NGOMA soundsystem debut / Fusion Fest 09

Friday__06/26/2009__01:00-04:00 PM, Seebühne stage:



DJ Zhao-laptop // El Congo-trumpet // Robby Geerken-Percussion

hyper-modern global sonics meets ancestral lineage: psychedelia, abstract sound, ancient world-wide tradition and contemporary electronic bass for your freaky dancing needs.















a good first live set together even if we only ended up doing 2+ hours because of schedule push back... played lots of new material, rumba breaks, voodoo techno, broken afro-beat. Robby banged on the drums fierce and intricate, Congo was just flying with the trumpet and effects. too bad we couldn't record off the main board but video will be edited soon.

always great to work with fusion people, well organized, and full of good cheer. see you all in one year's time :D

Morrocco part 1

it's been almost an entire year since my trip to morrocco, and it is (past) time to share some of the music i bought in the dodgy little cramped and messy CD shops around Marrakesh and on route to the Sahara. what i found is that the bigger shops which are more organized is mostly all pop and rubbish, and that it is the ones with stacks of shit all over the floor, looking like it just opened that very afternoon, with employees who look like kids from the street, in which you can find real magic. i stood in a few of them for hours on end, trying to describe with gestures and a friend who could translate, the sounds i was after, and going through stacks and stacks of CDs. service was great, they happily played for me any CD i pointed to on the shop stereo. glad i spent the time and energy as i did find some real gems. here is the first, more to follow.



the music on here is even more amazing than this cover. as soon as the beat kicked in on the first track i was like "this goes in the yes pile". the guy on the left with the tie the shop attendent told me is a legendary player. you want a description? perhaps a more mystical and polished Omar Sulleyman...

sorry there are no english names on most of these CDs and all i could do was label the mp3s in a simple way so that i can remember which is which.

much thanks to a commentor the artists on this recording has been identified as CHEB MOKHTAR EL BERKANI, featuring Hamid Bouchnak (Rai pioneer), with Hassan El Oujdi on vocals for tracks 11 and 12.

coming up: Berber reggae, classic Gnawa and fusion, some BAD ASS Rai.

Seamus Ennis - the Wandering Minstrel

to follow up on those mystical bagpipes, i think this item i got from a tip in the comments, from pamrapo:



mediafire

party / mini-mix

promo mini mix spring 2009
capturing the NGOMA sound in 10 minutes, 18 tracks:

Dogme 09 (for djs)

with a goal of countering “certain tendencies” in the club today.

just like with Dogma 95 this is surely not for most, but should not be viewed as any kind of diss to people who choose not to adopt these vows, nor is it any kind of silly value judgement concerning "underground" being superior to top 40. and of course like the films Dogme directors make: some will strictly adhere, some will partially, and some completely outside the parameter - i am not suggesting anyone SHOULD adopt these rules, but just providing a guideline opposed to laziness and complacency. the desired result is of course maximizing fun and party and intrigue and inspiration...

goes without saying some of it has plenty of room for subjective interpretation.

THE VOWS OF CHASTITY

1. no selection which has been used by another dj *that you know of* in live or studio mixing.

2. no selection which you *think* the majority of the audience knows well in live or studio mixing.

3. no dj tools except as transition between non-tool tracks, (hallo techno djs).

4. avoid arbitrary fucking with the EQ, track volumes, cross fader, etc., for pure effect if it doesn't enhance the material. (same goes for chaos pads, etc.)

5. use repetition and monotony as means toward ends, and not out of default laziness.

6. when possible, make best use of the innate human tendency to recognize/imagine patterns, instead of beating people's heads with a giant kick drum ALL of the time.

7. if Electro-Rock Stadium-Techno Big-Room-Nu-Rave Anthems are an integral part of your project, fine, but do not play it all night. in fact,

8. do not play ANY ONE THING all night. selection should not be restricted to genre definitions, but guided by what feels right, and what works the best together to build the feeling you want to create in the over-all composition.

9. all mashups must sound BETTER than, or at least become more meaningful than the original songs.

10. no unnecessary flashy edits when making remixes if the original material does not require or is enhanced by it.

11. no excessive use of arpeggios as lazy way to create excitement-by-numbers.

12. there must be a chunk of at least 9 seconds of silence somewhere in the middle of a live experience.

13. in production, tracks must sound good at fairly low levels of sound engineering, and all subsequent microedits and polish must only improve on what is already there.

leave comment if you have anything to add.

more SA hotness

via dissensus:

history of dance minimalism

interesting and quality mix and compilation by Henrik Schwarz (and friend), a producer bringing African forms and ideas to minimal techno, with often highly successful results (check his sublime remix at the end of NGOMA3, which i completely thought was South African before looking it up), and a dj of unusual scope and ambition. the clever idea of the Grandfather Paradox has not much to do with the content (a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his own grandfather couldn't logically do so, because without the grandfather there is no time traveler), but this mix draws lines between disparate nodes and forms unlikely connections: from academic avant garde to modern jazz, from post punk to maverick outsider music, and is a pleasure through out.

Henrik Schwarz/Âme/Dixon: The Grandfather Paradox

CD1: Mixed

01. Steve Reich & Pat Metheny - Electric Counterpoint – Fast (Movement 3)
02. Etienne Jaumet - Repeat After Me (Âme Mix)
03. Kenneth Bager - Fragment Eleven… The Day After Yesturday Pt.1
04. Liquid Liquid - Lock Groove (Out)
05. Cymande - For Baby Oh
06. Patrick Moraz - Metamorphoses 1st Movement (Live)
07. To Rococo Rot - Testfeld
08. Matematics - Blue Water
09. I:CUBE - Acid Tablet
10. Ø - Atomit
11. Conrad Schnitzler - Electrocon 11
12. Green Pickles feat. Billy Lo & M. Pittman - Feedback
13. La Funk Mob - Motor Bass Gets Phunked Up (Richie Hawtin’s Electrophunk Mix)
14. John Carpenter - The President Is Gone
15. Yusef Lateef - The Three Faces Of Bala
16. Robert Hood - Minus
17. Raymond Scott - Bass-Line Generator
18. Moondog - Invocation

CD2: Un-Mixed

01. Conrad Schnitzler - Elektrocon 11
02. Steve Reich & Pat Metheny - Electric Counterpoint - Fast (Movement 3)
03. Liquid Liquid - Lock Groove (Out)
04. To Rococo Rot - Testfeld
05. Patrick Moraz - Metamorphoses 1st Movement (Live)
06. Young Marble Giants - N.i.t.a
07. Kenneth Bager - Fragment Eleven… The Day After Yesturday Pt.1
08. Arthur Russell - Make 1,2
09. John Carpenter - The President Is Gone
10. Robert Hood - Minus
11. Raymond Scott - Bass-Line Generator
12. Pyrolator - November Mühlheim
13. Cymande - For Baby Oh
14. Can- Sunday Jam

both CDS here.

The Living Treasures of Bali

very happy to present these videos. (finder's credit goes to Janas) i have arranged them in a sequence which makes sense as a complete experience; for the newcomer whose curiosity is cursory, the essential ones to see are 01 and 07.

included below are good quicktime and better MPEG2 links (for more options including streaming go to the archive), but this is for sure no substitute for seeing and hearing in the flesh: if you live in a big city, chances are there is an ensemble associated with music department of a university or Indonesian cultural center, doing shows a few times a year...

Performances by eminent elder Balinese performing artists with Gamelan Semara Ratih
"Banyu Pinaruh dan Bulan Purnama"
26 December 2004 - Ubud, Bali

sit your friends down, shut them up, lower the lights, turn up the volume and give the EQ some extra bass. (comments below are from my subjective point of view, without knowing the narratives of the pieces or their historical significance.)


01 Kembang_Kuning
instrumental piece in which the power and subtlety within interplay of complex elements of the full orchestra is demonstrated. quicktime or MPEG2


02 Baris
a somewhat angular dance with a sense of urgency and danger, perhaps a good introduction to the many dancers which follow. quicktime or MPEG2


03 Kebyar Duduk
an ornamental and lush performance with sweeping arcs and gentle inviting gestures. quicktime or MPEG2


04 Teruna Jaya
a sensuous and playful dance. quicktime or MPEG2


05 Jauk_Manis
my fist time seeing one of these guys my heart almost stopped... a demon animal spirit of some kind, he is at once spooky and funny. quicktime or MPEG2


06 Bapang Gede
a lovely number from this woman who looks to be at least 80... limbs not so nimble anymore but the moves are still there, and most importantly the spirit... she must be the coolest grandmother in the world. quicktime or MPEG2


07 Palawakya
this is the centerpiece for me. not only are her fantastic moves out of this world, her characterization rich with personality, she also sings and sits down to play gongs. quicktime or MPEG2


08 Oleg Tambulilingan
a dance for pair of female and male performers. some kind of love story is my guess. quicktime or MPEG2


09 Candra Metu
a subtle and whimsical dance. quicktime or MPEG2

help me with Kite

i lost the file/files to Kite, the tech house and minimal dub techno mix i put up a long time ago. has anyone got it? can please upload for me? mucho grassy ass in advance!

Jazz For Beginners

a few recommendations for those who want to explore Jazz, as next steps after the obviously great records like Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme. i kind of wish someone had given me a similar list when i was diving into the daunting musical body... would have saved a lot of time but i suppose the long and arduous process of discovery was fun as well.

selected for enjoyablility as well as importance, from the broad "modern" period extending from 60 - 2000. excluded are both earlier classic styles such as Dixieland or Big Band, also leaving out later day completely improvised/free recordings.

Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El Daoud
Art Ensemble Of Chicago - A Jackson in Your House, Message to Our Folks, People in Sorrow
Bill Evans - But Beautiful (feat - Stan Getz)
Borah Bergman Trio - Luminescence
Carlo Actis Dato & Baldo Martinez - Folklore Imaginario A
Ceci Taylor Unit - Spring of 2 Blue-J's
Charles Mingus - mingus_ah_um
Dewey Redman - The Ear Of the Behearer
Duke Ellington - The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, The Far East Suite
Don Cherry - Mu, Organic Music Society
Eric Dolphy - Conversations
Freddie Hubbard - The Body And The Soul
Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles
ike quebec - soul samba
Jimmy Giuffre 3 - Fusion / Thesis, River Chant
John Zorn - elegy
John Coltraine - 1st Meditations, Meditations
Kahil El'zabar Ritual Trio - Africa n' da Blues
Lee Konitz - Subconscious-Lee
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
Mal Waldron w. Clifford Jordan - What it is, Soul Eyes
Masada - Live in Sevilla
Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
Misha Mengelberg Trio - No Idea
Ornette Coleman - Change of the Century
Paul Bley - In The Envenings Out There
Prince Lasha - The Cry!
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Rip, Rig and Panic / Now Please Don't You Cry
Roswell Rudd - Regeneration
Steve Lacy - The Holy La
Sun Ra and his Arkestra - Languidity
Thelonious Monk - Monk's Dream
Warne Marsh - Jazz of Two Cities
Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil
Yusef Lateef - Eastern Sounds
VA: New Thing! Deep Jazz from the USA 1970-1980

was very difficult to choose 1 from the discographz of many of these artists... with Steve Lacy for instance, im sure everyone here knows whose tune "The Wire" the magazine was named after, i wanted to list all 100+ albums. so these are just suggested starting points.

additions or suggested changes welcome.

big thanks to Anonymous! ive not so much time this week or possibly next as well to fill out the links... but will get to it as soon as i can.

and thanks for the suggestions, the ones im not including are the ones i dont know... and while im sure they are great i only want to put up things i know i can stand behind. but will be editing the list in the next days...

Toumani Diabaté - The Mandé Variations

in case some out there are not aware of this man or his sound... this is partially improvised Malian music made on the 21 string Kora; its formal sophistication and refinement comparable to the high classical styles of Indonesia, of Europe or Persia, yet with a particular fluidity and sensuality unique, to me at least, to African sensibilities. the pieces are a mixture of traditional melodies and original compositions through which touches of jazz and other modern sensibilities are hinted at, this is an essential recording.

Minimalist Eastern Rock

rock critics and jounalists need to listen to this all the way through, which will hopefully discourage them from applying cliches like "relentless" or "immersive" to luke-warm wank.

from Musicianguide.com:

"Many of Young's performances in the 1990s have been with the Forever Bad Blues Band, which, as of 1993, consisted of Jon Catler on guitar, Brad Catler on bass, and Jonathan Kane on drums. Describing this band in Down Beat, Young said, "It's a lot like a rock band, but we play one song for two hours." In an interview with Martin Johnson in Pulse!, he noted that working with the band helped him regain his enthusiasm for performing, which he had come to miss. Young told Johnson, "The Forever Bad Blues Band came out of the fact that in my bigger works ... I had set up the situation that was very difficult for sponsors to produce, whereas this band can go in, we can do the sound check at 3:00 and do the concert and pack up and go on to the next situation."

"The playing seemed to create an auditory space with its own dimension and depth, within which the music took place," reported New York Times contributor Edward Rothstein about a performance of Young and the Forever Bad Blues Band at the Kitchen. 'As in Mr. Young's other works, the listener was always discovering something about the sound, the way it shimmered around the edges or seemed to change color.' Rothstein concluded, 'The music emerged as an intriguing combination of blues, 1960's happening, Eastern esthetic, rock and Minimalism.'

Young has performed on a regular basis in New York City in recent years, often adding a touch of performance art to his concerts. A typical example was his appearance at Merkin Concert Hall in 1993, when he placed his musicians around the hall as if beckoning members of the audience to be a part of the performance. Many of his concerts have featured lighting designed by Marian Zazeela, his wife and collaborator, that imbues the stage with a New Age aura.

Young recorded Just Stompin': Live at the Kitchen with his band in 1993. Clearly influenced by the blues of John Lee Hooker and John Coltrane, the album also somewhat resembled the work of the Velvet Underground and modern rock experimentalists Sonic Youth. David Fricke gave the album four stars in his review in Rolling Stone. 'Two hours, one song (never mind 'song,' one chord progression), no break--and zero boredom,' noted Fricke. In his review of Just Stompin' in the Detroit Metro Times, Jurek said, 'The band plays dynamically, from soft to hard and back, gradually building in both intensity and tension, laying back just enough--without letting the air out--to allow the musicians (and listeners) to breathe and start again, until the music reaches an unbearable pitch [that] shatters all divisions between blues, Indian classical music, punk, heavy metal, grunge, modal jazz and noise, because it's all of them and none of them at once.'"

my copy has been destroyed and lost a long time ago, but just last week found a 192k version -- and here reupped for your temple of eternal beer and BBQ.

NGOMA 3

the original plan was for 3 to be dub grime apocalypse, and 4 an uplifting and soulful holiday in the tropics. but due to both the popularity of 2, and the challenge from dj Doom, I've decided to continue with the afro-centric 4/4 boom for this volume.

while staying in the same territory as 2, the journey is not the same, and many things make this one unique: the psychedelic motorik genius of Dj Clock's "Durban Guitar"; the monolithic, earth shaking visions of Black Coffee; DJ Sdoko's ominous Kraftwerkian phuture; Manya's soul stirring take on traditonal Angolan melodies; a surprisingly wicked banger from the Dutch DJ Bigga (UK is not the only place currently Afro minded), and ending with Sami vocal style from Mari Boine, reinterpreting the sound of indigenous Norway*. most of the selection are not well known or commonly used tracks in the "scene", with only one exception: just could not stay away from the Yellowtail (but check how it is used before you complain).

concerning the anti-apartheid and war samples used through out the mix: the struggle for freedom from colonialism is the context which gave rise to contemporary South African music: Kwaito was born amidst antagonism and bloodshed, and has led to the current house music scene. thus songs such as "100 Zulu Warriors" and the radio broadcast at the end should not be taken as an incitement of racial conflict (especially in light of last year's wave of horrible xenophobia) but as a reminder of the political realities of the Apartheid era from which this music comes.

*you might think it strange to include a traditional song from northern Europe on an Afrocentric project, but 1. thematically it fits the recording as the vocalist has for decades fought for equal rights of her people, who have long been the subject of discrimination, like South Africans, in their homeland; and 2. Henrich Schwartz who made the remix is a producer certainly with a lot of Africa on his mind.

as you enjoy this i will be back onto the original course: stay tuned for dub terrorism and caribbean love.

DIRECT LISTEN AND SINGLE TRACK DOWNLOAD:

got darker

SEPARATE TRACKS DOWNLOAD:

rapidshare or megaupload

More Gripes

Against Drawing Lines

this blog, indeed my entire musical project, is about the blurring of, and hopefully completely doing away with, all lines which separate us and our sensibilities.

all lines are arbitrary and all separation is illusion. they are fictions invented to keep us apart, and remain our greatest collective enemy. i will provide an argument for this from a biological perspective at a later date, on the same river, but for now:

• all you modern classical people stop dismissing techno as stupid machine nonsense for kids on drugs. this is pure ignorance.

• all you beat heads take some time to explore the "werid" stuff on this blog.

• experimental sound freaks stop being afraid of hiphop and grime: testosterone is as valid as estrogen, that's why we have both.

Against Prejudice

also, i would like to ask the people who say they love music made on "real instruments", by "real musicians":

have you ever heard an idiot say, perhaps with drool dripping from his chin, that Free Jazz or improvised music is easy, and that anyone can do it?

well, that's exactly what you sound like when you say the same thing about what DJ's do.

of course there are bullshit djs (as there are bullshit jazz musicians); and some of them, for whatever reasons, make it big. but a real DJ (yes, like me) plays the roles of Historian, Archivist, Ethnologist, Curator, Choreographer, AS WELL AS Entertainer and Performer.

so you think it's "easy" to "play records"? how about next time there are 500 people gathered in a big room, who all paid money to dance non-stop for the next 8 hours, i give YOU 2 turntables and see what happens. i will laugh my ass off when the bottles start flying and your legs turn to jelly after 15 minutes.

and people like this always have a big chip on their shoulder about how much money some DJ's make -- presumably in comparison to how little they make as a "real musician" (boo fucking hoo) -- "and all they're doing is playing other people's music!!!". well let me ask you another question: do you think gallery or museum curators should get paid well? after all, they're only hanging other people's art on a wall, aren't they?!?

i can not believe how much of this condescending, bigoted and ignorant bullshit i have heard over the years, being a dj who happens to have serious respect for, and have met lots of people from, other musical disciplines. and most people who say things like this do not even go to dance clubs -- so please do us all a favor: stop spraying your stupid opinions about subjects of which you know nothing.

rant over.

2 for solo instruments

it looks positively arctic outside my window right now, and this Feldman for piano is just about perfect for the occasion. out of the 4 recordings of this piece that i know, with pianists Stephane Ginsburgh, John Tilbury (we had here before), Hildegard Kleeb, and Markus Hinterhauser, i chose the last because it is perhaps the most bleak, and most fitting for my surrounding frozen white landscape.

For Bunita Marcus

and this is an all time favorite. don't know what else to say, it is simply stunning.


Complete Clarinette

a little gripe

with modern classical programming for concerts and festivals:

there is so much music from the 20th century which is BOTH rigorous, challenging, AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME beautiful, seductive, sensuous, and (here's that word again) accessible ---- and sometimes, or often, i find the most impenetrable, difficult, and... almost farcical pieces performed.

i mean i kind of understand and even admire the impulse: a big acetic fuck you to "entertainment", to "bourgeois sensibilities", to consumerism... but at the same time, they are playing right into the stereotypical cliches the general population have about this music.

case in point: yesterday saw some Salvatore Sciarrino among others performed (don't remember whose piece the following describes) -- a group of 6-8 performers playing brief notes between long uncomfortable pauses, exchanging seats/instruments, all running to the piano to pound on it, etc., none of which being the least "musical", and just coming off like the sort of buffoonery people complain to arts foundations about -- and they wonder why funding often gets cut for "new music".

but the evening was saved by a drop dead gorgeous Stockhousen piece, which gently swelled and ebbed along elegant arcs... (nothing to do with the point but interesting: the 4 performers, per instruction of the score, had not slept or eaten much in 4 days)

well OK considering the theme of yesterdays concerts was "Audio Poverty" so maybe they consciously chose to showcase stringent works which do not "give", and embody an idea of "poverty" of experience... but the same holds true of many other concerts i've attended...

i think the reason stingy and difficult music is prized and elevated to the status of genius, and sensuous and generous music is often ignored, is because the institutions of academic music are run by joyless old male control freak kurmudgens.

sweet cumbia mix

one of the best cumbia mixes i have encountered, of the modern, urban persuasion. very clean, very smooth, very well put together and Phat, booming sound, comging from Poland.

