Leaky

Fans of MIA may be interested in her December 2010 mixtape.

http://vickileekx.com/

Rain Don't Fall

Many of you know that I'm a fanatic for old country and blues. And a fan of Mississippi Records, whose reissue compilations releases always are about as good as it gets.

Here are three I love, posted elsewhere. All the links work.

http://zambonisoundtracks.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/va-mississippi-records-oh-graveyard-you-cant-hold-me-always-2009-compilation/

http://ghostcapital.blogspot.com/2010/05/va-been-here-all-my-days-selections.html

http://ghostcapital.blogspot.com/2010/12/va-rain-dont-fall-on-me-country-blues.html

If you ever see these in stores, grab em. They go fast.

Against Perfection; Sunshine Smile

This is the first album by a less famous Creation records band, Adorable. Despite their name, apparently they were assholes, and really fucked up their career. Despite this, they made some great music. For me it connects cerebral pop post-punk to cerebral pop shoegaze. What I've assembled is a facsimile of the UK release, that included the PERFECT single "Sunshine Smile" along with the 10 tracks off the original album. (The original album of ten tracks appears to be available, but not the single. So I don't feel a whiff of guilt about sharing this. Well, maybe an iota of a whiff. But fuck it.) Plus some extra shit. Anyhow, this rocks and has melodies and only dives into the relentless NOISEGAZE only when musically appropriate. If you're tired of My Bloody Valentine, or never were into them, give these guys a chance. Top notch, and doesn't seem dated at all to me. I've done the two folders thing. Hopefully all the tagging worked out. If not, let me know. I've relented and have gone totally iTunes, despite my hatred for it. What I'd do is just drag the folders over to the library, make sure "copy files to iTunes library" and "manage folders" are ticked. Or do it your own way.

part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?firf86nnxzpxc2c

part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?dotppcy76b4hs2v

Homelessness

Don't know much about this. Just found it. After someone on facebook linked to this:



I think I have just entered a whole new wonderful world of music.



Komitas.

Now I just got to figure out how to find more of this music.

Please Warm My Weiner

Silly/smutty innuendo, surrounded by sly and buttery singing and awesome guitar playing. 

Bo Carter was a member and manager of the great Mississippi Sheiks (real name Armenter Chatmon, so he's related to Sam and the other Chatmons).

I confess that mostly I love these songs because they're dirty-minded. And so am I. But you could make a good case for him as one of the great songsters of the 1930s, if you prefer to seem above all that....

...If you don't prefer to seem above all that, enjoy this link with my smutty compliments:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kh2qm2ctf03l066/Bo%20Carter-%20Banana%20In%20Your%20Fruit%20Basket.zip

Let Your Doggone Head Go Bald

Great funky messy electric blues. Supposedly he had 11 fingers: started with six on each hand, cut one off with a razor blade.

Supposedly also had trouble keeping bandmates because he refused to make changes at the same time each time and would just gallop on and leave them behind.

In short, this is one of those dudes who seems almost imaginary, he's such a perfect blues cliche. Except that he was real, and the music proves it. It's raw and ragged and intense, note after note. In fact, almost the first thing you hear is that this is no Claptonesque smooth noodle blues. This fucker was serious.


So, download and love.

Link's in two pieces due to upload restrictions.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/w5tkujiu3w1d46r/Hound%20Dog%20Taylor%20and%20the%20Houserockers1of2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/btt7zcvkui2rb5z/Hound%20Dog%20Taylor%20and%20the%20Houserockers2of2.zip

Until Your Big Wheel Come

John Lee Hooker was one of the great musical forces of the twentieth century, and the contents of this album are among the greatest music ever made. There is no better male blues singer to be heard; there may be no better blues guitarist (despite or perhaps because of the limitations of his technique). He created his own style and used it with complete and utter mastery, for decade after decade.

I've no idea what happened to the artwork for this album, or even which album it is really: there appear to be multiple releases under the same name. There are more John Lee Hooker albums than there are years to listen. Many are repackaged compilations. This one happens to approximate the one I first heard when I was 15, so it seems like the best to me. But any John Lee Hooker before 1990 is probably going to be a wonderful listening experience. (The end-of-life stuff filled with celebrity guests isn't terrible either, but it is what it is- star-studded retreads, and watered down).

