) is a comprehensive collection of tracks from the above-mentioned RRR albums, and a great starting point for those unfamiliar with the band's work.  Outside of F/i, Franecki has also released some excellent material, both as a solo artist and with the band Vocokesh.

Sinister X - cassette "single," 198? (.zip archive, 17MB)

I found this tape in one of my many crates of unsorted cassettes, remembering on sight that it was something good.  If there was an insert, or a note with the tape providing more info, it has been lost to the ages, though I seem to remember that it came to me as depicted:  artist's name and titles on each side, and nothing more.  The two tracks are clunky D.I.Y. dub, in the vein of Jah Wobble's Bedroom Album.  The first piece, "Sy. Farber's Freak-Out," is there to remind us how much we miss the sound of a cassette rewinding while still in play mode.

Caltrops - 4-song cassette, 198? (.zip archive, 34MB)

Caltrops were a frequently featured artist on the Lo-Fi show, hailing from Fords, NJ.  They sent me quite a few tapes over the years, each, like this one, with only a handful of tracks.  Their style mixed melodic electric and acoustic guitar work with occasional audio snippets and pick-up percussion.  Caltrops' sound has one foot firmly planted in 70s rock, while also anticipating later work in a similar vein by artists like Andreas Martin and Jim O'Rourke.  The track "Sick Day," with its hummable Manzanera-isms, has always been a personal favorite.  Plus you have to love the mustard-colored cassette case.

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part VI

Dada Frolic - excerpts from A Can of Worms, 1984 (.zip archive, 35MB)

Dada Frolic made some wonderfully atmospheric contributions to the pantheon of home-recorded music.  On this tape in particular, the execution is as earnest as the "fi" is low, and most of the tracks have a hallucinatory nighttime feel to them.  Dada Frolic were Dan and Detta Andreana, who were active in the lower east side's 80s noise scene that included bands like Demo Moe and KiLPiG, presenting at venues like ABC No Rio on Rivington Street, in the pre-gentrification era when residents frequently showered glass bottles on the patrons hanging outside the club (ah, the memories!)  Dan was also a regular broadcaster on WFMU from about 1985 through the early 90s.  A highlight of the cassette is "This Is What We Do When," which makes fine use of a typewriter as a musical instrument, reminding us that one of the many charms of home recording was the "whatever's handy" approach to composition.  Dada Frolic also released one of the first Sound of Pig cassettes, 5 Way Music, as well as appearing on several cassette compilations.

Capers - 7 x Musik, 198? (.zip archive, 34.5MB)

The Austrian band Capers are most well known outside of their native Innsbruck for being an early project of Hans Platzgumer and Frank "Pümplandi" Puempel (aka H.P. Zinker; on the insert, Hans and Frank are the two in the middle, and were in their teens when this tape was made.)  Capers' limited discography (pretty much this cassette and a 7-inch e.p.) represents a great unsung chapter of 80s underground pop history, sounding similar to bands on New Zealand's Flying Nun label or perhaps British post-punk, though it's likely that Capers developed in a relative vacuum, unaware of such influences.  Their two most enduring songs, "Jordan" and "Sunshine", are featured on this tape and were both penned by the enigmatic Peter Tolloy (pictured far right on the insert; far left is bandmember Andreas Lettner.)  I was fortunate enough to meet Peter Tolloy when Uncle Wiggly played Innsbruck in 1991; we had more than a few drinks, and Tolloy got to hear pHoaming Edison's recording of "Jordan."  It's likely that any Tirolean over 35 who cares at all about the local music scene has heard these songs, as they are to Innsbruck what "Blank Generation" and "Chinese Rocks" are to New York.  Two of Platzgumer's compositions featured here, "I Don't Want to Work No More!" and "Away From It All" were also released on Hans' now-legendary first album, Tod Der CD!, recorded when he was only 17.  From what I could scare up in an Internet search, Peter Tolloy is still active in the Innsbruck music scene.  Hans Platzgumer, an artistic workaholic who's always juggling multiple projects, is internationally known these days as a composer of electronica and ambient music.  My best guess is that this cassette dates from 1985-86.  (Note: No song titles were provided with the original tape; I tagged files with the proper title where memory served.)

Cassette Culture Revisited, Part V

{full cassette albums on mp3; catch up with my previous posts in this series here.}

Christopher Smith - Irish Breakfast, 198? (2 .zip archives, download Side A and Side B, total size 149MB)

Christopher Smith's Irish Breakfast cassette is an archetypal piece of home-multitracked genius.  The tape is an amalgamation of sub-rock avant esoterica, sounding at times like Teiji Ito, Red Crayola, or the Lake album.  Wind instruments, scratchy violin, hand percussion, tape sounds and electronic noise augment vocals, guitars and drums.  Quiet instrumental meditations give way to blasts of noise and hippified lyrical mumbling.  Like the finest material from the lo-fi era, Smith takes the listener on a very personal journey of home-brewed idiosyncrasy, a Dada song and sound mélange that culminates in the two-part magnum opus, "The Cosmic Splendour and Cosmic Chaos of Tea," which alone could stand comfortably in the Nurse With Wound list had this tape only been more widely released.

The Whitefronts - Burl Slab, 1986 (download Side A and Side B, total size 167MB)

Long-time WFMU listeners may remember The Whitefronts from their sole album Roast Belief (1985), featuring the oft-played songs "6 Buses" and "Chadwarp."  The band was so pleased with WFMU's support that they contacted me personally during my brief time as the station's music director (1985-86), sending t-shirts and extra copies of the album.  The San Francisco-based group's brilliance lies somewhere near the intersection of two of their contemporaries, Camper Van Beethoven and Caroliner.  Their songs fused reggae and rock rhythms with a decidedly post-psychedelic bent, distilling the regional legacy through a casually mystic, post-post-punk freestyle jamitude.  The Burl Slab cassette is made up of two live radio sets (from enduring Bay-Area stations KKUP and KUSF), pushing the casual mania of Roast Belief one or two steps further.  Those interested in more info may glean something from this page, one of the very few mentions of the band online, which also links to some audio samples of the excellent post-Whitefronts project Lords of Howling.  (Note:  Each side of the tape has been ripped as one continuous mp3; song titles are given on the insert and in the "Comments" field of the mp3 tags.)