1. Navidad - Pedro Laza Y Su Paleyeros
2. Bombon Asesino - El Hijo De La Cumbia
3. La Mara Tomaza - El Hijo De la Cumbia
4. Lo Que Traje De Colombia - Fiesta Mexicana (from dj Vampiros-La Sonidera Colombiana mix)
5. Cumbia De Los Patos - Grupo Ginsu
6. Guarija - El Remolon
7. Petrona Martinez - King Coya remix feat. PG13 and AlexK
8. Zorzal - Chancha Via Circuito
9. Limb by Limb (Loder Bootleg) - Cutty Ranks
10. Bolivia - El Remolon
11. Llorar - Socios Del Ritmo
12. Revivante (feat. Fauna) - El Remolon
13. Cumbia Del Rio - Celso Pina
14. El Ventilador (Daledurado Remix) - Fauna
15. Bamburo (Fulani) - Mosica de Cameron
16. Dancehall - Chancha Via Circuito
17. Soy El Control - El Hijo De La Cumbia
18. Navidad Negra - Leonor Gonzalez Mina
19. Cumbion Mountaina (from dj Vampiros - La Sonidera Colombiana mix)
20. Cumbia Regional - El Hijo De La Cumbia
21. Sed Del Mal - Marcel Fabian
22. Ritmo De Tambo - Sonora Dinamita

direct listen here, and download here.

Rod Poole - December 96

everyone needs meditative introspection in their lives, and here is another out of print official release by Rod, whose music long time readers of this blog will be familiar with: one of the most original and brilliant guitarists of our time. his unrivaled and unique microtonal playing always has a haunting, otherworldly beauty; but the winter really comes through on this one: more stark, angular, and intense than the one i previously posted..

December 96

The Psychedelic Sound of West Africa VOl. 1 and "VOL. 2"

this post can be enjoyed by children, the hipster generation, and older, wiser folks alike, of what ever musical background or persuasion: it is simply superb on every level. a sure hit at small gatherings, good for sitting by the fireplace as well as getting the boogie on: is it classic rock? is it "Saucer" period pink floyd? is it acid? is it latin? is it boogaloo? is it rumba? is it afro drumming? it's all of the above and just finger licking good every damn time. (don't care if it's commercially available)

included is also the vinyl only track, but i omitted the extended version of track 3 because the vinyl rip does not sound good.

this "VOL.2" i'm skeptical about as there are no references to it anywhere. probabally an unofficial compilation someone put together. none the less it contains some great music like the first one (but also includes some contemporary stuff like Magic System - a bit strange)

Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

Ocora: Africa part 2

not much time for words but i hope the following quality vinyl rip of these out of print and super rare Ocora records themselves is enough. big thanks to Op and Goldfinger.

back cover
Bruitset Ambiances d Afrique One

back cover.
Bruitset Ambiances d Afrique Two


ocora Africa Anthologie de la Musique du Niger

DJ Doom - Adelaide Deep

a challenger arises. DJ Doom from Adelaide, Australia criticized my selection on NGOMA2 for being too obvious and lazy, and in response, has made a short Afro and Africanized house mix, showing us his approach to this sound.

and it is indeed lush -- a different feel from NGOMA2 entirely, using much lesser known tracks.

"Was gonna end it on 'Seasons' but I didn't wanna get accused of anthem bashing, I actually left the room to put the kettle on but changed my mind at the last minute as I wanted to end on a positive tip, cos Zhao - its all love out here

100% live - No Headphones, 100% unplanned / unrehearsed / unedited. Enjoy!"



That Beep (Radioclit Remix) - Architecture In Helsinki
Fashion (Drum Remix) - Guzluv
Mbeki - Andy X
Alone In Africa Pt. One (Arnaud D Deep Mix) - Niko De Luka
Katumbo (Beats Mix) - Abicah Soul
Greenlight - Footsteps
So Good Today (Yoruba Soul Remix) - Ben Westbeech
Passages - Franck Roger
Mirror Dance (Yoruba Soul Mix) - Afefe Iku Ft. Oveous Maximus
Labyrinthe - DJ Gregory
Compromise - N.B. Funky
Seasons - Lil Silva
I Will Hold On (Ndiza Kulinda) - DJ Choc Ft. Mercy Pakela

SINGLE MP3 here.

bigup Doom for this lovely mix, and thanks for keeping me on my toes. it's true, music is not competitive sports; but none the less, the only thing left for me to do now is rise to the occasion, and deliver a response to the response... :D

STAY TUNED.

NGOMA 2

it is said that the drum itself was invented in Africa. and as far as i'm concerned, all modern pop and especially dance music have deep roots in the musical traditions of that continent. i have made the admittedly sensationalist proclamation "techno comes from Africa", and here is an extremely simplified version of my concept of this lineage: slave songs - blues - gospel - jazz - funk - disco - house - techno ---- the circle is complete. some may have problems with this generalization (and in some ways i do too), but all sidelines, exceptions, and details aside, essentially it makes sense to me. after all, the 4 on the floor hypnotic groove can be found in the myriad styles of African music from every era, be it high-life, rumba, or the thousands upon thousands of much older regional traditions.

most people were, and still are, confused, skeptical, or straight up dismissive when i talk about this, but history was made in 2008 with Warp Records' release of DJ Mujava's Township Funk in Europe, which i believe is only the beginning of Europeans coming to grips with the awesome power of African Techno.

i have been playing Euro-centric Minimal, Hard Techno, Tech House, Breaks, Electro, etc., for years, but in recent years have increasingly sensed a solipsism, stagnation, and bankrupsy. in 2009 i feel the style loosely termed "UK Funky" is leading the way out of the rut; and it is no coincidence that the most exciting thing happening in European dance music is directly derivative of African and Afro-Caribbean rhythmic structures.

enough talk. switch on the speakers, lower the lights, and put on those dancing shoes.

DIRECT LISTEN AND SINGLE FILE DOWNLOAD (192k)

SEPARATE TRACKS DOWNLOAD (320k):

rapidshare or megaupload or

mediafire A and mediafire B

a few things

1. thanks to Tom, Billy, and the one they call Graspy for all the brilliant contributions, but lately they have been too busy to post much so i'm going to go solo for the foreseeable future. of course they are welcome back any time; and if anyone else is interested in getting on board, just let me know.

2. new myspace for music: look, listen, add, and show me some love!

3. found this wicked psychedelic almost feels like Kraut-rock African house track by DJ CLOCK called "Durban Guitar", on DJ CNDO's first compilation. someone said "Brinkmann-esque"... but sooner or later people will realize that Brinkmann is actually "African-esque".

UK Garage / 2-step trade

not sure how many around here are into this stuff, but i've just uploaded 1.6 Gigs of the cream of my UKG/2step collection. i went through and deleted the low bit-rate files and the too cheesy bubble-gum tunes and the weak ones. what remains are the sick bass work-outs, dark anthems, tricky little jams and poppy vocal tunes with the fidgety funk.

links are fresh and ready to go: 16 100MB archives -- if anyone has nice collections and wants to trade leave a comment with what you have. In addition to UKG/2-step, I'm also looking for old skool Grime from around 2003, African Deep House, African Techno, African Hiphop, Kwaito, Funk Carioca, Rai, etc. amazing hard to find dance music. also, your part does not need to match mine in terms of quantity -- only quality.

here is what i have:

image 1 image 2 image 3 image 4 image 5

thanks to those who have sent me emails, but surely there are more out there who want to trade?

an isolated incident

one of, if not the best from that era of big label "chill out" compilations (actually more like "stress out" haha - in a good way). many essential pieces but a few on here are all time favorites and not available anywhere else -- that O'rang vocal less version of "Little Sister" for example... to this day defying categorization of any sort.

i remember being 19 and stealing this CD from Virgin megastore, eager to discover new sound worlds, not knowing many names on the sleeve (and not having enough funds). i was very much attracted to the packaging and concept... here was something out of the ordinary, a dark, cavernous, hallucinogenic visual and aural object, promising introspective realms of sensation. funny that it was sitting on the shelves with C&C Music Factory and REM -- in hindsight it was one of those few great isolated (no pun intended) incidences where something truly subversive and rewarding was able to be smuggled through the cracks of the machinery of commerical distribution, and find its way into the hands (and CD player) of a starving young mind. (it was probably the least successful in terms of sales in the ambient series; i seem to remember reading that it was a financial disaster)

bringing it home, at first it was impenetrable (my friends had zero patience for it), but as i listened more, the power of these tracks revealed itself, and lead the way to many exhilarating experiences in music later. in this sense it was one of the few occasions packaging worked, and more importantly delivered.



CD 1

1. KK Null & Jim Plotkin: "Lost (Held Under)"
2. Jim O'Rourke: "Flat Without A Back"
3. Ice: "The Dredger"
4. Raoul Björkenheim: "Strangers"
5. Zoviet France: "Daisy Gun"
6. Labradford: "Air Lubricated Free Axis Trainer"
7. Techno Animal: "Self Strangulation"
8. Paul Schütze: "Hallucinations (In Memory Of Reinaldo Arenas)"
9. Scorn: "Silver Rain Fell (Deep Water Mix)"
10. Disco Inferno: "Lost In Fog"
11. Total: "Six"
12. Nijiumu: "Once Again I Cast Myself Into The Flames Of Atonement"

CD 2

1. Aphex Twin: "Aphex Airlines"
2. AMM: "Vandoevre"
3. Seefeel: "Lief"
4. .O.rang: "Little Sister"
5. E.A.R.: "Hydroponic"
6. Sufi: "Desert Flower"
7. David Toop & Max Eastley: "Burial Rites (Phosphorescent Mix)"
8. Main: "Crater Scar (Adrenochrome)"
9. Final: "Hide"
10. Lull: "Thoughts"
11. Thomas Köner: "Kanon (Part One: Brohuk)"

found at friend sound. props.

SONG OF THE DAY/DECADE

turn up your speakers and click here. NOW.

i posted this song on some message boards and most people just do not get it... i too did not experience apartheid (first hand, from the sufferer's side), but the joy of liberation, all those cruel years coming to an end, expressed in this song... like first rays of the sun after winter... just so fucking beautiful.

in Morocco last month one night at this western style nightclub there was an african singer entertaining european tourists with Sade and Michael Jackson... at around 1 AM i requested this song -- the spark in her eyes and smile on her face at the mention of it was just amazing. so she switched the music off, and everyone quieted down as she closed her eyes and did it acappella... and gave it 110% -- her voice just soared and tears did fill my eyes. this photo is from right after:



to me the power and spirit of this song is perfect for this occasion, 20 some years after its recording. and i feel so sorry for all the dead-inside cynical people that can not feel the ecstatic glory of this monument to love, life, and freedom...

Ocora: Africa part 1

fact that i posted the first Ocora focus on Africa on THE HISTORIC DAY is pure coincidence. i swear it.



Musiques du Cameroon - Bakweri Bamileke Bamoun Beti

thanks to Op for ripping this very rare vinyl from the original Ocora catalog (never reissued on CD)

Marimba and non-melodic percussion pieces reveal intricate collideascopic latice works; chants and song whose purposes are lost to me (love? work? celebration? mourning?) tell their elegant (and to me, mysterious) tales. some selections are one or the other, some are voice with drumming combined; and flutes show up later on.

the clearly advanced yet intuitive mathematics demonstrated in some of this music is truly mind boggling. if any modern persons still (and I'm sure do) look down on this music, dismiss it as "primitive", and feel superior in relation to it, well this can only be demonstrative of his own ignorance, stupidity, and under-developed sense of beauty.

above is just my passing impression, the complete scans of the sleeves with detailed notes are included.

Mediafire: Part A, Part B
Rapidshare: Part A, Part B



Burundi - Musique Traditionelles

a whispered low-register male voice opens this collection accompanied by the dull and rich sounds of a plucked string instrument: in my imagination it is the dude on the cover, singing ghost stories to little ones or recounting the treacherous glories and loss of some past war. many vocal pieces follow, with or without back-up, varying greatly in tone, character, and style. 2 pieces whose title begins with "Akazehe" for young women stand out: so pretty and fragile. but many other highlights through out: gorgeous solo flute, epic chants with a large ensemble, the voice from track 1 comes back, perhaps even more sinister. and last but certainly not least: a child's voice beautifully weaving in and out of the ringing plings and plongs of some ancient guitar (surely with a great hollow body).

(a few of these i think will show up in FUSION PART 2 - underpinned by digital bass wobble :)

Mediafire: Part A, Part B
Rapidshare: Part A, Part B

Not Dead .....Yet

(NOTE: this is pretty difficult and intense stuff -- for serious audio adventurers. - zhao)

Remko Scha is a professor of computational linguistics at the faculty of humanities and Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam. He is also an internationally renowned composer and performer of algorithmic art.
He has also made recordings of music which has been generated by motor-driven machines. One example of this type of music is his 1982 album of electric guitar music,"Machine Guitars", on which all guitars are played by saber saws without human intervention, except for one in which the guitar is played by a rotating wire brush, again with no human intervention.

Machine Guitars. 33 rpm LP. Eindhoven: Kremlin Products, KR006. 1982. (Cover art work by The Machines.)

Tracklisting:
A1 Shake
A2 Throb
A3 Thrash
A4 Switch
B1 Stroke
B2 Sweep
B3 Slam
B4 Brush



m


Asian Flashback: Underground Music From Asia
13 tracks from Asian underground bands in Japan, Korea and China

Track Listing:

1. Li Jianhong, Narita Munehiro, Hano Shoji-Tokyo Session
2. Mustangs-Saliva
3. Kiyasu Orchestra-Village
4. Mafeisan-C
5. 10: U-A-U
6. Xiao He-Bird and Water
7. D!O!D!O!D!-EisaO TGB
8. Sato Yukie-Solo Improvisation
9. Yoshiteru Koga Jizo-MugaMuga
10. Kim Young Jin-Rock Sanjo Medley
11. Li Daiguo-Ashineden
12. Amature Amplifier-Plurius
13. Soonie-Imagine



m

enjoy..............

FUSION ONE

erasing lines, fusing edges, reconnecting all mutations, permutations, lost strains, divided strands, and myriad variations of the deeper-than-we-remember roots from which we all sprung. limits are arbitrary, borders are lies, separation is illusion.

this is a mash-up album fusing global traditional music and modern bass/beats.

made with material originally prepared for Fusion Festival 2008.

if you've ever wondered what Digital Gamelan is like, or what Capetown gospel singers do after moving to London Ghettos, or how Robots would play Ethiopian Jazz...

(the version which appeared on Bloggariddims was a preview of sorts. this final, finished version is more polished, includes twice as many tracks, with non-mash-up tracks from first version taken out.)



01 Intro
02 Deadbeat - Lost Luggage >< Indonesia traditional - Spring Water
03 itoa - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Dub Band D1 >< Indonesia traditional - Morning Sun
04 Balwinder Safri - Karve Da Din >< 2562 - Basin Dub
05 Iran Traditional - Zeybek >< Dj Hatcha - Chillz
06 The Mahotella Queens - Muntu Wesilisa >< Wiley - Bang Bang Instrumental
07 Turkia Traditional - Kervan >< L-Wiz - Fruit Shop
08 Indonesia Traditional - Sanda Kandung >< Grime instrumental
09 Benga - Half Ounce >< Burundi Traditional bernadette ii
10 Indonesia Traditional - Ngantosan // Mark One - Slang
11 Danny Weed - Dirty Den >< Huseyin Ali Riza Albayrak - Ey Zahid
12 African Headcharge - Belinda >< Blir - 19_4_04
13 Kode 9 - Magnetic City >< Akhenation - 361 Degrees
14 Pinch - Qawwali >< Toshinori Kondo - Fukotsu
15 Indonesia Traditional >< L-Wiz - Fruit Shop
16 The Mahotella Queens - Ndodana Yolahleko >< Skream - Skunkstep
17 Circle - Memo >< Even Order ???
18 Hiripsime - ces femmes qui me ressemblent >< Cyrus - Random Trio - Bounty
19 Hijak - Nightmares >< ø - Toisaalia
20 Ana Whabibi - Mahmoud Fadi (interlude)
21 The Mahotella Queens - Amezemula >< Iron Soul - Slo Moshun
22 African Headcharge - Run Come Saw >< DQ1 - Wear The Crown
23 Indonesia Traditional - Padang Magek >< Omen - Rebellion
24 Mulatu Astatge - Kulunmanqueleshi >< Dj Hatcha - Just a Rift
25 Loka - Fire Shepherds >< L-Wiz - Fruit Shop
26 Loka - Fire Shepherds >< Dubwoofa - Devoliz >< Kion Zindagi
27 DJ Wonder - What >< La Chat Playa - Gangsta Forever
28 Rove >< 2046 Soundtrack >< Vex'd - Destruction
29 L-Wiz - Sub >< Armenia Traditional - Boulbouli Hid (Le Chant du Rossignol)
30 Shackleton - Blood On My Hands >< Dashti - Abdoinaghi Afsharnia >< Turkia Traditional - Cagirayim Seni


DIRECT LISTEN AND SINGLE FILE DOWNLOAD

GOTDARKER

SEPARATE TRACKS DOWNLOAD

http://rapidshare.com/files/180287063/dj_Zhao_Fusion_1.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JFWRNO45

tsuki

morocco was amazing and crazy and hallucinatory. but it will take some time for me to sort through the photos and stories and piles of amazing music i brought back. for now i realize we haven't had any contemporary electronic music in a while and here is an almost forgotten gem:

Thanks to coonass who originally uploaded this obscure and lovely little self released CDR by portugese person/outfit TSUKI, called "i wish that mountain could have eye".

it comprises of gentle but impressionable, haunting yet not typically "dark", minimalist but playful sound paintings using really nice and unique loops and textures and amazing resonating tones, some of which come from a saxophone.

thoroughly enjoyed first 2 back-to-back listens over the weekend and have become an instant favorite that i will return to time and again.

RAPIDSHARE or MEDIAFIRE

in between places quickie

blogging in madrid right now enroute to morokko during a 5 hour lay-over but these guys just gave me unlimited online access woooooohoooooo! :D anyone have any suggestions on where to go in Marekesh or Tangier and where to shop for THE RAI?????

i think this unstoppable fire is actually Algerian, but with more than a touch of morokko to my ears... am i making non-sense?

this massive, massive tune is exactly the sort of thing that gets me hype these days when so much leaves me drowsy: minimal, streamlined, modern, yet completely traditional, with those wikkid tones, that relentlessness... untainted by cheesy mainstream western club dance pop hiphop whatever (like so much modern rai - not that there´s anything wrong with that, but it ain´t the same kinda heat as this.)

anyone have any recommendations along these lines please speak up.

also, run don´t walk to the 1 or 2 record shops left standing in your town (or amazon or boomkat or whereever) and pick up Dusk and Blackdown´s Margins Music NOW.

going to leave the proper wax and wane for others more inclined, but if you enjoyed my Fusion mix... this is some serious (sorry for using this phrase) next level shit right here. post post-modern, post post-colonial cultural politics... forget all that, just beautiful music which transcends borders.

ok that´s all for now. have to go buy a 5 euro little bottle of water before i pass out... booyaka booyaka!

autumn harp

have been really enjoying these classical harp albums of late. maybe not as exciting or interesting as other posts before but so lovely for fall mornings... if people are feeling it there are several more along these lines.

PART A PART B

taking sides

this is not a political blog, and i realize that the Dems and Repubs are almost the same thing and that the soap opera of poli-tainment is just another distraction to keep people asleep at the wheel of life. i also recognize that voting itself is not much more than an exercise in futility and to keep believing the illusion of freedom and lie of Amerikkkan "democracy" is for the birds...

but with that said.

IF YOU ARE VOTING FOR THE RACIST ASSHOLE DIMWIT JOHN MCCAIN AND HIS IGNORANT FUNDAMENTALIST STUPID BITCH OF A RUNNING MATE:

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME ON THIS BLOG. GET THE FUCK OUT, DO NOT COME BACK, AND KILL YOURSELF. NOW.