What he does best is angst, of a particular male and almost macho variety that's helped fuel some of the terrible blues cliches adopted by suck-ass imitators (but don't blame him for them). His specialty is brooding depression, or bottom-of-the-pit woe. He does anger well too, of the simmering-rage variety though in most cases not as well as he does the real fixin-to-die misery. When he mixes in some growly dissatisfied lust, well, that's the blues all wrapped up in a bundle, and nobody does it better. 

Even better: what you hear once you get past that surface (and it's okay if you don't-- it's a damn good surface, after all) is some unexpected depth: bits of bitter humor, slowed-down party-time intensity, and occasional moments of sweetness or fragility float by. But the ouvre is mostly deep and dark and miserable.

Enjoy!

(link's in two parts; just unzip to one folder and proceed with however you usually do this sort of thing from there)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/84tispj2u85va0u/John%20Lee%20Hooker-%20Blues%20Before%20Sunrise1of2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n50pdxwva9ueoxq/John%20Lee%20Hooker-%20Blues%20Before%20Sunrise2of2.zip

Hey, Hey Bartender!

Some video, courtesy of Kahlief's iPhone, of our performance last Sunday at Pete's Candy Store. "Eye" was the only original song we did. The others here are "Hey, Hey Bartender" by Del McCoury; "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Al Dexter, and "September Song" by Kurt Weill.

Just a Shout Away

(then, you might try this:
http://video.filestube.com/watch,fd3d58493e03ba2703ea/Pixies-Debaser-Ukulele-Rock-cover.html)

Wandering

A long dreamy slice of melancholy cello. Excellent for afternoon naps.

The cellist is Alban Gerhardt, playing music by Peter Kuhlmann (aka hyperprolific synth-ambient superhero Pete Namlook). 

Even more than most of the posts here, this is clearly a marginal release, so if you like it a trip to the iTunes store is highly recommended.

I discovered this slice of deliciousness via the alluringly addictive Sleepbot. 

All one mp3, but in two parts to meet upload restrictions. Unrar them to one folder.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n5s3dwb9jqa3zq6/Peter%20Kuhlmann%20%26%20Alban%20Gerhardt-%20Wandering%20Soul.part1.rar

http://www.mediafire.com/file/m6t8qympzahzqbm/Peter%20Kuhlmann%20%26%20Alban%20Gerhardt-%20Wandering%20Soul.part2.rar

Música Callada

"It is rather difficult to translate and explain the real meaning of "Música Callada" in any language other than Spanish. The great mystic poet San Juan de la Cruz speaks in one of his beautiful poems: "La Música Callada, la Soledad Sonora" [Silent Music, Resonant Solitude] seeking thus to express the idea of a music that would be the very voice of silence. Music retaining for itself its quiet voice, that is, remaining silent while solitude becomes its own music." [Preface, published score to Música Callada]

This is Vol. 4 of a 4-volume set. I also own Vol.1 and love both. At some point I will buy the other two. And pretty much anything else that I find, by anyone, playing Mompou.  

(from http://www.pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=213):

"Federico Mompou, Catalan composer and pianist, was born in Barcelona in 1893. He studied piano at the Conservatorio del Liceo in Barcelona and gave his first concert at the age of 15. However, his shy and reticent nature did not predestine him to be a virtuoso performer, and he decided to become a composer after hearing Gabriel Faure perform his Quintet. Three years later, with a letter of recommendation from Granados, he went to Paris to study harmony and piano with Isidor Philipp and Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix. In Paris, he became influenced by the French impressionism of Debussy Satie. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Mompou returned to Barcelona, where he wrote his first works for the piano.

In 1921 Mompou returned to Paris where he remained for 20 years and became a respected composer. In 1941 he settled permamently in Barcelona. He was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, elected to the Royal Academy of San Jorge in Barcelona and of San Fernando in Madrid, and made Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Barcelona. He married the Catalan pianist Carmen Bravo in 1957, and died in Barcelona on June 30th, 1987.