Uilleann Pipes

talking about the Pogues on Dissensus, conversation turned to traditional Celtic music (an entirely new area for me), and someone posted up these videos... dead in my tracks, instant zone-out, hooked after first 3.7 seconds of first one. anyone with knowledge (or links) to expansive abstract psychoactive mystical bagpipes filled with overtones please leave a note.

In the 70's, Rainer Wehinger created a visual listening score to accompany Gyorgy Ligeti's Artikulation. I (not me, someone) scanned the pages and synchronized them with the music.

OCORA: VIetnam

ok back on course. my rapid account ran out and i can't renew it right now because i lost my credit card and the new one will not arrive for blah blah blah. so much for seeing the entire OCORA catalog neatly listed in my rapid folder... oh well when life hands you a lemon -- use mediafire.

3 pretty different recordings of music from Vietnam. the Celestial Harmonies "Music of VIetnam" series is superb as well, covering dimensions not included in these. maybe we'll get to that at some point.



Tran Van Khe - lute, zither, ceremonial drum
Tran Quang Hai - spoons, sapeke clappers
Tran Thi Thuy Ngoc - wood block

mediafire



Musique Mnong Gar Du Vietnam: Anthologie Du Musique Proto-Indochinoise Vol. 1

from discogs: "Most of the items presented here were recorded in 1958 amongst the Mnong Gar (or Phii Brêe) of Central Vietnam, in the villages of Sar Luk, Ndut Trêe Pül and Nyôong Hat (field-trip of the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient and the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer)."

The Maa' music was collected during the same field-trip at the Daa' Rngaa plantation near Blao (Vietnam). The Mnong Buu Nör material was recorded in Cambodia in 1966, field-trip of the C.N.R.S. and the Centre de Documentation et de Recherches sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et le monde Insulindien, CeDRASEMI, L.A. 183, Associate Laboratory of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (6th section) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

mediafire A mediafire B



The music presented on this CD by Professor Tràn Van Khê comes from the South of Vietnam. The original Vietnamese name for this music is "don tai lu," which means music of the amateurs, although it is not at all an amateur music. This music, performed by small ensembles for small audiences, is for the entertainment of music lovers, outside of ceremonies or particular events or circumstances, and is part of what in Vietnam is called entertainment music, in distinction from other styles that are not. Although similar to Huê music, the court music of Central Vietnam, the music from the South differs in its modes, performance style, rhythms, improvisation style, and even its notation. The instruments used are typical Vietnamese instruments, mostly stringed instruments, including zither (dàn tranh), lutes (dàn tam, dàn ty bà, dàn xên), or fiddles (dàn cô, dàn gao), as well as some percussion. In this century, the Western violin joins the ensemble. Vietnamese charm at his best!(AMG)

mediafire

bloggariddims # 45 - dj zhao

honored to be a part of such a great series: the badman droid at the fear has been running the bloggariddims podcast for a long long time, and i just now managed to get one in. better late than never though INNIT.



this is made with material i prepared for Fusion Festival, and is also an attempt to communicate new conceptions of hybridity by fusing sounds from disparate locations and eras into new musical entities, with focus on traditional and regional music framed by urban bass and beats, or is it the other way around?

01_00:00 Deadbeat - Lost Luggage // Indonesia - Spring Water
02_03:20 itoa - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Dub Band D1 // Indonesia - Morning Sun
03_05:50 The Mahotella Queens - Muntu Wesilisa // Wiley - Bang Bang Instrumental
04_08:12 African Headcharge - Belinda // Blir - 19_4_04
05_09:28 IndonesiaTraditional - Sanda Kandung // Unknown Grime instrumental
06_11:24 Benga - Half Ounce // [Burundi: Music from the Heart of Africa] bernadette ii
07_14:52 Indonesia Traditional - Ngantosan // Mark One - Slang
08_17:28 Danny Weed - Dirty Den // Huseyin Ali Riza Albayrak - Ey Zahid
09_19:02 Ragga Twins - Spliffhead
10_20:35 Burial - Unite
11_22:14 Dub Terror [ft. Echo Ranks] - Technology
12_25:07 Hiripsime - ces femmes qui me ressemblent // Cyrus - Random Trio - Bounty
13_28:33 African Headcharge - Run Come Saw // DQ1 - Wear The Crown
14_32:00 Indonesia Traditional - Padang Magek // Omen - Rebellion
15_35:05 L-Wiz - Sub // Armenia Traditional - Boulbouli Hid (Le Chant du Rossignol)
16_38:54 Vex'd - Destruction // from 2046 soundtrack
17_40:05 Hijak - Nightmares // ø - Toisaalia
18_41:54 Shackleton - Blood On My Hands / I Want to Eat You // Dashti - Abdoinaghi Afsharnia
19_47:54 Kode 9 - Magnetic City // Akhenation - 361 Degrees
20_50:24 Mulatu Astatge - Kulunmanqueleshi // Dj Hatcha - Just a Rift
21_52:53 Loka - Fire Shepherds - Freda Mae // Dubwoofa - Devoliz
22_56:00 The Mahotella Queens - Ndodana Yolahleko // Skream - Skunkstep

Mashups: a cheap one liner trend collapsing all narratives into a heap of meaningless garish post modern rubbish, or a new way of interacting with cultures, of thinking about the world, of experiencing and creating music? of course they can be both, but i've always been excited, if not by most of what i have heard, by what i imagined was possible.

and what i imagined was Digital Gamelan, Ethiopian Grime, Afro-Arabian Dubstep -- sounds from far away and/or long ago fused in ways that are both surprising but also intuitive... i wanted to make a particular kind of mashup, producing results that people would want to listen to, maybe over and over. is it possible to make the fusion, the bastard frankenstein assemblage, sound better than the original sources? a tall order for sure, especially when the original sources sometimes are master musicians, but one that i nonetheless hope to have achieved in some of the mashups included in this mix. judge for yourself -- admittedly a little difficult since you can not hear the originals next to them -- so i suppose just go by how well the hybrids work...

i am always hearing the same beat patterns, the same compositional devices, the same dynamics, the same arrangements, in music made both spatially and temporally far apart from eachother: ultimately i absolutely believe that all music have the same roots, and the newest electroic music is, perhaps indirectly, but absolutely, deeply connected to old music from other places.

DIRECT LINK TO THIS VOLUME MP3

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOGARIDDIMS

OH and Fusion Festival pictures are HERE

Dear Rod

it has been 1 year since your passing, we all miss you, your spirit, and of course your amazing just intoned solo guitar. but where ever you are, i am sure you are reaching even greater heights of understanding and bliss.

this piece has always sent chills down my spine, but now maybe even more so. i will cherish this recording for all the rest of my days, and i hope all the music lovers out there will as well.



rest in peace

OCORA: India part 4 - Dirty South

South India: Pandam, Tanjore Style of Singing (Inde Du Sud: Padam, le Chant de Tanjore) - Aruna Sairam

originally posted by Op. Two reviews from Amazonworld:

*****Austere beauty, a great singer, September 18, 2000
Reviewer: ST (pensacola, fl USA)
As a total fan of M.S. Subbulakhsmi for over 30 years, it is a joy to find a near 'rival', this artist from Tanjore and this form, Padam. It's a style of singing she represents wonderfully, a form that we're told is fast disappearing. Her presentation is languid, leisurely, dignified and charged with the deepest feeling. A special surprise and gem is her rendering of a Sloka in raga Hamsanadi which is counterpart to raag Marwa in the Hindustani system.

*****Tanjore style, September 30, 2003
Reviewer: A music fan
Following up on the previous review, more than a "rival," the Tanjore school is a genre of the many schools (others being Karaikudi, etc.) and Aruna Sairam is a protege of this school through her association with the heiress of the great Veena Dhannammal, the late Sangeetha Kalanidhi Smt. T. Brinda (1912-1996). T Brinda along with her sister T Muktha are reputed to be repositories of many padams and javalis, some rarely heard today in concerts.

Listeners can treat this album as an exposure to the Tanjore style, with particular emphasis on rendering of padams, which are difficult pieces of the Karnatic repertoire to learn and perform. In this album, Aruna has rendered 3 of Kshetrayya's padams as well as one of Govindaswamy's. And not precluding the trinity of Karnatic Music, she includes a kriti of Tyagaraja in the Vivadi raga (raga with dissonant notes) Vagadhishvari. And what a thoughtful way to conclude her tribute to her masters with a Sanskrit sloka from the Krishna Karnamrutham of Bilwamangala Lilasuka in a garland of ragas!

PART A / PART B

and from jed Zshare mirrors: part A part B



Thayambaka, a complex, sacred art of percussion-playing from the temples of South India, performed to drive away demons.

Inde du Sud - Kerala, Le Thayambaka



India: Une Anthologie de la Musique Classique de l'Inde du Sud
Compiled by L. Subramaniam. originally posted by Goldfinger.

The best general primer for the vocal and instrumental music of South India. Compiled by Dr. L. Subramaniam, this four-volume set has excellent booklet notes explaining the wonders of Carnatic music and boasts contributions from many of the genre's greatest exponents illustrating vocal genres or instrumental techniques or instruments. Contributing vocalists include M.S. Subbulakshmi, Trivandrum R.S. Mani, Alathur SrinivasaIyer and T. Mukti. All the major instruments traditionally found in Carnatic music are illustrated -- among others, violin (L. Subramaniam, V.V. Subrahmanyam -- Subramaniam in the text), vina (Raajeshwari Padmanabhan), gottuvadyam (N. Ravikiran), flute (T.R. Mahalingam), morsing or Jew's harp (T.H. Subashchandran), kanjira, that is, a type of small drum (V. Nagarajan), ghatam or clay pot drum (T.H. Vinayakram), jalatarangam or tuned liquid-filled porcelain cups (Seeta Doraiswamy) and clarionet or clarinet (A.K.C. Natarajan). An anthology of great vision, essential for any general appreciation of Carnatic music. (AMG)

VOL. 1
VOL. 2
VOL. 3 A VOL. 3 B
VOL. 4

BOOYA! :D

just to get the place bouncin a lil bit

turn up the speakers turn up the bass YOU WOT?!?!

OCORA: India part 3

just a couple today, still from the north. those looking forward to the southern vocal music hold tight, we gon get to the karnatic song cycles soon enough.

Inde du Nord Shivkumar Sharma - Santur
the master and his instrument with tabla. what is there to say? (original vinyl rip by Op)

PART A PART B

thanks to jed for these Zshare mirrors: part A part B

and a heart breaking violin recording: Satya Dev Pawar

and jed's Zshare mirror

NEWS and IMPROVISATIONS

At the Konfrontationen festival in Austria last year i struck up a completely random conversation with someone standing next to me before a performance, and he turned out to be a regular visitor of this blog - always a great pleasure to meet internet music heads in real life. So if you are going to the FUSION FESTIVAL this summer, be sure to say hello, we will be playing on 2 separate nights:

SAT JUN 28 / 9PM - 12PM ---- DJ ZHAO solo
SUN JUN 29 / 1AM - 8AM ----- NGOMA Afro-Asia Soundsystem

Also NGOMA Mix Series VOL. 2 will be out soon!!!
..........................................................................................
Now, before we return to the Ocora diet, a nice bowl of improvised recordings to sate your appetites for contemplative and quiet sounds... sounds soothing me right now as i blog after returning home at 7AM from djing all night to a club full of people jumping up and down on a tuesday (i heart Berlin):

3 guitars, 1 bass, and some electronics, this quartet stretches out over 50 minutes of not only the scrapes and thuds of extended technique, but also the beautiful plucked tones.

Werner Dafeldecker: electric bass, double bass
Martin Siewert: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electronics
Burkhard Stangl: acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Taku Sugimoto: electric guitar, 6-string bass guitar

Recorded at Wuschi's Basement (live) and Feedback Studio in Vienna, April 2000, and Tonstudio Amann in Vienna, October 2000. Released May 2002

SSSD - Home

this one on the whole, besides being varied with an all star contributor list, belongs to the more difficult, stringent, and kurmudgeony school of improvisation. not my favorite but still a very interesting and sometimes very good listen.

1. Scott Fields (electric guitar), and Yoshiko Kanda (percussion)
2. Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer), and Yuko Nexus6 (cassette player)
3. Gene Coleman (bass clarinet), Richard Teitelbaum (electronics, laptop computer), Brett Larner (koto), Ko Ishikawa (sho), and Aya Motohashi (hichiriki)
4. I.S.O.: Yoshimitsu Ichiraku (amplified percussion), Sachiko M (sampler with sine wave), and Yoshihide Otomo (electric guitar, turntable); and Kang Tae Hwan (alto sax)
5. Stefan Keune (sopranino sax), John Russell (acoustic guitar), Brett Larner (bass koto), and Masahiko Okura (alto sax)
6.Toshihiro Makihara (percussion), Brett Larner (gu zheng), Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer), Ami Yoshida (voice), Yuko Nexus6 (sampler), and Taku Sugimoto (6-string bass guitar)
7.Carl Stone (laptop computer)
8. Kazuo Imai (electri guitar, electronics), and Elliot Sharp (electric guitar, electronics, sax)

All recorded live at Deluxe in Azabujuban, Tokyo. Released July, 2001

Deluxe Improvisation Vol. 2 PART A PART B

a re-up of this collaboration between our buddy Otomo and some Korean friends of his:

Otomo Yoshihide, Park Je Chun, Mi Yeon - Loose Community


as per requested, a re-up of the classic I.S.O - I.S.O. (live in a zen garden)

and another re-up:
Taku Sugimoto & Kevin Drumm - Den

NGOMA presents G-SOLO LIVE: Jun 07

a lot of people i have never seen before came out, i guess either curious or in the know. G's flow was pretty tight, the beats were fire, a really good night.

more photos and videos here.

MERGE: May / Jun / July

location: Werkstatt der Kulturen
Address: Wissmannstr. 32 [ U Hermannplatz ] Berlin Neu-Kölln
Tel: 60 97 70-0 Website: www.werkstatt-der-kulturen.de Email: Werkstatt.Kulturen@t-online.de
...............................................................................
doing a (G?) solo new series of monthly events (last thursday of each) which takes place in a culture center in Neu Kolln. I'm curious to see how they will turn out as the area is only beginning to get filled up with hipsters, and while the location is very cool, a nice sized basement bar with dancefloor and decent sound, it is not EXACTLY known as a hot night spot. please do come out, bring a date, roll deep with ya crew, or just pop up G-Solo Gangasta Style and say hi, enjoy some of the bumpinest groovinating music you'll never hear anywhere else in Berlin.

OCORA: India part 2

an entirely Northern edition, we shall dip into the Karnatic south later. the Sangeet Trio is lovely as can be... and I really love the 2 Gopal Krishan albums here: his sound is very special for me... wicked.


Sangeet Trio :
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, guitar
Tarun Bhattacharya, santur
Renu Mojumdar, bansuri)
recorded Dec. 16, 1995, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris

"This is an unusual ensemble for Indian classical music. First of all, instead of a soloist accompanied by the tabla drums and the sitar-like tampura, there is a trio plus accompanists. The trio consists of three unusual instruments: bansuri flutes (played by Renu Mojumdar), a modified guitar (played by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt), and the Middle Eastern santur hammer dulcimer (played by Tarun Bhattacharya). The guitar is especially interesting. It has a short neck, four melody strings, three drone strings, and 12 sympathetic strings. It is played with a metal slide in a quasi "slack key" style. The slide is frequently used to bend notes in the Indian fashion, but when Bhatt resorts to more of a finger-picking style, it sounds American. The trio plays "Raja Jog" at this live concert in Paris. It is an exceedingly long raag (66 minutes), and the alap -- the opening 18-and-a-half-minute slow movement -- might be a little tedious for Western ears. The two faster sections are more engrossing. The musicians chose a raag whose intervals recall the American blues, and there is a repeated five-note figure that could almost be a jazz riff. The overall effect is more like jazz than blues. These allusions are achieved without any straining for effect, if they are indeed conscious at all. Good fun.(AMG)"

Inde du Nord: Sangeet Trio en Concert


"The vichitra veena is a slide instrument used in North Indian classical music, but it has become quite rare today. Gopal Krishan is one of only a handful of players with recordings available. I have heard them all, and I've heard all of GK's available CDs, and I believe the raga JOG on this double album is his best effort on record.

As you may or may not know, JOG is similar to the American blues scale - it uses both forms (flat/natural) of the 3rd note, and the flat is a pretty high flat, just like in the blues. It's a nice effect to hear something so like a slide guitar play something so like the blues - so like, and yet so unlike ...

G.K. is very fond of LAYAKARI, playing around with the rhythm, and he does it a lot here in JOG. Tabla player is Latif Ahmed Khan of Dehli gharana, student of ustad Gami Khan, and he has played good solid Dehli style. Tabla sound is good, not the least tinny. He has not played any Zakir Hussain fireworks, just good accompaniment with communication and togetherness with GK in layakari parts. You will be hearing them both make small mouth noises on various "SAM" points; this recording comes very much alive. Interestingly, ALAP is comparatively speaking pretty fast and GAT is comparatively slow tempo, though ending with some JHALLA.

(Gopal Krishan by the way learnt from his father, called Nand Kishor, later with Gwalior gharana teacher Khubchand Bramchari - his rival on the vichitra veena Dr Mustafa Raza plays Gwalior style - and finally went to Ravi Shankar. So the style he plays here reminds of Ravishankar more then Gwalior, hence the layakari. He plays I think a total of 4-6 slightly out-of-tune notes in JOG - he's human! he's human! (Amazon Reviewer)"

India: Gopal Krishan - Inde du Nord, L'Art de la Vichitra Vîna
DISC 1 DISC 2-A DISC 2-B



Gopal Krisnan - Dhrupad et Khyal
PART-A PART-B


Inde du Nord - Raga Bhairav – Sarod - Partho Sarothy: PART A PART B

OCORA: India part 1

i have a crazy and over ambitious idea to upload and make available the (very near) entirety of the Ocora catalog (400+ including the very rare early vinyl-only releases) on this here blog. a monolithic task, and I will likely die of old age before it is complete, so let's get this party started PRONTO. (in reality what will likely happen is the uploading of what i consider the Crème de la Crème...)

lately I have been listening to a lot of the recordings from India, so it is i s'pose as good a place as any to jump in - here are 4 + 1 from the past, with much more come.

"Balaram Pathak is a very peculiar sitar player. After many years of listening to Indian classical music I have never come across someone of this style. The use of flageolett technique is typical for his way of playing - something I have never heard with any other sitar player.

Even though I searched for long in India and in Europe I couldn't find further recordings of Balaram Pathak (other than the original Ocora Double LP of which this is a CD re-issue, which had one more Raga), and although the booklet says he lives in Delhi since 1981, nobody I asked there had ever heard of him. Strange, I thought, since he is definitely a true master of sitar. All I could think of is that some people take great caution to prevent him from playing on stage and recording music in India.

Actually there is some kind of "music mafia" in India, very active in this field. They don't let anyone come up from outside their own circles. I was told the great sarod master Amjad Ali Khan was sort of the head of this "mafia". If you don't bow to him, you'll never find a chance to record in India, since any company would have to face that Amjad Ali Khan and his circle would never record for them anymore - and his CDs and cassettes bring good money." -- Ambrose Bierce (to whom we owe the original rip)

Inde du Nord / Balaram Pathak

1. Raga Bilaskhani Todi - Alap, Jod, Gat (Rudratal)
2. Raga Kinari Bhairavi - Alap, Jod, Jhala, Drut Gat (Tintal)
3. Raga Mishra Pilu - Alap, Sitarkhani Gat (Adhatal)

Balaram Pathak - sitar
Vinode Pathak - tabla

and speaking of the God Father of the Indian Classical Music Mafia, here is the O.G. son of a bitch himself. (original upload also from Ambrose)

"Mian-ki-Malhar is a rainy season raga composed by the great North Indian composer Mian Tansen. It is to be played in the late night, or, during the rainy season, at any time of the day. Its associations are depth, seriousness, and a majestic and heroic demeanour. Its ascending scale is pentatonic, the descending scale is heptatonic.

Zilla-Kafi is a mixed raga of recent origin, and it is here used as the basis for a raga-mala ("garland of ragas"), where many different scales are used in succession"

Inde du Nord / Amjad Ali Khan

Amjad Ali Khan - sarod
Shafat Ahmed Khan - tabla

"Born in 1927 in Rajasthan's Udaipur, his father was a musician "at the court of the Maharaja of Udaipur" who played the dilruba, described in the notes as "a sort of cross between the sitar with its movable frets and the sarangi with its bow," who "worked out a special and rather unusual fingering technique for his son . . ." to play the sarangi, starting at age 6. Ram Narayan pioneered the use of the sarangi as a classical solo instrument. Ram Narayan studied as a child under a local sarangyia and also learned dhrupad, "a hieratic and sober genre from which khyal originated," with the famous Dagar brothers (cf. Music of the World CDT-114). "The essential approach of dhrupad stands out in the alap elaboration more particularly." At 16 he was seeking employment at All India Radio in Lahore as a vocalist, "a ploy to increase his chances of employment. The producer he met did not take long to notice the scars on his nails, which he knew at once were the result of intense sarangi practice (from 10 to 16 hours a day)." " -- Arcturus, original uploader.

"By the time he was just 14 years of age, Ramnarayan was a music instructor in a college in Udaipur; and by the time he was barely 16 years of age, he was appointed staff artiste by the All India Radio and posted in Lahore in undivided India. This was in 1943. By 1947, Ramnarayan had accompanied some of the foremost male and female classical singers of the time. His playing was both inspired and inspiring. He was able to spontaneously improvise as well as reproduce tonal nuances of the singers he accompanied. He played in the style of their ‘gharana’ and made the sarangi both speak and sing in what we may now call, in retrospect the ‘gayaki ang’. . . .

He decided to become a free-lance sarangi artiste in Bombay where he could make himself financially independent by playing for commercial cinema as well as by cutting discs of his own. He recorded his first 78 r.p.m disc in 1950 with His Master’s Voice (now EMI) in Bombay. It is now a collector’s item with its beautiful rendering of the ragas Lalit and Marwa.

When Ramnarayan arrived with his sarangi in Bombay, film music directors did not know the potential of the sarangi. When he left the commercial film industry a few years later, music directors wondered what they would do without the sarangi of Pandit Ramnarayan. But Ramnarayan’s sight was set on something else that no one at that time thought was possible. His brother, Chaturlal accompanied Ali Akbar Khan on his pioneering visit to the West. Yehudi Menuhin welcomed and introduced them in the historic album “The Music of India”. In 1964, Ramnarayan and Chaturlal toured Europe and created a sensation." -- author unknown

"At first a rather coarse affair, the sarangi has become through the ages a sophisticated bowed instrument whose imitative capacity to reproduce the sound and texture of the voice is without comparison. Hence its use for accompanying singers... Its actual shape and structure probably date back to the 14th Century and it is mentioned in a 16th Century text. Successive improvements came later.

Its technique is unique in the fact that the back of the nails glide along the three gut strings placed 1 centimeter above the neck, which allows all types of phrases characteristic of Hindustani music: meend, which are glissandos prevalent in dhrupad, and gamakas, which are oscillations made around the notes and widely used in khyal. (Talc powder is used in order to ease the gliding of the palm on the side of the neck).

The gliding of the nails on the strings gives in the slow tempi a special flavour and much precision in the production of a continuous sound and it also enables the performer to display great virtuosity in rapid tempi.

The perrenial charm of the sarangi lays in its sympathetic strings. Of all the the Indian instruments which have them (like the sitar and the sarod), it is the one that creates a halo of sounds for the most part continuous and integrated in the melodies, this being due to the everlasting vibrations emitted by the friction of the bow. The considerable umber of metallic strings further increases the resounding force (as compared to the 11 or 15 sympathetic strings of the sitar and the sarod). But their role is not confined in enriching the general sound effect: when perfectly tuned, they give a useful harmonic reference in order to reach the right notes as they start vibrating only on the impulse of the notes played on the frequency which correspond to any of them.

1. Rag Purya-Kalyan: Alap, Jor, Jhala
This traditional rag is played in the evening.

This noble and sometimes austere rag shows also a feeling of tenderness. It is rendered here in a very classical way, according to the melodic laws ruling it. The third and seventh notes are particularly important. The gentle strokes of Ram Narayan's bow gradually bring out the typical phrases of the rag (rupa), first in the slow and non-rhythmic alap, second, in the jor with the increasing speed of the tempo, third, in the very fast taan-s of the jhala (23'45 onwards).

2. Rag Purya-Kalyan: Bandish (Teental), Drut (Ektal)
A bandish is a composition for singing. This term can be applied to the sarangi as it is so associated with singing."

-- from the cd notes by Christian Ledoux. and here is wiki on sarangi

Inde Pandit Ram Narayan Vol. 1

alternate MEDIAFIRE LINK

Ram Narayan: sarangi
Suresh Talwalkar: tabla

recorded Paris 1978 & Bombay 1979


"The soundtrack of Satyajit Ray’s famous film, with top musicians like Vilayat Khan (sitar), Bismillah Khan (shenaï oboe), or Imrat Khan (surbahar)." -- from liner notes. this one is a lot more lively, even aggressive, than the others...

Inde Le Salon du Musique

just a reminder billybilly brought us this bad ass recording a while back. find it here.

Ennio Morricone io box Disc 3 Track 1

i know this dude was part of Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza in the 60s, and has played with AMM (if I'm not mistaken), and so has real credentials under his belt. but i had put off exploring his daunting body of work, party because a lot, most? of it is the kitschy spaghetti western film stuff that he is known for, which does not interest me that much.

but today. oh my lord. bless my i-pod and its random function.

disc 3 is "Chamber Music" and comprises some criminally gorgeous stuff. entirely outrageous. tones that would make Lucier proud. free flurries of flutes like Evan Parker's circular breathing technique adopted by mythical forest furry creatures. ok before i start applying even more outlandish similes hear for yourself:

Track 1

(by the way disc 1 is the film stuff (yawn), 2 is pretty great Chopinesque piano music, and 4 is symphony music - haven't really listened - can i up just disc 3 even though it is commercially available? i dunno... need some convincing)

anyone know more about this aspect of his work? the more avant C / contemporary music / improvisation side? i did some googling but couldn't find any good info. and dude has to have a bunch of other styles / periods, right? anyone care to break it down a little bit?

also, the "new music" and jazz heads here, is there a good forum to discuss things like this or Scelsi or Spectral shit?

cheerios...

pieces from Al Sur 1

periodically i will be posting selections from the wonderful catalog of the now defunct Al Sur ("the wall" in Arabic) label, made available by the ever so generous and honorable Ambrose Bierce.

a fun and catchy album of soulful dance and pop tunes which welds together many styles: "Anefas Trankil, a.k.a. Akli D. was born to a musical family in Kabylia. Since leaving Algeria, he has lived in France and California, and Anefas Trankil, recorded in Paris, is his first complete album. The album has fascinating variety, from the pretty, banjo-driven "Taqb-Aylit (Kabylia)" to the rich polyrhythms of "A Tayri (Love)." One strong pop song, "Azul (Greetings to you)" has an interesting Afro-Celtic folk aspect to it, perhaps reflecting Akli's work with Celtic musicians in the United States. The words say, "Hey, mountains of Africa. Send us back the echo of a free people, the ones known as Tuareg." "Akka I D-Us (Look there)" is a beautiful, lightly funky song emphasizing the fast 12/8 rhythm common in much traditional Berber music. The notes (in French and English) and artwork are good. In the tradition of Matoub Lounes, Akli D. focuses poignantly on the plight of his people struggling for rights and recognition in Algeria."

Akli D. - Anefal Trankil

Akli Dehlis - vocals, 12-string guitar
Abdenour Mohamed - mandolin, banjo
Malek Hadjiat - e-guitar
Rachid Mammar - derbouka, bendir, karkabou, tambourin
Abdenour Djemai - guitar, banjo
Zahir Djemai - vocals, mandolin
Pierre Beaucamps Ebongue - bass
Hervé Le Bouche - drums
Jef Sicard - Clari-Ney
Sylvie Aioune - vocals
Aline Hurault - vocals
Enriqué José - guitar

download

stately Persian classical music from Iran. google translated from French: "Eminence recognized the music Iranian Dariush TALA'I, which runs through the stages of the world for over 25 years, was the first to discover the Western public that these Persian lutes are târ (six-stringed lute) and setâr (three-stringed lute). ... After several discs, especially among Ocora, TALA'I began an Integral of the Persian music, including 5 volumes have been published in Al Sur. Meanwhile, Al Sur invites us to listen to the Lord in a context that particularly likes the scene, accompanied by a young prodigy percussion Iranian KHALADJ Madjid, who has already done for Al On a percussion solo album and another with the ney flute player Hossein OUMOUNI.

To my knowledge, no disk had recorded the meeting TALA'I and KHALADJ. This is now done with this recording of a 1996 concert in Utrecht. Through 14 themes chained, Dariush TALA'I explore, exclusively târ, different aspects of Persian music, a discipline with a precision that does not prevent the inventiveness and experimentation discreet. The rhythmic support of the tombak (or zarb, a term probably more widespread) Madjid KHALADJ revival, with a high degree of refinement, the connection of melodic târ, which gives us a great moment of poetry modal for the greatest satisfaction ears demanding and knowledgeable." -- Stéphane Fougère

Dariush Tala'i & Madjid Khaladj - En concert à Utrecht le 30 Août 1996

Dariush Tala'i - tar
Madjid Khaladj - tombak

download

for all you bad, bad people out there (you know who you are), another gorgeous recording of Liturgical Chant from the first ever Christian state of Armenia. again google translates from French: "Akn aims to revive and develop the traditional interpretation of Armenian liturgical chant. The performances reflect the work developed under the direction of Aram Kerovpyan since 1990, which led to the creation of the Centre for the Study of Armenian liturgical chant, founded in January 1998 in Paris. ... traditional songs of the Armenian liturgy, including sharagan (hymns, tropes), form the body's largest directory. The psalmodie récitative and mélismatique, song of the Book of hours and optional melismatic singing, singing group or solo, are also part of the programmes submitted. Akn interprets this directory monophonic and modal in its original form. The drone is an integral part. Akn is a mixed choir, composed of 14 to 16 participants." -- http://akn-chant.org/fr

Akn - Chants liturgiques arméniens



download

Giacinto Scelsi - Music for Wind Instruments and Percussion

"This collection of the late Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi marks the recorded debut of many of his smaller works. Ranging from 1954-1966, Scelsi's elongated tonal studies are given a rapt performance here by a nameless Dutch ensemble that carries off the task without flaw or unnecessary adornment (a constant temptation, it seems, with Scelsi's work). Included here are three fragments of I Riti, the ritual march from the composer's Funeral for Achilles. Non-rhythmic timbral patterns, spare in posture and deep in resonance, constitute an interior motion. On Ko-Lho for flute and clarinet, from 1966, Scelsi concentrates on the variations in similar whole tones the instruments are capable of producing. These variations may be timbral, or that may be in the embouchure itself, but they sound at times so remarkably similar as they exchange semi-quavers that it is nearly impossible to tell them apart. Likewise, Rucke di Gluck for piccolo and oboe from 1957, while much more primitive in feel and approach, offers the turning of tone from one pitch to the next as a meeting place for timbral investigation. Also from tense, varying durational statements, harmony is explored not as a device for unification but rather as a spatial consideration of interstitial elements. The truly revelatory works occur near the end of the set with Hyxos for alto flute, gongs, and cowbell from 1955 and Quattro Pezzi for trumpet solo from 1956. In both these works, Scelsi looks past serialism's limited investigations of tonal dissonance and finds a type of consonance in duration and pitch without regard for scalar mathematics. These are gigantic leaps in the consideration of spatial relationships in compositional technique and sonic placement in the tonal one. This is a highly rewarding and necessary addition to the Scelsi canon, and an excellent introduction to the "aegis mysterium" that Scelsi created in 20th century music." --Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

1 I Riti: Ritual March, "The Funeral Of Achilles" For Percussion (1962) (Fragment) (0:57)
2 Ko-Lho For Flute And Clarinet (1966): I, II (7:13)
3 Pwyll For Flute Alone (1954) (4:15)
4 I Riti: Ritual March, "The Funeral Of Achilles" For Percussion (1962) (3:05)
5 Ixor For Bb Clarinet (Or Other Reed Instrument) (1956) (4:00)
6 Rucke Di Guck For Piccolo And Oboe (1957): I, II, III (8:56)
7 Hyxos For Alto Flute, Gongs And Cowbell (1955): I Tranquillo, II Con Moto, III Tranquillo (9:49)
8 Quattro Pezzi For Trumpet Alone (1956): I, II, III, IV (9:16)
9 I Riti: Ritual March, "The Funeral Of Achilles" For Percussion (1962) (Fragment) (1:14)

OUT OF PRINT

Bismillah Khan & Vilayat Khan - A Rare Jugalbandi

"Tentatively titled 'A Rare Jugalbandi' the album brings together musical maestros Vilayat Khan with Sitar and Ustad Bismillah Khan with Shehnai. Recorded live in 1999, both the legends came together relaxing with Yaman Aalap." -- from musicindiaonline.com

a recording from very late period of these maestros, it does not match the sickness of the one several posts down -- but it it still a beautiful album and for those addicted to the sound of Bismillah's shehnai it is a treat.

find it at this new blog.

rhythmicon.....

The Art of the Virtual Rythmicon
by Janek Schaefer and others
Label: Innova Recordings
Genre: Electronic

1 All Bombing is Terrorism 12:02
2 Annie Gosfield - A Sideways Glance from an Electric Eye 07:37
3 Philip Blackburn - Henry and Mimi at the Y 04:36
4 Jeff Feddersen - This Time I Want Them All 05:50
5 Matthew Burtner - Spectral for 0 04:44
6 Matthew Burtner - Spectral for 60 04:30
7 Viv Corringham - Eggcup, Teapot, Rythmicon 06:17
8 Mark Eden - Cremation Science 05:35
9 Robert Normandeau - Chorus 13:57


review:
Back in 1931, Henry Cowell asked Lev Termen [aka Leon Theremin] to build him a musical instrument capable of playing the sorts of complex overtones and rhythms that Cowell was working with at the time. The two of them came up with the Rhythmicon, a keyboard instrument a bit like an electric organ with a catch. Using sets of rotating optical discs inside the instrument all the keys were set up to play repeated tones, which were related in pitch and rhythm to one another according to the proportions of the overtone series. Very much a Cowell sort of idea it proved too unreliable to really take off as a concert instrument, but in 2003 American Public Media commissioned an online version for its American Mavericks website and radio show. The Virtual Rhythmicon – a greatly enhanced extrapolation of the original concept – has been online since then, and anyone can play around and submit the results to the American Mavericks archive. Mind you, I’ve had a good muck around on it and I’ve not produced anything that comes close to what’s on this album, so it’s not to be underestimated.

By the nature of the instrument, the nine tracks on The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon are all built around sustained synth tones, wave forms, pulse patterns and the like, but with a notable emotional range. Schaefer’s work is a lush meditation paradoxically titled ‘All Bombing is Terrorism’, Gosfield deftly blends buzzing sawtooth waves with sweeping cello harmonics. Philip Blackburn samples a quarter-tone piano duet by Mildred Couper to evoke the concert where both her compositions and the rhythmicon were heard for the first time, while Jeff Feddersen samples Cowell’s voice over music designed to push the limits of the virtual rhythmicon to sonic breaking point. Burtner’s two contributions are dedications to his new-born son and his parents’ 60th birthday, producing rich sound worlds that belie their origins in simple algorithms, and Viv Corringham mixes her own voice, using everyday objects as resonators, over jangly, brassy blasts from the rhythmicon.

The two final tracks step furthest from the pure overtone beats of the rhythmicon medium. Mark Eden’s ‘Cremation Science’ is a Warhol-inspired pop collage, but the real gem of the whole disc is the final track, Robert Normandeau’s awesome ‘Chorus’, dedicated to the victims of 9/11. Using sound materials intended to represent Judaism (shofar), Christianity (bells) and Islam (muezzin), it’s a brooding concrete slab of a work in which menace, frustration,


r





enjoy.............

white evil....

a favorite of mine....enjoy

RUTH WHITE - Flowers of Evil: An Electronic Setting of the Poem of Charles Baudelaire (Creel Pone)

Tracklisting:
A1 The Clock (3:00)
A2 Evening Harmony (4:02)
A3 Lover's Wine (2:57)
A4 Owls (2:45)
A5 Mists And Rains (2:06)
B1 The Irremediable (4:55)
B2 The Cat (3:27)
B3 Spleen (2:50)
B4 The Litanies Of Satan (6:50)

............to me, baudelaire's poems are of such unique power that they always seem to rise above the level of the personal and sometimes existential nature of their content. in this composition, i have attempted to parallel the transcendental qualities of the poetry through electronic means.

for the words, i used my own voice as the generator of the original sound to be altered or "dehumanized." this seemed practical since my experiments with the medium were too time consuming to have been easily accomplished with a collaborator.

to modulate my voice, i used a variety of techniques. changes of timbre were achieved with filters. tape speed changes were used to control pitch. into the shape of some words, i injected sound waves and white noise, thus changing the quality of their sound hut not the flow of their delivery. by adding reyerberation, i varied atmospheres and decreased or increased space illusions. to accent special words or phrases, i used controlled tape delays. choruses were created by combining slight delays with multiple track recordings.

the musical settings around the voice were made with music concrète materials, a moog synthesizer, other electronic generators and conventional instruments, which were usually altered electronically.

in the translations, there was no attempt to rhyme the verse as in the original french poems. i tried only to keep the language as direct and simple as possible, for i always found that the dominating power of baudelaire's ideas 'were in themselves of electrifying force.

ruth white


music and translations @ 1969 ruth white.


m

enjoy........

dj zhao - Balmyard Rockers

re-up with new cover for those who missed the bus last time round...

more than a few would agree that modern roots music have made a powerful comeback, after an entire decade or more of taking the backseat to dancehall ragga. this one is all about the conscious side -- a few of my favorite cultural "one drop" riddims from past few years, and a few all time classic cuts. (this is from 2 years ago and today i would have left out the tiny bit of junglism but whatever)

balmyard means a place of medicine, of magic and healing. this mix excludes slackness and gun talk almost entirely (only 1 tune - Cham, kind of heads in that direction, but not really); you will find no chi-chi-man bashing, no misogyny here.

01 Sophia George - Lazy Body
02 Washington Nooks - Can I Get A Witness [Onward Forward riddim]
03 Baby G - In The Streets [World Jam riddim]
04 Cham - Rude Boy Pledge [Stage Show riddim]
05 Version [Crystal Woman riddim]
06 Sizzla - I Wanna Know You [statement_riddim]
07 Sizzla - Jah Knows
08 Horace Andy - Good Will Survive
09 Braveheart - Oohhhh Ahhhh [Hard Times riddim]
10 Chuck Fenda - Jah is Worthy [Hard Times riddim]
11 i wayne - Rasta Tell Dem All the While [Hard Times riddim]
12 Horace Andy - Mek It Bun
13 Collie Buddz - Come Around [Last war riddim]
14 Alozade and Hollow - Under Me Sensi [Clappa riddim]
15 Congo Natty - Jah is My Guide
16 Cham featuring Mr Easy - Funny Man
17 Natural Black - Defend the Herbs [Defend We Own riddim]
18 Singer Blue - If I Know Jah
19 Lady Saw - Getting Hard [Confessions Riddim]
20 Kiprich - Tell Me [Confessions Riddim]
21 Unicorn - Remenber [Confessions Riddim]
22 Version [Confessions Riddim]
23 Sizzla - can not find this cut sorry
24 Selah Collins - Pick a Sound Version

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Bismillah Khan & Vilayat Khan

another repost: Bismillah Khan (shehnai) with Vilayat Khan (sitar) (and unknown tabla player) recorded in the early 70s for RCA, but was never released in the west. the friend in Singapore who gave it to me says it is the most famous jugalbandi in indian history. my friend goes on a bit about Vilayat (i was actually hoping to hear stories about Bismillah):

"Vilayat Khan was drunk beyond drunk during this session. he was a notorious drunk until 1981. when he quit drinking his music changed also, settled down. he said he couldn't play at that level if he could think, so he had to get shitfaced just to play that fast. a huge majority of indian musicians have hardcore drug/alcohol problems. when ali akbar khan was 12 he was already considered best in the world, but he later destroyed his playing from substance abuse.

vilayat khan was notroious though for giving shit to people. he cursed ravi shankar in public countless times. once threated to kill allah rakha. if rakha played a tabla solo during a session, he would say "you aren't playing for george harrison".

this concert in the recording, by the end of the night he doesn't give a fuck. he's playing all over everyone. bismillah will start a line and vilayat will just play over him. and play this dark, scarey ugly angry shit too. vilayat was as angry and insane as he played. also had the most incredible melodic style. never sloppy. his nephew is best sitarist alive today - shahid parvez, really graceful and clear.

i've got some vilayat khan from the sixties too where he's trying to kill the tabla player by playing at insane speeds, fastest i've ever heard a human play. to where it actually becomes a drone as you can't even hear the notes anymore. the only shit you can buy of his is all from the early 90's, ten to twenty years after his peak. it's still really good but no comparison to the earlier"

01 Bhairavi
02 Dhun
03 Nandkalyan

(sorry last song is cut off. i got it like that)

COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond

required listening for every human world wide: audio book download here

dj zhao - submarine

BIGUP ICEY! BIGUP MELANCHOLY!
BIGUP LAPTOPS! BIGUP WHITE CUBES AND WHITE PEOPLE!