Mompou was a modest, quietly spoken, and thoughtful person and this is reflected in his music. He wrote no operas, concertos or symphonies, and some choral works are as close as he got to producing large-scale works. He was predominantly a composer of lyric songs and piano miniatures. The music is imbued with the colours, sounds, and images of his beloved Catalonia, the style ranging from elegantly impressionistic to simplistic and minimal. Here we see the influence of Satie in using the utmost economy of means, doing away with key signatures and bar lines, and occasionally inserting silly comments. As a young man, Mompou worked briefly in a bell factory, and the sound of bells can be heard throughout his works. For Mompou, less is more, and one needs a finely attuned ear and a responsive state of mind to properly appreciate his music."

(I like how they flatter the listener at the end there.)

He sounds like he was an interesting guy: quietly eccentric, and devoted to his craft. I'm not sure the Masó performances are the best-- to my uneducated ears they sound, perhaps, a trifle fussy and precise-- I hope to hear better at some point-- maybe Michelangeli, who I just discovered on Youtube recently?-- but they're certainly gorgeous in their way and make for wonderfully relaxing evening music.

Anyhow, you'll enjoy this if you enjoy Satie. (And what kind of person doesn't enjoy Satie?)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kfuctgrktvcrmt4/Frederic%20Mompou_Jordi%20Maso-%20Piano%20Music%20Vol%204.zip

for much more (5 volumes of Mompou playing Mompou!) go here:
http://elrestoesruido.blogspot.com/2008/11/federico-mompou-mompou-plays-mompou.html

Lots of good purchasables (discs and downloads) at CDUniverse.

A Long Way From Home

Lots of miscellaneous Youtube goodness.







Not Youtube, but you'll want to listen:
http://soundcloud.com/rogboy/burn-it-down-los-lobos

Incurable

There's a lot of retro-nostalgia(?) these days for the 80s. Most of the contributors of this blog grew up during the 80s. And guess what!??! It WAS awesome. We just didn't know it at the time. It was a bunch of shitty pre-adolescent sexual frustration and Republican yuppies. And Michael Jackson was big. Except he sucked then. But now he's cool. I guess. I don't know. The first CDs I bought were in the early 90s. Some Cure, some Skinny Puppy, Ministry and Front 242. There's some Cure I can listen to. They have some great singles, Just Like Heaven, Love Cats and what have you. I obsessed over Disintegration when I was a teen. I still like the titular track, but really it's teeny-bopper shit.

For the real Cure, you got to go to Echo and the Bunnymen. Or as an alternative, The Sound, an enduring obsession of mine. The mastermind behind The Sound was a man named Adrian Borland, and succumbed to crippling schizo-depression in 1999 and committed suicide.

My parents always made fun of me when I listened to my Cure records--"Why is that guy in so much pain?" Well, ma, dad, it's an act. For all I know Robert Smith might be the most depressed man alive. But there is a much more profound quiet pain in The Sound. It is post-punk stripped of most of the glam/punk-kid affectations. Quite in the same genius vein of label mates Echo and the Bunnymen--but less cinematic and much more introspective.

And unlike the Bunnymen, The Sound never had a hit single. The first couple of albums are incredibly, Ian Curtis-inspired, austere and dark (and I love them QED.) They were urged to write more accessible tunes; they certainly were capable of it. Listen to "One Thousand Reasons."--a song Bobby Smith could have written--if he had any decency. (And I guess his indecency is his appeal.) But The Sound didn't sell-out their sound. They released another barely commercially viable album Thunder Up and then broke up. I guess Borland had minor success in the Nederlands and released a number of solo albums (which I'm processing now--seems to be excellent stuff). So it wasn't all for naught. Except he killed himself.

I'm giving you some of my most well-worn mp3s: the mid-period 1985 EPs Shock of Daylight / Heads and Hearts.

So, the sound of The Sound: Dark post punk. But not goofy gothic. (Though I like 80s gothic--don't get me wrong.) This mid-period stuff has quite a lot instrumental movement going on it; but on songs like "Longest Days" all the parts mesh like a smooth ticking, bitter-sweet alarm clock. The bass sound is amazing. The guitar sounds great. The keyboards sound great. Hell, even the saxophone sounds great. Enough talk. Time for the delicious pop-pain of The Sound!

ICI.

{Side note, trying rapidshare. Let me know if this is a problem.}


Post Script: I think some of the details of the history are wrong. All Fall Down was the album that Borland wrote in response to his label's request to make more accessible tunes. The EPs here are after all that. I don't know. Go here and figure it out with me.

So, So, So Wrong