79 Minutes / 160 kbps / 91.2 MB

01 Soft Pink Truth
02 Komet
03 unknown
04 Jan Jelinek
05 Farben
06 Pheek
07 Andrew Pekler
08 Stewart Walker
09 Spiess, Peter F.
10 Thomas Brinkmann
11 unknown / Swim label
12 Closer Music
13 unknown
14 CheckSum
15 ø
16 Taylor Deupree
17 ø
18 Gramm
19 unknown
20 Gas
21 ø
22 unknown / Scape label
23 Aphex Twin
24 Thomas Koner

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Ab Baars Trio

i feel like first time i posted this was kinda slept on. a pretty remarkable and remarkaly varied document of this group. inventive, playful, sensitive, and such a crisp clarity in their enunciation of ideas...

(for The Jam™ check track 3 of disc 2)

bigup ∞ for information concerning these 2 discs (which turns out to be 2 separate albums + 5 songs from yet another):

AB BAARS TRIO:
Ab Baars - clarinet, tenor sax
Wilbert de Joode - double bass
Martin van Duynhoven - drums, percussion

CD1: "Songs" (GeestGronden 22, 2001)

1. Wai-Kun (5:17)
2. Indiaan (4:50)
3. Klawulacha (4:18)
4. Hevebe Tawi (4:20)
5. Cherokee (8:51)
6. Wolf Song (4:56)
7. Maliseet Love (3:52)
8. Song (1:53)
9. Jeux (4:22)
10. Clayaquot War (4:30)
11. Song (5:54)
12. Aotzi No-otz (4:15)
13. Meshivotzi No-otz (4:08)
14. Dsichl Biyin (3:49)
15. The Indians (5:43)

All compositions Ab Baars, exc. 2 by Guus Janssen - arr. Ab Baars, 5 by Ray Noble - arr. Michael Moore, 15 by Charles Ives - arr. Mariette Rouppe van der Voort.
Recorded by Dick Lucas DATA RECORDS 4 February 2000 Theater De Burcht, Zaandam.

CD2: "3900 Carol Court" (GeestGronden 12, 1992)

1. Kimmel (6:27)
2. Visser van Lucebert (5:16)
3. Trav'lin in Plastic Dreams (6:03)
4. Krang (7:57)
5. 3900 Carol Court (4:27)
6. Glorpjes (6:29)
7. Asor (3:13)
8. Farfalla di Dinard (4:36)
9. The Dutch Windmill (4:17)

All compositions Ab Baars, except 3 by John Lewis.
Recorded by Dick Lucas DATA RECORDS March 15, 1992 Theater a.d. Molenlaan, Bussum and March 20, June 7 and 18, 1992 the Bimhuis, Amsterdam.

"A Free Step | The Music of John Carter" (GeestGronden 20, 1999)

10. Juba Stomp (4:00)
11. Morning Bell (6:13)
12. Sticks and stones (3:46)
13. Karen on Monday (5:00)
14. Night dance (3:47)
(5 of 10 tracks)

All compositions John Carter, arr. Ab Baars.
Recorded by Dick Lucas DATA RECORDS January 25, 1997 Bimhuis, Amsterdam & April 23, 24, 1998 Polanentheeater.

disc 1 disc 2

otte over, underwater

Hans Otte died December 25 2007 and it has taken me entirely too long to get this little memorial post together. I chose this release because I think it is somewhat atypical (the very New Age-y moments in Siebengesang) but also vivid in its beauty, which rests somewhat in opposition to the understatement and reduction of Otte's essential piano compositions, Das Buch der Klänge and Stundenbuch. The solo harp composition, Wassermannmusik quite easily stunned me on a first listen, and these recordings reveal an ecstatic element in Otte's work, an expansion on the minimal glow of the piano pieces.



Siebengesang (Seven-Song)
+
Wassermannmusik (Aquarian Music)

Hans Otte - Piano
Cecilia Chailly - Harp
Petra Wiegandt - Clarinet

aquarian music

IMPORTANT QUESTION PLEASE HELP!!!

some PC users have said that a few or some of the files in the NGOMA mix does not work for them. if you have experienced this please let me know if possible which files are giving you problems, and what kind of problems.

thank you very much!!!!!

re-ups and new up

i think it makes me a hippie to love Sandy Bull and you know what I am 1. not ashamed and 2. proud. no not the lazy and smelly part, but the peace, man, and the love and the drugs and the nudity. it is super fun to be naked in public. i suggest you try it if you haven't. maybe later today? how about right now? your co-workers will just think it's cute. trust me.

so really, whatever post-ironic badman attitude i happen to be copping for laffs this week or the other, deep down inside i just want to space out on some trippy sounds and colors and the patterns they make... that and for everyone to get 1. along and 2. high as a kite. (and if you don't like it you can go suck your mum)

in addition to the 2 Sandy Bull albums previous posted you will find a new one: Inventions

Sandy Bull - 3 albums
VA - The Masters of Gospel
more coming in the space below...

Flora Molton, Eleanor Ellis

heavy "blues gone to church" rootsy gospel. next to zero information on the web about this singer and her timeless music, some of the most heart felt and beautiful in the cannon. i think this is the only disc representing American music in the entire Ocora catalog -- and have to say probably as good a choice as is possible: stark and minimal. so true. so real.

rapid one and rapid two

rebecca rebecca rebecca rebecca

hey I got through what passed for winter this year, pretty much w/out giving proper love to this place. so, here is, I hope, a treat.

to the best of my knowledge these recordings are apocryphal (but no less tasty for it).



the lovely lovely kai fagaschinski on clarient, michael renkel on guitar/preparations.

here's the lowdown.

rebecca exists since october 2001. the work began with improvisations. over the cause of time the same piece was repeatedly "improvised" again, reducing the concept of improvisation to absurdity. through repeated playing a musical piece, a composition come into being. the piece is not notated. rebecca remembers, and forgets. it is not so much a matter of interpreting a preconceived idea but rather of continuously working on and within the piece. the musical work becomes practice, action.
because the same piece is played over and over again in variations, piece and musician merge into a process. the concept of return is also hidden in the name ("re"). less obviously, "bec" (back) refers to the act of remembering, while "ca." (circa) stands for the vague, the indeterminate. this rotating around oneself and remembering as a means of drawing from the past, however, both aim at forward movement and outward communication. repetition as memory facing forward.

I think that is awful nice, and allows for sensitive, concentrated playing - a musical relation b/w the performers that is palpable - improvisation not simply being about showing up, skronking, wheeezing, scraping, clicking about and taking yr applause w/seriousness.

RE
BEC
CA

RE-UPS / WHERE MY DOGZ @?!?!?!

CHROME box
Showbiz & AG - Goodfellas
Alva_Noto & Opiate - Optofiles
Original Rumbas
Bali - Wayan Lotring
Java - Sunda
Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra
Emmanuelle Bertrand
________________________________________

WHERE MY HOMIES @???

Pandit Kamalesh Maitra - Tarang

Born in 1928 in the East Bengali part of North India, the musician, composer and teacher, Pandit Kamalesh Maitra, has been living in Berlin since 1977. He may be the last and greatest master of the tabla tarang, a nearly forgotten classical instrument from North India. He has played with musicians as eminent as Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Trilok Gurtu, Charlie Mariano and Giora Feldmann.
... In the long history of Indian percussion, (the Tabla Tarang) evolved rather late but, in spite of its magical sound, has not shared the public appeal of complex "classics". It is made up of 10 to 16 single tabla-drums, tuned to the traditional raga scales and placed in half a circle in order of rising pitch. Tarang means waves and aptly describes the sounds evoked by the drummer. Quickly and suggestively, notes group into melodies and continually new cadences. The tabla tarang sounds rather like a marimba with a hint of gamelan and the resonance of a deep vibraphone. - Gabriele Stiller-Kern / full article here.

his popular recording is "Tabla Tarang - Melody on Drums". this one here, courtesy of Ambrose Bierce (who may have seen this concert with his own eyes?), is as far as i know not commecially available. (and incidentally, the House of World Cultures where this was recorded, is the place where we are planning a summer time NGOMA. fingers crossed!)

Pandit Kamalesh Maitra - Tarang
Live at the House of the Cultures of the World, Berlin, November 5, 1993
Kamalesh Productions CD9802, 1998

Rapidshare
Zshare
and here is an example of the Tabla Tarang performed:

Mbilia and Mpongo

hate to invoke the somewhat cliche adage of the first world making depressive, whiny pop music, and the third world expressing nothing but unadulterated and unstoppable JOY through their celebratory grooves... but it's often true isn't it. in the words of my friend ivan: "it's like, we know life is hard, and there ain't much we can do to change lots of shit, so let's get this party started, NOW. no, not 10 minutes later. NOW."

both of these vocalists are relatively new to me, and i don't know much about them at present time other than the to-die-for voices -- Mbilia is like a high alto or soprano, and Mpongo is a deeper, at times richer alto. both of these albums, picked entirely randomly from my small growing collection of their surely immense discography, came out in the 80s. but where as a lot of western pop productions from the 80s favored a palette of sounds particular to that era, these albums, to me at least, represent a much more timeless approach to pop music. i was listening to one of these while jogging the other day... bliss on the tracks (even as my ganja riddled lungs were trying to keep up).

M'bilia Bell - Boya Ye - Ba Gerants Ya Mabala

rapidshare part 1 rapidshare part 2
zshare part 1 zshare part 2

Mpongo Love - Monama Elima vol 1

zshare
rapidshare

NEW BLOG ALERT

i will still give a shout out here when something important happens, but from now on for all things NGOMA goto:

AFROASIASOUND.blogspot.com

all of my personal DJ-mixes prior to NGOMA will be added there soon too.
________________________________
by the way, bb, grasp, tom, if you have any personal or otherwise links you'd like to put up let me know.

and the new look OK for you? is it too blue????????

Kayagum.........

Korean Kayagum Music: Sanjo

Artist: Chukp'a and Kim Tong Jun


1 Minsok P'unru 8:49

2 Kayagum Sanjo 52:56

Performed by Korean national treasure Chukp'a on kayagum, accompanied by changoo player Tong Jun Kim, both recently deceased. excellent.....

r

enjoy..............

NGOMA FEB 23.

thanks to everyone who came out! i played harder and colder than usual, with no bongo flava, kizomba, or bhangra... was an experiment in afro-techno and bass musics. Lateef brought mad flavors... the fiery, timeless shit... oh man just thinking about it makes my knees go weak! party pictures here: afroasiasound.blogspot.com/

NGOMA mix 1 - dj zhao

The positive side of globalization: irresistable 21st century urban music arise on every continent. India, Cuba, Tanzania, Egypt, Cape Town, these are just a few places where wild hybrid styles are born: futuristic, bass heavy and electronic, yet drawing from the wealth of local musical heritage. the NGOMA series bring the heat from musical hotspots across the known world -- the wickedest beats and sweetest flows.
_______________________________________________
DIRECT LISTEN AND SINGLE TRACK DOWNLOAD (192k)



SEPARATE TRACKS DOWNLOAD (320k):

rapidshare or megaupload

Fistfull of Improvisation 1

John Butcher (saxophones)
Xavier Charles (clarinet),
Axel Dorner (trumpet)
The Contest of Pleasures
http://rapidshare.com/files/49927730/ButcherCharlesDorner_ContestPleasures.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/49928922/ButcherCharlesDorner_ContestPleasures.part2.RAR
Some intensely oblique textural nu-school shit. Recorded....hm....1997? 2000 at latest. Sharp if not prescient. IMHO, some of the strongest, or at least most wondrous, group material by any of the participants. A must-hear even if you usually don't care for the improv thing based on preponderance of squiggle-blat, almost all of which has been erased in advance by the participants. Scary-incisive groupmind energy. Keeper!

















Gunter Christmann (trombone/cello) & Thomas Lehn (analogue synth):
Temps Duree (1998, ltd ed of 150)
http://rapidshare.com/files/933906/ChristmannLehn.zip
light-speed and prickly-as-fuck. hard to place what makes this record special aside from the excellent playing, but it is definitely not a matter of just fine playing...the quickness here, the jabs and feints familiar to those of us who have listened to (probabably too much) "European free improv" quite a bit....these are here, but the moments of interaction seem to be packed especially dense..

Giuseppe Ielasi: solo live cdr (Absurd)
http://rapidshare.com/files/2656416/GI_solo2001.zip
This is nothing but nothing like Ielasi's more recent work, a much more spartan affair; those who like the quiet Kevin Drumm might find a lot to like here. I think this was released c. 2000, maybe a little earlier. I uploaded it quite some time ago, but the link still seems to work.



















Taku Sugimoto: OPPOSITE
http://rapidshare.com/files/826675/SugimotoOpposite_pt1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/826901/SugimotoOpposite_pt2.zip
Gossamer dew-speckled-spiderweb guitar spun with patience you could cut with a very sharp knife. I know we had this here at some point, but it's an old upload of mine, it's good quality, I think (mp3-320?), and if you haven't heard it yet, you must, must, must.

From Tanzania with Love Love Love

to counter all that negative energy in the Dirty South mix, here is one for grace and groove and love and light.

at the end of one NGOMA night 5AM Latif droped the 2nd track from this album. people turned around from heading to the door, put down their jackets, and danced happy as can be and did not want to go after the song was over.

no information though... dude said something about it being from the 60s, but the grooves sound very contemporary... or maybe it's simply time-less. and when i brought it into Ableton the beats are completely even tempo (the lost East African origin of drum machine dance music? - would make sense because the drum itself was born around there a few minutes before). and as far as programmed beats are concerned, it is perfection itself -- an absolute supreme elegance and economy which sustains the 15+ min duration of the songs. with those keyboards and the voice! that voice... i literally am physically not able to stop the songs after they start playing.

anyone know please do drop the lime.

just asked Latif again and he says that the CDR his friend from Mozambique gave him had only the word "melody" written on it, and he has no idea if that is the name of the artist/album or simply what the guy casually wrote. furthermore, when i asked if it's from the 60s why the beats are made by a machine, he said then they must be remixes of 60s music, because the source specifically told him that it is 1960s music. which or if any part of this is to be believed is anyone's guess. i have contacted several African music experts and so far no one has come forth with any information...

ok so from things people have been saying, I'm almost ready to settle for some kind of Remix of Taraab music, which is sometimes a kind of East African and Indian / Arabic fusion, from the 1960s.

anyway, enjoy this very special one... rapidshare or mediafire

P(c)P: Full Flutes

So P(c)P: not the party, but still the trace of angels: Point (counter-)Point: a little name-branding for an ongoing category in which I put up a couple-few recordings or so that somehow to me seem like stealth fellow-travellers, worthy adversaries, or twins separated at birth. No implications about deeper connections, which might or might not exist or even be decently phantasizable, but sometimes an intersection---if only in my wayward hearing---is just serendipitous to call for passing-along. So I pass along! I swear, commentary about putative connections will be kept to a dead minimum, so as to avoid advertising a musicological competence that I most certainly do not possess. But if it's bomb, how can I not bell about it?

Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea: Madang, Volumes 1 & 2
http://www.megaupload.com/pt/?d=J2S07AG5 (both volumes, 199mb, mp3-320-LAME)

A few words on Vol. 1:
"Meant to evoke the cries of spirits, sacred flutes are played by adult men of the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. Pairs of long bamboo male and female flutes accompany ceremonies in the coastal villages near the Ramu River. The ravoi flutes from Bak are supported by two garamut carved wooden slit gongs; the waudang flutes from Manam Island are backed up by a pair of large and small slit gongs, and six singers, and the jarvan flutes from Awar feature accompaniment by a shell rattle. The mo-mo resonating tubes were recorded in the Finisterre Range. These recordings were made in 1976 by Ragnar Johnson assisted by Jessica Mayer while conducting research in a remote village in the Eastern Highlands. Their intention was to preserve this traditional music as it is played in the villages of its origin."
Those heard:
Vagh & Gombreh / Soagili & Ururu / Jogun & Sabina / People of Damaindeh-Bau
A few words on Volume 2: "Sacred flutes are blown ("Windim Mambu") to make the cries of spirits by adult men in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. Pairs of long bamboo male and female flutes are played for ceremonies in the coastal villages near the Ramu River. There are the cries of six different pairs of flutes and one pair of conch shells from the Ramu coast, two pairs of Waudang flutes from Manam Island with singing and Mo-mo resonating tubes from the Finisterre Range. Occasional percussion is provided by wooden slit gongs and hand drums. These recordings were made in 1976."

A graspnote:
I was initially drawn to these recordings because Evan Parker cited them as key recordings of "ethnic"/traditional music practices for him, with the use of overtones and harmonics being particularly instructive to him in his own explorations of the saxophone. Turns out, Evan is credited in some respect with the reissue of these recordings, both of which were first released in 1977 and 1979 as the first two numbers of David Toop's Quartz label. I think these are amazing sounds and ways of organizing them; I think it's worth hearing both volumes (on repeat!), so I packed them together...hope this won't be too much of a problem. Hypnotic, understated, bracing, raw, elliptical and full.

Phill Niblock: FOUR FULL FLUTES (the Dirty Version)
http://rapidshare.com/files/80210854/Niblock_FullFlutes_APE.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/80210600/Niblock_FullFlutes_APE.part2.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/80209585/Niblock_FullFlutes_APE.part3.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/80208635/Niblock_FullFlutes_APE.part4.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/80207765/Niblock_FullFlutes_APE.part5.RAR
(APE lossless, tracks already split, no CUE)

Phill avec filles....um.... [filles: Dana Reitz and Joan La Barbara, 1975]

A little hype:
"This CD was released by Experimental Intermedia Foundation in 1990 and includes Susan Stenger playing flute on two tracks. The scores were recorded using musicians playing instruments tuned to an oscilloscope in microtonal intervals; in this fashion Niblock creates "tone blocks" by editing out breathing spaces and assigning different pitch blocks to selected areas of the final eight-track recording. An photo of the incredibly arcane-looking scores for the three individual pieces is included in the extensive liner notes. One of the four tracks is actually the combination of the solo recordings by Stenger and Petr Kotik; the listener is encouraged to mix and match tracks on their own...." (lost source online...apologies)

“Phill Niblock’s music has no precedents, invites no comparisons, and doesn’t even suggest any metaphors to me. It is simply itself and must be heard to be believed,” wrote Tom Johnson in The Village Voice a decade ago. The same is true today—no one is doing what Phill Niblock is doing. Niblock takes the building blocks of music and stacks them in inimitable formations. In Four Full Flutes, adjacent tones beat violently against one another while clouds of harmonics hover above the wavering drone . . . When the piece ends, it takes the listener a few moments to recover. This physiological experience, when the ossicles slow their vibrating and the membrane hairs come to a standstill, is probably the only aspect of the music not regulated by the score . . . Playing this compact disc in a different room or moving around the room while the disc is being played actually alters the outcome. Similarly, the music can be experienced anew through different combinations, extra speakers, home stereo pyrotechnics, and volume level alterations. The effects intensify with louder levels of volume. The higher the volume goes, the higher you go. ” – Neil Strauss



CAMEROON: FLUTES OF THE MANDARA MOUNTAINS
(Ocora: Radio France 560110)
http://rapidshare.com/files/80193545/Cameroon_FlutesMandara_Ocora.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/80192163/Cameroon_FlutesMandara_Ocora.part2.RAR
(mp3-320-LAME)

Recordings made in Cameroon, 1994-6, by Nathalie Fernando, Fabrice Marandola

From the liner notes:
In this presentation of music of the animist peoples of the mountains and the the plains, we selected the most commonly found instrumental ensembles along with encounters of a more singular kind, proposing an instrumental and vocal range, representative of the multitude of sonorities, languages, and customs to be found in this region. The musics recorded come from ritual or profane repertoires, and do not necessarily accompany dancing. In the Mandara Mountains, the musical instruments used depend on the agrarian cycle, their playing being determined by different stages in the growing of millet: the Ouldeme flutes, for example, are played in turn for sowing time at the end of the harvest.

For information and photographs of some of the instruments used by these musicians, and other similar instruments, go to:
http://www.sukur.info/Music/Aerophones.htm

Take Cover

Take note that Susan Archie, who handled the design of this package, was also the svengali behind the amazing-looking Albert Ayler and Charley Patton boxes from Revenant (I think I'm right about this...not going to check now); her work is so fine, to my own taste, that the wickedly timely sounds are beyond-done-justice. I only say this because this small, support-worthy label seems to have gone all-out in creating a product worth hanging on to. But this is no lecture, just a public service announcement. As for the music....


PEOPLE TAKE WARNING! Murder Ballads & Songs of Disaster 1913-1938
(Tompkins Square Records, 3CD box set, 2007)
http://rapidshare.com/files/79745440/PeopleTakeWarning.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/79743819/PeopleTakeWarning.part2.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/79741141/PeopleTakeWarning.part3.RAR
(mp3-vbr, no booklet art, unfortunately...folder slightly mistitled, oops)

Label description:
“In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, the Depression gripped the Nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds. This collection is a wild garden grown from those seeds.” – Tom Waits, from the Introduction

Songs of death, destruction and disaster, recorded by black and white performers from the dawn of American roots recording are here, assembled together for the first time. Whether they document world-shattering events like the sinking of the Titanic or memorialize long forgotten local murders or catastrophes, these 70 recordings – over 30 never before reissued – are audio messages in a bottle reflecting a lost world where age old ballads rubbed up against songs inspired by the day's headlines.

Featuring beautifully remastered recordings by the some of the cornerstones of American vernacular recording such as Charlie Patton, Ernest Stoneman, Furry Lewis, Charlie Poole and Uncle Dave Macon, these songs tell of life and death struggles forever immortalized on these rare and compelling 78 rpms. Produced and annotated by the Grammy winning team of Christopher King and Henry “Hank” Sapoznik with an introduction by Tom Waits, the accompanying 48-page three-CD anthology designed by Grammy award winning Susan Archie brims with many eye-popping historic images never before reproduced.

TRACK LISTING:

Disc 1: Man vs. Machine
1. Titanic Blues - Hi Henry Brown & Charley Jordan
2. Wreck Of The Old 97 - Skillet Lickers
3. Bill Wilson - Birmingham Jug Band
4. The Crash Of The Akron - Bob Miller
5. The Fate Of Talmadge Osborne - Ernest Stoneman
6. El Mole Rachmim (Fur Titanik) - Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt
7. The Wreck Of The Virginian - Alfred Reed
8. Fate Of Will Rogers & Wiley Post - Bill Cox
9. Down With The Old Canoe - The Dixon Brothers
10. Wreck Of Number 52 - Cliff Carlisle
11. Kassie Jones Part 1 - Furry Lewis
12. Kassie Jones Part 2 - Furry Lewis
13. The Brave Engineer - Carver Boys
14. The Sinking Of The Titanic - Richard Rabbitt Brown
15. Fate Of Chris Lively And Wife - Blind Alfred Reed
16. Wreck On The Mountain Road - Red Fox Chasers
17. The Unfortunate Brakeman - Kentucky Ramblers
18. Altoona Freight Wreck - Riley Puckett
19. The Fatal Wreck Of The Bus - Mainer's Mountaineers
20. Last Scene Of The Titanic - Frank Hutchison
21. Casey Jones - Skillet Lickers
22. The Wreck Of The Westbound Airliner - Fred Pendleton & The West Virginia Melody Boys
23. The Titanic - Ernest Stoneman
24. When That Great Ship Went Down - William & Versey Smith


Disc 2: Man Vs. Nature
1. The Story Of The Mighty Mississippi - Ernest Stoneman
2. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues - Robert Hicks (Barbecue Bob)
3. Dixie Boll Weevil - Fiddlin' John Carson
4. Mississippi Boweavil - Charley Patton
5. Ohio Prison Fire - Bob Miller
6. Memphis Flu - Elder Curry
7. Explosion In The Fairmount Mine - Blind Alfred Reed
8. Storm That Struck Miami - Fiddlin' John Carson
9. When The Levee Breaks - Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie
10. Alabama Flood - Andrew Jenkins
11. Burning Of The Cleveland School - J. H. Howell's Carolina Hillbillies
12. High Water Everywhere, Part I - Charley Patton
13. High Water Everywhere, Part 2 - Charley Patton
14. Ryecove Cyclone - Martin & Roberts
15. McBeth Mine Explosion - Cap, Andy & Flip
16. Dry Well Blues - Charley Patton
17. Baltimore Fire - Charlie Poole
18. Tennessee Tornado - Uncle Dave Macon
19. Dry Spell Blues, Part 2 - Son House
20. The Santa Barbara Earthquake - Green Bailey
21. The Death Of Floyd Collins - Vernon Dalhart
22. The Porto Rico Storm - Carson Robison Trio
23. Boll Weavil - W.A. Lindsey & Alvin Condor
24. The Flood Of 1927 - Elders McIntorsh And Edwards

Disc 3: Man vs. Man
1. Peddler And His Wife - The Appalachia Vagabond (Hayes Shepherd)
2. The Little Grave In Georgia - Earl Johnson
3. Kenney Wagner's Surrender - Ernest Stoneman
4. Henry Clay Beattie - Kelly Harrell
5. The Murder Of The Lawson Family - Carolina Buddies
6. Ommie Wise - Clarence Ashley
7. Railroad Bill - Will Bennett
8. Frankie - Dykes Magic City Trio
9. Trial Of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Part 1 - Bill Cox
10. Trial Of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Part 2 - Bill Cox
11. Lanse Des Belaires - Dennis McGee & Ernest Fruge
12. Darling Cora - B.F. Shelton
13. Billy Lyons And Stack O' Lee - Furry Lewis
14. Tom Dooley - Grayson And Whitter
15. The Story Of Freda Bolt - Floyd Country Ramblers
16. Pretty Polly - John Hammond
17. Fingerprints Upon The Windowpane - Bob Miller
18. The Bluefield Murder - Roy Harvey & The North Carolina Ramblers
19. Frankie Silvers - Ashley, Clarence And Gwen Foster
20. Fate Of Rhoda Sweeten - Wilmer Watts
21. Dupree Blues - Willie Walker
22. Poor Ellen Smith - Dykes Magic City Trio

piano space.........

a rare one this is folks, grab while you can.

Aki Takahashi
Piano Space (CP2 records) - 3LP vinyl set
(as far as I know never released on CD and LP has been out of print for years.....)



LP1 (CP23):
Side A:
Toru Takemitsu: Uninterrupted rests 8:45
Toru Takemitsu: Piano distance 5:38
Joji Yasa: Cosmos haptic 7:38
Joji Yasa: On the keyboard 7:39

Side B:
Keijiro Satoh: Calligraphy for piano 5:53
Yori-Aki Matsudaira: Allotropy for piano 8:24
Shuko Mizuno: Tone for piano 13:20

LP2 (CP24):
Side A:
Toshi Ichiyanagi: Piano media 6:13
Maki Ishii: Aphorismen für einen Pianisten 8:35
Shigeaki Saegusa: Baire's theorem 18:57

Side B:
Jo Kondo: Air I for amplified piano with trumpet 5:14
Yuji Takahashi: Maeander 22:58

LP3 (CP25):
Side A:
Anton Webern: Variationen für Klavier Op.27 - 7:08
Pierre Boulez: Première Sonate pour piano 4:48 + 5:00
Luciano Berio: Sequenza IV 10:48
Iannis Xenakis: Herma 6:42

Side B:
Olivier Messiaen: Mode de valeurs et d'intensités 3:26
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Klavierstück XI 7:05
Sylvano Bussotti: Piano Pieces for David Tudor 3 - 7:35
John Cage: Winter Music (1957) 9:20

Aki Takahashi, piano. Hosei Soken, trumpet (in Kondo)


links in comments.........



enjoy

Hosokawa redux - accordion/sho

In spite of a kinda new-age title, a thick, tight, laser-focused record of ur-timbral drone-magic...maybe one of my favorite drone-oriented recordings ever. Awesome.

Toshio Hosokawa / Gagaku: DEEP SILENCE (Wergo Concept Series 68012)
http://rapidshare.com/files/74380824/Hosokawa_DeepSilence.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/74379950/Hosokawa_DeepSilence.part2.RAR
(mp3-256)

Label description:
“Music,” says Toshio Hosokawa, “is the place where notes and silence meet.” This identifies his aesthetic concept as a genuinely Japanese one. It is found both in Japanese landscape painting and in the music, such as the courtly gagaku, in which audible sound always stands in relation to nonsound, i.e. to silence. In their rhythmic proportions Hosokawa's compositions are oriented around the breathing methods of Zen meditation, with their very slow breathing in and very slow breathing out: “Each breath contains life and death, death and life.”
Mayumi Miyata (sho – the instrument of the universe or of tradition) and Stefan Hussong (accordion – the human or contemporary instrument) are among the most important interpreters of Hosokawa's music, which here is framed by four traditional gagaku pieces.

Toshio Hosokawa:
1. Cloudscapes. Moon Night for sho and accordion
2. Sen V for accordion
3. Wie ein Atmen im Lichte for sho solo

Traditional Gagaku:
1. Banshikicho no choshi for accordion and sho
2. Oshikicho no choshi for sho solo
3. Hyojo no choshi for accordion solo
4. Ichikotsucho no choshi for accordion and sho

CHIN

history time....
As Jamaica's original music, all other Jamaican music can trace its roots to mento.
Some styles of mento would evolve into ska and reggae. (As a matter of fact, some mento songs are still being recorded "inna dancehall stylee" today.)

CHIN'S Calypso CD 1


1 Honeymoon
2 Monkey's Opinion
3 Look Before You Leap
4 Riddle Me This
5 Guzoo Doctor
6 Why Jamaican Man Tan So
7 No Money No Music
8 Woman's Style
9 Jamaican Bananas
10 My New Year Rules
11 Mussu And John Tom
12 A Food Wedding
13 Woman's Tenderness
14 Adam And Eve
15 Melda
16 Why Blame Calypso



Calypso/Mento recorded for Chin's Radio Service at 48 Church St. in Kingston Jamaica,in the 50s. personally recorded by the artist. A classic, vintage recording.

The Chin's Calypso Sextet Band consisted of a Rumba Box,a Bamboo Saxophone, a Bamboo Flute, a Banjo, a floor Bass Guitar with four strings, a regular Guitar, two heavy sticks called clave, which they knock together, and a pair of Maracas.
Most of the instruments were made with local materials, the Maracas was made from a fruit called Calabash, with some Jancrow beads put in as shaker.
Most of the musicians were from the country districts but lived in Kingston, Everard F. Williams was the lyrics composer and band manager, Alerth Bedasse was the musical arranger, singer and director of the band.
All the recordings were done with a recording machine that used a cutting needle to cut grooves into 10inch 78 rpm vinyl resin discs. The microphones used were the large old ribbon types, RCA and Shure, they were very good.There were no acoustic rooms for recording, the recordings were done in the store at nights, after the store was closed, the floor was concrete, the ceiling was low and made with gypsum.

The musicians in the Chin's Calypso Sextet Band were the salt of the earth Jamaicans of the old days, they played calypso/ mento music from their hearts, they put everything they had into their music.

Most of the lyrics were done in Jamaican English PAT WA (PATOIS ).


r

Beautiful Beast

This is completely different than wendy/walter carlos switched on bach series. Some consider this CD as a classic in microtonal or alternate tuning compositions. It has been very hard to find for several years due to the original record label going bankrupt but has recently been re-issued
in an enhanced edition CD which you can buy at most music stores such as amazon etc.....

Wendy Carlos [aka walter carlos]
Beauty In The Beast



Incantation (6:47)
Beauty In The Beast (3:57)
Poem For Bali (17:40)
Just Imaginings (12:07)
That's Just It (3:36)
Yusae-Aisae (3:12)
C'est Afrique (6:13)
A Woman's Song (4:09)

======================================================

About the Music

1: Incantation -- In Himalayan monasteries monks gather in solemn dignity to bestow upon God a sound so awesome that no mere mortal can be left unmoved. In this fantasy, prayer-wheels and Tibetan bells are combined with subharmonic voices and an orchestra of drums, cymbals, hand bells. shawms, and several kinds of horns, all in the tritone rich authentic scales from Bhutan and Tibet.

2: Beauty In The Beast -- The title cut of the album, this compact piece whimsically blends two quasi grotesque ideas with a romantic theme in best "Ballet Russe" style. The new scales used for all of this are quite odd the first heard called Beta, splits the perfect fourth into two equal parts (actually eight equal steps of nearly 64 cents each ), the second, Alpha, does the same to the minor third (four equal steps for 78 c. each). While both scales have nearly perfect triads two remarkable coincidences!), neither can build a standard diatonic scale, and so the melodic motion is strange and exotic. The two forces, beast and beauty, shift back and forth, and things are never quite what they seem.

3: Poem For Bali -- While in Bali in 1983 (chasing a total solar eclipse) I fell in love with this island, its culture and people and their love of the arts. (Note that the cover painting is from Bali. ) I still cannot get the sound of its music from my ears. "Poem for Bali" is an homage written to express these emotions. The ten-section continuous work is composed wholly in the Pelog and Slendro tunings of their rich gamelan tradition, but filtered through my decidedly western point of view. Section four is based on the Barong dance; I performed it on a close replica of their Gamelan ensemble. Section nine is really a mini-concerto for such an ensemble, accompanied by a western symphonic orchestra (sadly this can't be done in the acoustic world due to tuning conflicts). The rest paints an impressionistic canvas of moods amenable to this magical island.

4: Just Imaginings -- How exciting that the computer controlled digital synthesizer age has arrived. We can finally "have our cake and eat it, too!" In the past we had to choose between perfect tuning (a just intonation), or totally free modulations (an equal-step temperament), and most of us chose the latter. This composition is all perfectly tuned in a "Super-Just" scale I call the Harmonic Scale, which continues past the 5th harmonic of just, all the way to the (prime) 19th harmonic! But then, in a 144 notes per octave slight of hand, it modulates all over, including two circles of fifths, at the main climaxes to section one (Kaleidoscope) and three (Dreams). Section two (Chroma) combines polytonal clusters of "super-just" chords with a busier foreground. This contrasts with the more upbeat first, and stream of consciousness third sections, both etudes in contrast and surprise.

5: That's Just It and 6: Yusae-Aisae -- These two closely-related pieces, written immediately before "Just Imaginings," are also in the Harmonic Scale. They are my studies in learning how to control the Harmonic Scale, before I began to modulate with it. Both also explore some of the more unusual melodic intervals of this scale, which while more acoustically satisfying to the human ear than the arbitrary intervals of equal temperament, have remained difficult to obtain up until now, and so are seldom heard. That's too bad, because we've really been deprived of all the gorgeous exotic modes and harmonies of tuning in the natural way, instead of the mathematical way we've been tied to these past 300 years, since Papa Bach adopted it as the best available compromise.

The point of departure for "That's Just It" is an imaginary jazz sextet, with solo trumpet and tenor sax. "Yusae-Aisae" conjures a Hollywoodesque Mid-Eastern marketplace. While both pieces use exactly the same tuning, to western ears the slithery arabesques of "That's Just It" may sound peculiar, but the latter quite authentic. I suspect that an arab musician would hold the opposite opinion: the Harmonic Scale is no more an arabic tuning than Chow Mein is from China!

7: C'est Afrique -- I've lucky to visit Africa several times, and find the many cultures and musics of the African people every bit as captivating as those of Bali. This piece is my first attempt to suggest a (tiny) portion of their art. It has four short sections, all in the authentic tunings, which are not too different from our own. There can't be any more rhythmically sophisticated music than African, and that's what these four sections, with their quasi-realistic timbres and extrapolations, are about. (As with the Gamelan sections of "Poem For Bali," they were surprisingly tricky, but also a lot of fun to play!)

8: A Woman's Song -- By combining ideas from several regions we arrive at the elegant final work of BitB. The melody, based on a song by a Bulgarian Shepherdess (the woman of the title), is titled: "Izel je Delyo Hajdutin." To that long-flowing melisma I've added the tambura and dilruba from India (replacing the Bulgarian bagpipes), and an appropriate raga tuning. Western horns and crotales, plus several hybrid timbres round out the orchestration. While no synthesizer is yet any match for Valya Balkanska's electric mezzo soprano (whose performance was included on the Voyager records), the instrumental version here forms an appropriately haunting conclusion for all of our beastly beauties.

--Wendy Carlos

m

enjoy.....

NGOMA 02 / 03

several parties during the winter of 2007/8. christmas and new years bashment, and an art happening where we played the after party. sadly only a few PHOTOS from them...

NGOMA

this was our very first official event at Fire Club. that place was kinda fun... maybe there will be another NGOMA there... PHOTOS

jus a likkle taste

of new sounds from a couple of the poorest country in the world.









wiki on bongo flava
wiki on genge
wiki on boomba

electric medicine

I cross the streams. All the time. That is how I've ended up here (wherever this is).

Electric Company is a solo project of Brad Laner, who most notably played guitar and noise for the excellent early 90s alternative rock/shoegazery-ish band Medicine. Electric Company was also a children's television program in the US, but that is immaterial to this post. I came upon these records as various interests of mine converged many years back - being innovative rock, noise music, and general laptoppery. While these two albums are quite different in style and technique, they each handle the creation of artsy-noise-music-that-is-almost-catchy in a playful manner.


a pert cyclic omen

this is noisy, hazy, crazy. a musician having fun in the studio. there are hints of shoegazeryness, but full of loops running on their own power - collisions, elisions.


exitos

exitos was released on tigerbeat6 - and in many obvious ways differs a pert cyclic omen, very electronic, glitchy and spare. but the sense of noise, contrast and collision is still present, along with some serious hooks. this is definitely what makes Electric Company one of my favorite "lost" acts of turn of the century laptopping - so idiosyncratic, yet at ease with hints of genre, equal parts challenge and ease.

I go through my collection, looking for something to put on the stereo, and can't believe I have these records (among all the other records I can't believe I have). This makes me happy.

------------------------------

also, a boozy toast to aporia6 joining the crew here.

bb

Jonathan Coleclough 2: Collaborations

So among these, I hands-down recommend the one with Lethe (Kuwayama Kiyoharu, perhaps best known as half of the duo Kuwayama-Kijima with Rina Kijima, responsible for some really dramatic and mysterious site-specific improvisation released by the likes of Trente Oiseaux and Alluvial), which is really, really amazing, in my own contingent but triple-tested opinion. That's the dark stuff, and heady heady heady. Also recommended is the collaboration with Murmur. The one with Liles is not quite so much my cup of tea but is sure to appeal to others in a way I can't quite manage. The Low Ground recording with Colin Potter is exemplary and might be the most essential document after the one with Lethe (and lots of fans of Coleclough and/or Potter would probably place it first).


Jonathan Coleclough & Lethe: LONG HEAT
2005 - Standard edition: Digipak CD, edition of 700, ICR43 (UK)
2005 - Special edition - Digipak CD & bonus CD - edition of 250 - ICR43/44 (UK)
http://rapidshare.com/files/62667230/JCL_LH.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/62649100/JCL_LH.part2.RAR

This is the special edition of 250 copies, consisting of 2 CD's with each one track:
CD 1 Long Heat (54:37)
CD 2 Long Heat Second Part (38:14)

Long Heat is the result of a collaboration between Jonathan Coleclough and Lethe (Kuwayama Kiyoharu) which started when the two performed together in 2002.

Lethe website: http://www.lethe-voice.com/kk/
Available directly from ICR at http://www.icrdistribution.com/


Jonathan Coleclough & murmer: HUSK (ICR, 2006)
http://rapidshare.com/files/63075614/JC_M_Husk.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63073445/JC_M_Husk.part2.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63072852/JC_M_Husk.part3.RAR

Husk is released in three versions:
Standard edition: ICR57 (edition of 700)
Special edition 1: ICR57 + ICR58 (edition of 200)
Special edition 2: ICR57 + ICR58 + ICR59 (edition of 47, only 25 for sale)

Husk is the first product of an ongoing collaboration between Jonathan Coleclough and murmer (US born composer Patrick McGinley.) They first met in 2002 after appearing on the compilation LP Chaleur, and soon began work on the material that would become Husk Sharing a fascination with using found sound in their music, Husk includes recordings of refrigerators, thunderstorms, sheep, car horns, ferryboats, windblown sand, crackling charcoal, as well as more conventional instrumental sounds including a variety of percussion instruments. Much of the music started as live improvisation, in one case during a radio broadcast on McGinleyís regular Framework slot on the London-based radioart station Resonance FM. These live recordings have been carefully edited and mixed over several years.

Husk is packaged in a 6-panel Digisleeve featuring photographs by Patrick McGinley.

The first 200 copies of Husk include a second CD of pieces recorded over the same period. A further 47 copies (only 25 of them for sale) include both CDs plus an additional uniquely packaged CDR, each one containing a unique composition. The music for these CDRs is based entirely on recordings made in McGinley's home in London during April 2006, his final month there before moving to France.

murmer's website: http://www.murmerings.com

Jonathan Coleclough & Andrew Liles: TORCH SONGS
http://rapidshare.com/files/63380898/JC_AL_TC.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63373295/JC_AL_TC.part2.RAR

'Torch Songs' is released in two versions:
Standard Edition: Double L.P · DS93 (edition of 300)
Special Edition: Double L.P + CD· DS93/DS93X (Edition of 300)

'Torch Songs' is a collaboration between Jonathan Coleclough and Andrew Liles.
Coleclough and Liles met in October 2004 when they both performed at Intergration 3 in Preston, UK. Liles subsequently reworked the recording of Coleclough's solo performance from that evening. He went on to add, subtract, multiply and divide further live recordings supplied by Coleclough, and the eventual result was this double LP.
'Torch Songs' is packaged in a gatefold sleeve featuring 'I Dreamt I was a River,' a poem composed and painted by Geoff Sawers during a performance with Coleclough in Geneva in March 2005. The sound of Geoff's brush painting this lettering can be heard on side B of 'Torch Songs.'
There is a special edition of 'Torch Songs' which includes an additional CD of Coleclough's solo performance at Intergration 3, the basis for some of the music on 'Torch Songs.'



Jonathan Coleclough & Tim Hill: BEECH FOR JOHN AND MIHO
http://rapidshare.com/files/64236604/JC_TH_BJM.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/64235322/JC_TH_BJM.part2.RAR

2003 · CD · Spool 01 · Seal Pool · Japan
Standard edition: CD · edition of 450
Special edition: CD + ‘art edition’ 3" CDR in hand-decorated envelope · edition of 50

This is a regular CD release of the piece first released as a CDR in 2002.



Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter: LOW GROUND
http://rapidshare.com/files/64804423/JC_CP_LG.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/64789173/JC_CP_LG.part2.RAR

2003 · CD · ICR33 · ICR · UK · edition of 300
2002 · CD · ICR33 · ICR · UK · edition of 500
‘Tunnel’ previously appeared on the Murray one | Tunnel CDR.

Different kinds of mourning: Bass Communion, Coleclough, Liles

I have my own hesitations about a lot of "ambient" music, because the manner so often pulls the rug out from under the matter. I mean, synth-pads/presets and drones are not enough. "Evocative" (depending on what you mean by that, and how you go for it) is not enough. If "ambient" is to mean anything more than "advertising", which is to say, easy-listening, then it would seem that attention to, well, attention is well-nigh crucial. Someone who hasn't put the proper attention into the material and the form of the field that they're working with, is simply slopping givens at me. I will know the difference, and I will accordingly reject such laziness as cynicism, not ambience.

That said, the Bass Communion project of neo-prog-sensations Porcupine Tree's svengali, Steve Wilson, rather took me by surprise. At least this one hallowed record, Ghosts on Magnetic Tape. It's elegiac. Nuff said. I am several listens through it and it holds me.


Bass Communion: Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
(Headphone Dust CD - HDBCCD9, released February 2004)
http://rapidshare.com/files/66426414/BC_GMT.zip

In vinyl replica gatefold card sleeve. Also 300 copies available as a double CD including Andrew Liles reconstruction disc [please see below].

A little hype for you: This is the third full length album by SW's Bass Communion project and is a one hour work divided into 5 distinct sections. The album is inspired by alleged tape recordings of the dead communicating with the living world, paranormal research most famously practised by scientist Konstantine Raudive in the 1970's. This is a spectral and brooding album, rich with dark clouds of sound, beautiful textures, creepy drones and eerie crackling. SW considers this to be one of the finest recordings he has ever made.

Also here, perhaps of interest not least because of its rarity, is the version of the entire Ghosts album done by Andrew Liles, whose work usually bores the shit out of me, but seems to be someone respected by many whose taste I respect. It's actually not too bad. It was included as a bonus disc in a very short-run reissue of Ghosts on Magnetic Tape.


Bass Communion/Andrew Liles: Ghosts on Magnetic Tape - A Liles Reconstruction (Headphone Dust CD - HDBCCD9X, June 2004)
http://rapidshare.com/files/66432961/BC_GMT_Liles.zip

500 copies in plain white wallet for inserting into sleeve of HDBCCD9, 200 copy special art edition, and 300 copies pre-packed into 2CD version of HDBCCD9 (1,000 copies total).

Yet another collaboration brings Bass Communion together with Nurse With Wound studio-svengali Colin Potter and Potter's frequent collaborator Jonathan Coleclough, whose work I'm featuring prominently on the blog, as it's often strong and to my own taste. Of note for those with not-much interest in Bass Communion is the fact that over this lengthy 2cd set, the vast majority of final-cuts are given to Potter/Coleclough, including the entire second disc, a 70+ minute behemoth with Coleclough on the goddamn masterfade. Right! Good thick ambient goop and not-bad throughout.


Jonathan Coleclough · Bass Communion · Colin Potter
(2003 · double CD · ICR 39 · ICR · UK)
http://rapidshare.com/files/63481413/JC_BC_CP_2cd.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63473910/JC_BC_CP_2cd.part2.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63472237/JC_BC_CP_2cd.part3.RAR

The extra artist(s) listed for each track were the sound sources, which the listed artist "mixed" to form the finished piece.
The sound sources are not identified by original track title or album, or whether the source material has originally seen prior release or has been constructed especially for this project.
Therefore, the sound sources are treated as collaborators, with the "remixer" being the artist.
Track details, as listed on the cd:
1-1 Sources: Bass Communion | Mix: Potter
1-2 Sources: Potter & Coleclough | Mix: Bass Communion
1-3 Sources: Bass Communion | Mix: Potter
1-4 Sources: Bass Communion & Coleclough | Mix: Coleclough
2-1 Sources: Bass Communion | Mix: Coleclough

Coleclough and Potter’s remix ‘Drugged IV’ appeared on the Bass Communion remix CD in early 2003. But they recorded far more material. This release includes much of that music, along with a Bass Communion mix of some of Coleclough and Potter’s material.
Saxophone on ‘Pethidine’ and ‘Epidural’ played by Theo Travis.

Jonathan Coleclough 1

A favorite drone-based tape composer o' mine. Rhetoric to a minimum now. If your time is limited, I think I recommend the 2002 ("Alternate") version of Cake above all, followed by Halant-Heat-Beech. If your tastes are a bit less toward the grit/grind of konkret, and you prefere a little less tooth in your grain, I certainly recommend the more "ambient" Windlass, which is smooth but also strong.



Jonathan Coleclough: CAKE (two versions)
(Siren03/Robot14 · Siren/Robot · Japan/USA)
http://rapidshare.com/files/63076508/JC_Cake1998.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/64081132/JC_Cake2002.zip

First release: 1998 · edition of 500
Second release: 2002 · (alternate version in same packaging) · edition of 300

Tracklist:
First release (1998)
1. Cake (35.22)

Second release (2002)
1. Cake (41.05)

Although they are packaged identically, the two releases of this CD have different versions of the music.
Recorded in Cornwall, Ballymakenny and Wired. Thanks to Chris Britton, Colin Blakey and Áine Dunne. Colin Blakey can be found at The Shipbuilders website, which hosts the interactive and evolving Dronezone.



Jonathan Coleclough: Halant | Heat | Beech
2002 · CDR · self-released · UK · edition of 150
http://rapidshare.com/files/63462497/JC_HHB.zip

This CDR was made for a trip to Japan.

Tracklist:
1. Halant · Jonathan Coleclough (15.08)
2. Heat · Jonathan Coleclough (5.01)
3. Beech · Jonathan Coleclough & Tim Hill (19.44)

‘Halant’ uses wire recordings made by Alan Lamb.
‘Heat’ is a different version from the one on the Chaleur compilation.
‘Beech’ was recorded live in Edinburgh on 7 March 2002.



Jonathan Coleclough: Makruna/Minya
2004 - CD - ICR40/Siren 12 - ICR/Siren - UK/Japan - edition of 500
http://rapidshare.com/files/63407691/JC_MM.part1.RAR
http://rapidshare.com/files/63401749/JC_MM.part2.RAR

Tracklist:
1. Makruna (38.20)
2. Minya (29.37)
3. Makruna coda (1.53)

An earlier version of "Minya" was released as a limited edition CDR.


Jonathan Coleclough: WINDLASS
1999 · CD · KIP016 · KIP · Netherlands · edition of 500
http://rapidshare.com/files/63469282/JC_Windlass.zip

From the sleevenotes:
I first met Jonathan Coleclough at one of Lady Blacksell’s impromptu but lighthearted garden parties. He cowered on the lawn and spoke about films. He went on to study Snipe in ditches with me for many a year and moved easily in the most fashionable salons before his sudden relocation to the Free State of Eldonia. There he shuns polite society and builds some sort of machinery, I forget what, whilst issuing to the world increasingly peremptory and imperious manifestos at which the world, of course, merely snuffles. He refused to see me upon my last visit, but I will always respect him for his sybaritic swish. He has few friends, no hobbies, and moves with the grace of a sloth.
Don Coyote


Cheers to my friends zhao and bills, and thanks to them for patience in not taking extended and fitfull silences as any kinda fuck-you or whatnot. Also cheers to tom and welcome to this little endeavor. Krewe!

dj Zhao - DOWN SOUTH BANGIN VOL.1 MURDA MUSICK

1 in 3 African American males between ages 15 and 25 is rotting in a prison cell. every year, the CIA pumps 60 BILLION dollars worth of narcotics, mainly crack and heroin, into the ghettos (source Mike Rupert, political commentator, ex-CIA, ex-LAPD). education and pulling-up-by-bootstraps for a people systematically marginalised, disempowered, and disenfranchised for multiple generations is much, much easier said then done.

gangsterism is a grave and serious problem in the black community. drug dealing, prostitution, and petty violence breaks up families, leaves lives ruined (or very prematurely over), and perpetuates a culture of despair.

but there is a reason young people the world over (and millions of older folks too, like me ha) love gangsta-rap. and there is a reason why i hear Dirty-South Hiphop in high-end shopping centers in unlikely parts of Europe. and the reason is this -- there is something in the ghettos, in the projects, in the concrete-cotton-fields, that the rest of the world is missing, that the rest of us envy, want, and need:

a raw vitality, a life-or-death urgency, and a visceral in-the-moment experience of life.

this mix is a collection of some of my personal all time favorite contemporary Rap from Houston, Memphis, Atlanta, etc. --- what is known as the Dirty South sound. in addition to some of the fiercest flows since invention of the microphone, there are lots of new production ideas, wicked electronic sounds and textures, and other formal innovations in terms of the hiphop cannon -- Maceo's Nextel Chirp (track 06) for example: East-Coast snobs need to take some notes (and get your game out of the coma it's been in). steering clear of the likes of 50 Cent and Outkast (not because they too "mainstream" but because i don't like their music), most of the big names in the underground are represented, including the illest tracks from the biggest mixtape series on the circuit. i wanted to keep it fresh, in the 2000s, so lots and lots of amazing shit from the past, such as early 90s Triple Six, Ghetto Boys, UGK, or joints from the early No Limit / Cash Money days, are not included. and instead of focusing on tripped out songs about weed and drank, or nasty songs about fucking and sucking, this mix is all about the meanest, darkest, bleakest, most brutal, thugged out and straight BANGIN' tunes i could get my grubby hands on in the summer of 2006. an hour long white-knuckled, blood-shot adrenaline rush, like an eightball to the brain.

to be sure, these are songs about drugs, guns, hos, and money. but if you look beyond the lyrics at face value, this music is about more than that. from the hopeless frustrations and beyond-desperate situations of life in dog-eat-dog abject poverty there arises a fearless and un-stoppable expression of rage and deep seated resentment toward pervasive, pandemic oppression, toward a state which continually sanctions and perpetrates the murder and torture of its own (second class) citizens.

i sometimes fantasize about all these rappers putting political messages directly, upfront in their songs, instead of as (largely) unacknowledged subtext. what if they directed their anger at the system, instead of at eachother... (and instead of shooting up the neighborhood, burning down Beverly Hills) but this is largely impossible for mainly 2 reasons: 1. it would not be allowed, radio plays will stop for artists that decide to do this, and other ignorant thugs will take their place. and 2. this music is BORN of thug-life, and it will, sure as the earth is round or we all die some day, continue to be what it has been. it really is a sad, sad situation with no end in sight. and we must all remember that, even as we get hype and bounce to this mix.

the majority of visitors to this blog will be at best not into this kind of music, and at worst harbor unshakable prejudices against it. but that is why i decided to post this -- the polar opposite of most of the music presented on Different Waters. just like my love for the music of Morton Feldman or Steve Lacy, i love this music for what it is. and i hope that some of you who would never normally go there, maybe after a bad day at work or just feeling punchy, might do up a few rails or sip on some syrup, turn up the bass and just get BUCK to this -- your life will only be richer because of it.

note: haven't done a proper cover for this one but that picture of Young Buck just about says it all...

tracklist from memory:

01 Intro
02 Young Jeezy - Gangster Music
03 Bun-B - Dripped Up and Draped Out
04 Paul Wall with Rapid Ric - Tall Tee [from Whut it Dew mixtape series vol. 1]
05 Lil Wayne - How you Ride
06 Maceo - Nextel Chirp
07 Project Pat (i think?) with DJ Smallz [from Southern Smoke mixtape series]
08 Project Pat and Frasier Boy [from Ghetty Green album]
09 Swisha House f/ ??? Mystery MC
10 Three Six Mafia - Got It For Sale
11 Bun-B, ??? Mystery MC, and DJ Drama [from Gangsta Grillz mixtape series]
12 Swisha House f/Mike Jones and Mz. Trinity - Rulez
13 Disturbing Tha Peace f/ Shawnna - Posted
14 DJ Smallz - Dirty South Instrumentals
15 Lil Wayne
16 ??? Mystery Femcee [from Southern Smoke mixtape series]
17 Lil Jon [from Crunk Juice album]
18 Trillville - No Problem
19 DJ Drama with Killer Mike, Bubba Sparxxx, Three-6-Mafia - Get 'Em Shawty [from Got That Purp mixtape]
20 T.I. - You Don't Know Me
21 David Banner (I think)
22 Akon with Young Jeezy - Soul Survivor Alternate Version Remix
23 Lil' Wayne - Get Real Gangsta
24 Outro

bigup kid slizzard for filling in 4 important blanks in the tracklist.
(they is just a couple left and i ain't gon sweat it)

resta y'all stay true to tha game.

requests.......

here are some recent requests-please enjoy..........


Bang on a Can
Terry Riley -- In C


Released: March 1, 2001
Label: Cantaloupe Music

Performers

* Maya Beiser cello
* David Cossin glockenspiel, vibraphone
* Steve Gilewski bass
* Michael Lowenstern soprano saxophone
* Wu Man pipa
* Danny Tunick chimes, marimba
* Lisa Moore piano
* Todd Reynolds violin
* Mark Stewart electric guitar
* Evan Ziporyn clarinet
* Bang on a Can

r

(Damn that adams- his link has been delagated to the comment section for shakin' the boat and nauseating the crew and cap'n)

Alan Sondheim, "T'other Little Tune"


01 Beautiful
02 Varje
03 Messier
04 Rock
05 Day's Eve
06 Bludgeon
07 Think Synk
08 For Planck
09 Breath
10 Slang
11 Steven Crain
12 T'Other Little Tune

Alan Sondheim (Guitar), Alan Sondheim (Piano), Alan Sondheim (Trombone), Alan Sondheim (Marimba), Alan Sondheim (Mellophonium), Alan Sondheim (Recorder), Alan Sondheim (Sax (Soprano)), Alan Sondheim (Moog Synthesizer), Alan Sondheim (Recorder (Bass)), Alan Sondheim (Guitar (Classical)), Alan Sondheim (Main Performer), Alan Sondheim (Hawaiian Guitar), Alan Sondheim (Coordination), Alan Sondheim (Dilruba), Alan Sondheim (Bass Programming), Alan Sondheim (Melodeon), Alan Sondheim (Prepared Piano), Alan Sondheim (Jaltarang), John Emigh (Sax (Tenor)), Gregert Johnson (Flute), Gregert Johnson (Piccolo), Gregert Johnson (Moog Synthesizer), Paul Philips (Trumpet), June Sondheim (Piano), June Sondheim (Vocals), June Sondheim (Voices), Joel Zabor (Drums), Joel Zabor (Tabla), Joel Zabor (Moog Synthesizer), Joel Zabor, John B. Litweiler (Liner Notes), Bernard Stollman (Liner Notes), Tom "Tornado" Klatt (Liner Notes)

r




First ever reissue of "The Songs", the debut recording by Alan Sondheim
& Ritual All 770, originally released on Riverboat Records (later
recordings appeared on ESP Disk). Recorded in March 1967 and included
on the legendary Nurse With Wound list of experimental recordings, on
this album Alan Sondheim played Electric Guitar, Violin, Flute, Suling,
Xylophone, Alto Saxophone, Classical Guitar, Clarinet, Shenai, Bass
Recorder, Mandolin, So-na, Hawaiian Guitar, Koto, Sopranino Recorder,
Chimta, Cor Anglais, Sitar and Bansari.

Joined by Barry Sugarman (Tabla, Dholak & Naquerra), Chris Mattheson
(Bass), Robert Poholek (Trumpet & Cornet), Ruth Ann Hutchinson (Vocals),
June Fellows (Vocals) and J.Z. (Jazz Drums); Ritual All 770 were a group
of improvisors living in Providence, Rhode Island. (Perhaps they could
be considered the sonic forebearers of the Fort Thunder scene...)
Rejecting the notion that avant garde music was solely the realm of
isolated academia, they delved fearlessly and joyously into their
music, creating a work that sounds fresh nearly 40 years later.

r


ALAN WATTS' "THIS IS IT" (1962)
THE FIRST PSYCHEDELIC LP



Original release: MEA 1007, Sausalito, California 1962

No production or engineering credits

Participants listed as:

Alan Watts - incantations
Roger Somers - drums and chanting
Leah Ananda - conga drum
Joel Andrews - falsetto and evocations
Henry Jacobs - piano and French horn
William Loughborough - bass marimba and lujon

The LP begins with "an explosive dialogue" wherein Watts and associate Roger Somers rap and ramble over a crude piano and percussion backdrop; an extraordinary intensity rapidly builds and culminates in voices screaming and chanting "loveyouloveyouloveyou", abrutply cut off with a state of the art (for 1962) psychedelic echo effect. It's too tribal to be avantgarde art, too crude to be free jazz, too freaky to be rock'n'roll - it just is "IT", and that's all you can say about IT.

We are then greeted by Watts' delightful voice introducing the "Onion Chant". The confident mid-Atlantic lecturer tone that was such a hit with Bay Area radio listeners briefly recaps a theme from the acid visions of "The Joyous Cosmology", namely that the spiritual student finds himself in an infinite regress of self-realization, where he steps out of his phony egos over and over, like peeling the skin of an onion, until he reaches a point wherein there is almost nothing "genuine" left -- and the subsequent realization isn't moksha, but rather the insight that one is a fake. "He is artifice and insincerity, through and through and through...". This rather harsh message of liberation gives way to an extraordinary uptempo chant with conga drums supporting Watts' seemingly ad libbed trip into an aboriginal tribesman past. You can pick up the word "LSD" early in the chant, but this may be coincidental.

Watts was, among many other things, a great admirer of Japanese culture and tradition, which is echoed in the brief third track of instrumental music. This is followed by an obviously improvised "floating soliloquy" wherein Watts rambles like a true freak about whatever comes through his mind, sounding more like a Shakespeare stage actor zonked on acid than his eloquent lecturer self. "I am so strange in this... queer dark old stewpot..." is just the beginning of the trip, which leads way to some heavy metaphysical poetry about the human body and a rendezvous of friends "high in the sky like the moon". These "Fingernail pairings", supported by feeble avant-jazz snips, is as psychedelic as anything you're ever likely to hear.

Side 1 closes with "Umdagumsubudu", a "controlled accident" with frantic drumming and incomprehensible chanting back and forth, exploring in full the African/Caribbean tribal voodoo feel present throughout the album. It's spooky like an old Nonesuch field recording, except that this is a bunch of white beatnik heads aboard a Sausalito house-boat in 1962, rather than some age-old initiation rite. Uncontrolled laughter and an outburst of Watts coughing puts the listener right inside their freak scene.

Another strand in the colorful ball of "This Is IT" is the influence from religious music of the ecstatic, devotional type. Some of the rants have a tongue-speaking quality, while there is a clear presence of liturgical wailing at the beginning of side 2. This is the "Metamatic Ritual", a 14-minute "contemplative ritual mounting slowly to ecstasy". The whole gang joins in with various percussion instruments and chanting voices half-buried in the soundscape, the total impression being very effective and enchanting. Although improvised, it seems obvious that there was a clear group-mind at play here, much like you can find on tribal acidrock albums such as Beat Of The Earth, Yahowha 13 or Furekaaben; some call-response passages also recall the Merry Pranksters recordings from 1965-66. "Metamatic Ritual" is also the track which best displays the quality of the musicians, with some excellent drum/conga interplay.

"The End" naturally takes us back to the beginning, as it is partly the same track that opened the LP. There is some atmospheric, low-key wailing from Watts and Roger Somers, before the craziness creeps back in, with eerie piano excursions, percussion and incomprehensible ramblings in invented languages; an excellent use of stereo is demonstrated with the chanting voices taking up one channel each (side 1 is mono).

"This Is IT" is an extraordinary album on every level; it must be taken into account in any serious chronicle of psychedelia. Even in 2003 the album appears highly advanced and challenging, its intensity certain to surprise those expecting some bongo-beating beatniks mumbling about nirvana. Timelessness, courage and a sense of absolute freedom makes it a truly essential experience. The fact that it was created by one of the portal figures of the mid-century's spiritual revolution is just one aspect of its importance and appeal.

it


enjoy.............tom7865

rarities....

some treats for you today..... a couple of rare LP's....

first off is one that was recently reissued on the excellent creel pone record label.
(creel pone reissues rare electronic works in sets on 100 CD-R's only). This is however a rip from the vinyl LP I picked up many years ago....

thorkell sigurbjörnsson “la jolla good friday i - ii”

* la jolla good friday i (17’10”)
* la jolla good friday ii (21’15”)

creelpone press release:
reproduction of this 1981 lp featuring two wasted / buzzing / side-long / go-nowhere early computer pieces recorded on march 28th, 1975 that sound not unlike an airplane landing/taking off as realized by the programmers of an atari 2600 console video game...

this one’s kind of a tough nut to crack actually (mainly due to its’ inherent “nothingness”) but what i do find appealing is that despite being birthed from well within an “academic” environ (the hallowed halls of ucsd) this is probably more zonked/“automatic”-sounding than most private/bedroom-electronic lps of the same era (or of any time between 1975 and now.)

one thing’s for certain; this does a bang-up job of capturing a certain digital-age claustrophobia (think: wargames) than any other record i’ve heard... and yes, that “one man against the world” spirit i’m often referencing is here in droves...

r


this next album has never been re-issued as a CD and has been out of print for years....

(not the real cover which I could not find on web but very similar....)

Standing ; Sight rhythmics : for piano ; Under the umbrella
by Jō Kondō; Aki Takahashi; Sound Space "Ark" (Musical group); Nexus (Musical group)

Jo Kondo ( b. Tokyo, Japan, 1947) is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He graduated from the composition department of Tokyo University of Arts in 1972. He serves as Professor of Music at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo and also teaches at Tokyo University of Arts and Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima.

Kondo's works are often structured mathematically, using minimal principles of composition. However, the repetitions are very rarely literal and operating across the entire ensemble; rather, they are structural, adhering to the "20% redundancy" principle of evolutionary aesthetics. His interests include hocket, the music of Ancient Greece, and strong differences in instrumental timbre, all of which are reflected in his compositions. A similar stylistic point of reference would be the Italian composer Franco Donatoni. The chamber version of his 1975 composition Sight Rhythmics reflects the latter in its unusual instrumentation of violin, banjo, steel drum, electric piano, and tuba.

1 sound disc : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo. ; 12 in.
Note CP2/11.
The 1st work for flute, marimba, and piano, the 2nd for piano, the 3rd for 5 cowbells (5 players).
Sound Space "Ark" (1st work) ; Aki Takahashi, piano (2nd work) ; Nexus (3rd work).
Recorded 1973-1980, in Tokyo and Norland, Ont.
Durations: 7 min., 52 sec. ; 13 min., 13 sec. ; 23 min., 34 sec.
Program notes by Joaquim M. Benitez on container.

r


j Kondo


enjoy.....tom7865

love, love, love

yeah it sounds like sunshine, rainbows, flowers, and unicorns in the post subject. I'd say that it's in the eye of the beholder or that, but where it is actually is the hands and feet of Paal Nilssen-Love. He's a fucking jazz drummer. If you haven't seen him play, I say you're missing one of this era's great drummers. Not "percussionist" - drummer.



Here's three limited and long gone releases from Mr. Nilssen-Love in solo concert, and duos with fellow Norwegians Lasse Marhaug (noise) and Anders Hana (guitar). Yeah, it's from Norway w/Nilssen-Love or something like that. These will hit, split, and twist you (and your ears will have it thorough), nothing less than intense.



27 Years Later



AMFM



Personal Hygiene

------------------------

expect some updated links for my old posts in the next week or so.

full crew manning this vessel now. I expect weather.

bb

tune that piano..........

here is a repost of sorts.... Cap'n Zhao mentions this way back in the archives with a link to it on the once wonderful but now non-functional site classicalconnection, so here is seminal minimalist La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano, the 1988 Gramavision recording.

LA MONTE YOUNG: At the world premiere of The Well-Tuned Piano, the live world premiere in Rome in 1974, Pandit Pran Nath was there. And he said, "You literally transformed the traditional instrument of Europe before their eyes." Somehow, by tuning the piano in just intonation, it takes it back to the lyre of Orpheus and the harp of David which had to be tuned in a much simpler way, and it brings out some of those characteristics. The piano just depends on what you do with it. It's like everything else. Remember when electronic instruments came out and the Musician's Union said, "This is going to be a problem. Musicians are going to be out of work" and so forth. They weren't really. It just became another instrument. And what you do with electronics is what's important.

http://rapidshare.com/files/59473767/La_Monte_Young_-_The_Well-Tuned_Piano.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/59481805/La_Monte_Young_-_The_Well-Tuned_Piano.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/59490518/La_Monte_Young_-_The_Well-Tuned_Piano.part3.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/59493787/La_Monte_Young_-_The_Well-Tuned_Piano.part4.rar.html

(need to download all to get the 5 cd's)


enjoy..........tom7865

nautical matters

1: a big welcome to new crew member Tom7865. a seasoned navigator, since coming aboard he has already taken us to some strange and wonderful places. look forward to imminent new directions.

2: GraspRelease was released for getting (way) too drunk on shift but we had to grasp him back because his knowledge and wit (not to mention tolerence level) is rare and irreplaceable.

3. Team: i think we should sign our posts from now on. because for some reason people still think i'm the only one here, and a lot of stuff upped by you guys gets attributed to me. so please just write your name at the end of a post -- nobody reads the small print below.

4: think it's high time for a complete renovation and I'm going to go on a mission of re-upping all dead links on this boat. what y'all tink? might take some weeks. if anyone can help, crew member or passenger, please drop a line of what you intend to do. i will work from the beginning.

i think that's it. cheers to everyone.

- zhao

Reich early works.........

Steve Reich
Early Works (1987) [Compilation]

In 1965 in San Francisco, partly inspired by the phase experiments of Terry Riley's In C, Steve Reich was playing around with two identical tape loops he had recorded of a black Pentecostal preacher. Letting the loops go slightly out of phase, he became mesmerized by the complex sub-rhythms set up by the interference, the voice morphing into a pulsing Minimalist music. It's Gonna Rain lifts those three words out of the sermon, turning them into a rhythm -a flickering repeat that shears into depersonalized cyber tones. In a longer sequence, about people beseeching Noah to let them into the ark, the tape subdivides into eight loops of garbled counterpoint. In 1966 he pushed the voice of Daniel Hamm, arrested in the Harlem riots of 1964, even further towards a morass of hypnotic vibrations around the phrase "Come out to show them". A Techno prophecy

(FYI- this was #10 on The Wire's 100 works that set the world on fire while no one was listening)

http://rapidshare.com/files/54865292/10-_Steve_Reich__early_works.rar


enjoy.............

Obscure tape.............

Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol.3

★★Music Drama "Akai Mayu" (A Red Cocoon)

Edition Omega Point Archive Series OPA-003.
Limited edition of 500 copies.

1- makoto moroi (music) - koubou abe (text) _akai mayu/1960
2-6 kuniharu akiyama _arcana 19/1960

Notes: Akai Mayu (A Red Cocoon) is based on the short fiction by Koubou Abe (1924-1993). Performed at Sogetsu Art Center, Tokyo, Japan. Akai Mayu & Arcana 19 composed in 1960 and broadcast live by the Japan Broadcasting System NHK the same year.

http://rapidshare.com/files/44152991/obscure_tape_music_of_japan_vol_3.rar.html

enjoy........

Oliveros.....

Electronic Works
Pauline Oliveros



1. I of IV (1966)
2. Big Mother Is Watching You (1966)
3. Bye Bye Butterfly (1965)

from boomkat-

Another crucial collection of early electronics, this comes from American female electronic pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros was a composer and accordion player who sculpted experimental electronic music in a totally unique manner - as meditations on a certain subject or other. Developing her own techniques of recording and processing electronic instruments and also building her own synthesizers, Oliveros managed to come up with a sound which was way ahead of her time. Indeed listening to these three pieces (recorded in 1965 and 1966) makes me think that they could have been recorded yesterday - the ideas and concepts are still being explored now and are totally relevant. The first piece on the disc 'I of IV' is played in real-time using oscillating tones and tape loops to create the epic world of noise and ambience we, the listener, get to hear. It's a captivating world of echoing astral sounds, something like early Radiophonic Workshop but without the reliance on 'themes' or repetition... the improvisational aspect of this track is key, and it builds and grows in a way that would only occasionally be mirrored. The second piece 'Big Mother is Watching You' is even longer at over half an hour, but is no less compelling as tape loops of decomposed noise and concrete sounds make up a sludge of devilish audio. This is proto noise music at its finest, music that could still stand its own ground against modern noise acts such as Hair Police (who this piece sounds closest to I think...). The best however is saved until last with the 1965 piece 'Bye Bye Butterfly', a detailed composition made from electronic sounds, reel-to-reel tape and samples from Madame Butterfly. This might sound like a peculiar mix, but the end result is something close to Philip Jeck or Janek Schaeffer, with the pitched 'plunderphonic' sound reverberating underneath squealing electronic noise. An incredible portrait of one of electronic music's great figures, this will be enjoyed with a desire to hear more early electronic goodness in the same realm as Delia Derbyshire et al. Huge recommendation!


http://rapidshare.com/files/38001152/pauline_oliveros__Electronic_Works.rar.html

enjoy....

piero umiliani -Musica Dell'era Tecnologica

Impulsi
Catene Di Montaggio
Omini
Fruitori
Computer Nevrotico
Virus in Amore
Blues Machine
Lultimo Pastorello
Finalissimo Atomico
Antiquariato
Requiem Per Un Autotreno
Danza Dei Rocchetti
Marcia Dei Robots
Consumismo

ULTRA RARE experimental lp by the genius Piero Umiliani .... Very special and rare material......

Recorded at the soundworkshop studio de Roma.


(this is a vinyl rip, lots of pops etc)
http://rapidshare.com/files/25354186/piero_umiliani__-Musica_Dell_era_Tecnologica.rar.html

enjoy......

Pure Torture2....or....Objekt2

this was requested................

Objekt 2: Electronic & Concrète Music (1962-1988)
Rune Lindblad

1 Objekt 2 (Op. 25) (9:28)
2 Plasibenpius (Op. 30) (8:15)
3 Hälften Av Någonting (Op. 38) (6:39)
4 Frage (Op. 59) (6:25)
5 Tora (Op. 67) (5:43)
6 Maskinlandskap (Op. 122) (7:30)
7 Innan Konsert (Op. 190) (11:49)
8 Lagun I Uppror (Op. 197) (9:02)
9 Dimstråk (Op. 203) (3:23)

Second stellar CD of stark, mesmerizing & historical electronic and concrète. "Volume 2 of the music of Rune Lindblad (1923-1991). This CD consists of the remainder of the long out of print Radium double LP. These works cover the years 1962-1988. Lindblad, a Swede, began composing in 1953. Ignored by the musical establishment of Stockholm, Rune went his own merry way, composing over 200 works of electronic music. Limited in the early years to often primitive equipment, he carved out his own musical niche. The sounds were often raw, occasionally scary."

http://rapidshare.com/files/55328526/Rune_Lindblad.rar.html


enjoy..........

Pure Torture.... or......Death of the Moon....

Rune Lindblad - Death of the Moon


This disc is a reissue of lps on Pogus and Radium. Rune Lindblad (1923-1991) was an early pioneer in electronic and concrète music. Lindblad did not see these genres as mutually exclusive. Important and wonderful works by a composer who represented no institutionalized school of thought. At a concert in 1957, the critics called his music "pure torture." That's why I like him........

1 Party (9:33)
2 Månens Död (8:30)
3 Fragment 0 (9:10)
4 Fragment 1 (11:33)
5 Fragment 2 (9:56)
6 Evening (8:11)
7 Nocturne (6:19)
8 Optica (10:13)



Profile: Rune Lindblad (1923-1991) was born in Gothenburg, Sweden and after extensive art studies started teaching painting and graphic arts. He also graduated in chemical engineering. He first began composing in 1953. Lindblad was the first composer in Sweden to work only with electroacoustic sound material. This was a time when Cologne and Paris were fighting over the aesthetical differences between oscillator tone music and musique concrete on tape. Lindblad however did not see those genres as mutually exclusive. In fact he extended his work to incorporate other media besides music. In 1957 at Folket Hus in Gothenburg, he gave a public performance of his earlier works. Critics slated him brutally and described his concrete music as a "fad" and "pure torture." Rejecting the concert hall, Lindblad began experimenting with optics and sound. The following three years, he produced five works on 6000 feet of film. The last of these was Optica 2. Until the original release of these recordings on the Radium and Pogus labels there had been only two recordings of Rune Lindblad's compositions ever available. One was the single side of a 7" record released in 1957. Rune Lindblad taught at Gothenburg University, and numbered among his students Rolf Enstrom, Ake Pamerud, and Ulf Bilting.

http://rapidshare.com/files/54859355/Rune_Lindblad.rar.html

enjoy..................

time for Tape Play......

Tape Play
Kenneth Gaburo


"Over his career, Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) produced a lot of electronic music. However, works for tape alone are fairly rare in his output. Over about a thirty-year period, ten works for solo tape were produced. Of the ten tape pieces, five were created in the mid-1960s at the University of Illinois, one was created in 1974-5 in his home studio in La Jolla, and four were made in the studio at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, which he directed during the 1980s and early 1990s. Not surprisingly for a composer whose stated aim was to blur the distinctions between language and music, six of the ten pieces feature an overt use of the voice, while two of the 'purely electronic' pieces use timbres that are so vocal in character that one is constantly thrown back onto a consideration of Kenneth's main obsession, the voice. Only two of the pieces, both from the Illinois period, seem to not deal with the voice in any way."



http://rapidshare.com/files/54853105/Kenneth_Gaburo.rar.html

enjoy..................

I like it, that's why I post it.

here's a slice of forgotten americana that's just beginning to filter back in from the outer regions of the internet universe. Please enjoy.


Attilio Mineo Conducts

Man in Space
with Sounds

Attilio 'Art' Mineo

Label: Subliminal Sounds
Date Recorded: Early 50s,
Released: 1962

1. Welcome to Tomorrow

2. Gayway to Heaven

3. Soaring Science

4. Mile-A-Minute Monorail

5. Around the World

6. Century 21

7. Man in Art

8. The Queen City

9. Man Seeks the Future

10. Boeing Spacearium

11. Science of Tomorrow

12. Space Age World's Fair

13-24. All tracks as above, but without the spoken word introductions



Origin : 1962 Seattle World's Fair / 1997 Subliminal Sounds

The music on 'Man In Space With Sounds' was played in the Bubbleator. "The bubbleator was Washington State's official exhibit in the Coliseum which housed a "World of Tomorrow" exhibit. The Bubbleator, a 150 passenger spherical clear plastic elevator moved 2.5 million people through displays that promised an easier life ahead. The operator wore a silver shiny space suit right out of a Buck Rogers comic strip and is veeery, very cool indeed and the music to "Man in Space with Sounds" was being played through the sound system. Totally outer space man, totally. "Visitors ascend to the exhibit in a globe-shaped elevator for a 21 minute tour of the future." Visitors to the Seattle World's Fair loved the Bubbleator ride, which was eventually purchased for $5,100 and relocated after the fair's end to the Center House/Food Circus/Armory. In the early 80's the Center House was remodeled and the Bubbleator was auctioned off (amount unknown). The unknown buyers moved it to their home in North Seattle and turned it into a terrarium and that's where it sits today."


http://rapidshare.com/files/54837499/Attilio_Mineo_-_Man_In_Space.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/54841028/Attilio_Mineo_-_Man_In_Space.part2.rar.html



as always, enjoy......

a particular time or instance of event (lens blur)

over ten years ago when I got this album, I guess I didn't know what to expect. that's good, right? about 70 minutes of blasted and delicate sheets of guitar, vocal and noise. I guess we can all go on about "shoegaze" as it seems popular w/the kids these days, but this is an album for the seekers, it's blissed but harsh - pedals and a 4-track - it can explode if you stop staring at the light. another sadly OOP...




lovesliescrushing

xuvetyn

djzhao ghost dub

a mix from around 2003. if i was to make it today some of the tunes would be different on a couple of sections, but the mix still mroe than holds up. there are some goosebump or just simply bump moments like an ill beat dropping after the long jazz passage. no matter how slick or diverse my digital mixes in the (near) future will be, this thing i made with turntables will always be special.

sorry no tracklist - there are 36 tunes and it would be impossible, 5 years on.

file under:

bleep bass, digidub, electric boogaloo, darkhop, cabbage beats, alien jazz, triphop (?!?!), bionic reggae, mutants rap, call to arms, psycho drum'n'bass.

first 30 tracks
last 6 tracks