Sunday, November 2, 2008

life and times of jefron, child prodigy: 9.23.08


playlist:

01. DJ Chaos X - Live Mixxx Happy Set 12
02. DJ Chaos X - Live Mixxx Happy Set 13
DJ Chaos X is Yamantaka Eye. From the Boredoms. The difference between this set and his DJ Pica Pica Pica stuff is that, umm.. this is really hard to find, and it's a lot more pop and punk samples than world stuffs.

03. Michael Flower Band - Balinese Falsehood
Michael Flower Band is Mick Flower from Vibracathedral Orchestra and John Moloney from Sunburned Hand of the Man. This song is fucking killer. recorded in november/december 2006.

04. A.M. - Halls and Malls
Off the album Red Rag Reverie.
"...full on over-the-top psychedelic noise guitar assault from Antony Miltons A.M project. With beats! Eschewing the last vestiges of embarrassment at several years 'lost' to rave culture in the late 90s A.M channels the furious ecstasies of phasing tones and pounding beats through electric guitar lined red hot into an ancient tape recorder to produce a riff driven avant-party album... With its endless driving riffs and noise incursions ascending to ever higher levels of intensity the sudden free falls into sudden deep ambient bliss are like the first glimpses of dawn on a mountain top on acid.."

05. Jazz Composer's Orchestra - Communications part 1
06. Jazz Composer's Orchestra - Communications part 2
"34-minute, two-part composition, a concerto for Cecil Taylor and orchestra, that finds the pianist at the height of his powers, just beginning to enter the third phase of his development where he fused ultra-high energy playing with rigorous logic and heartbreaking beauty. The breadth of this piece, its expansiveness, and its tension between order and chaos is one of the single high watermarks of avant-garde jazz."

07. Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You in the End.
off the album 1990. this song is wonderful. daniel johnston is wonderful. yes.

08. King Crimson - Starless
off the album "Red"
"Starless", a piece in two movements. The first is a mellotron-string driven ballad with brilliant liquid-tone guitar playing from Fripp, a lovely soprano sax solo from former Crim Mel Collins, and a passioned vocal from John Wetton. This melts into a building section, highlighting Bruford's percussion again as Fripp plays repeated figures over and over again until the guitar and distorted bass echo each other and the piece explodes-- McDonald plays another brilliant alto solo, full of fire and passion before the two saxes restate the theme and the piece erupts like never before and comes to a conclusion. Its one of those magic moments on record, definitely a moment of pure brilliance.

This was unfortunately the last work of the '70s band-- McDonald was supposed to rejoin, but in a surprising move (given band history), Fripp left, which effectively ended Crimson for a further six years.

09. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Mouth of Ghosts.
"The Dillinger Escape Plan create maniacally intense, crushingly metallic, and decidedly hardcore punk-infused jazz-time-signature-invoking compositions displaying an unparalleled musical bravery, precision musicianship, meticulously thought-out, and complex structuring, and rigorous physical endurance. The band's guitarists and drummer are regular features in publications geared toward the guitar- and drum-playing set. The depth of extremity and mental challenge presented by their music virtually defies description, at once recalling the mind-wandering spirit of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the complex heavy metal of latter-day Death, Cynic's solitary death metal achievement, and the progressive hard rock of Rush. Their performances bring to mind the anarchic charge of early Guns N' Roses shows, and the sophistication that drives their craft should awe fans of classy art rock bands like Radiohead."
summary: this song will blow your head off.

10. Bill Fay - I Hear You Calling
"..."Enigmatic" was the tag oft-times tossed 'round Bill Fay, whose loyal cult following grew significantly over the years. Signed to Decca, the singer/songwriter and pianist released two albums in the late '60s and early '70s; their haunting, darkly shadowed songs were never meant to appeal to the masses, even at the height of the psychedelia-streaked introspection sparked by the soul-searching of the day. While the Beatles flew off to meet the Maharishi, Fay fell under the spell of a 19th century compendium of commentaries on the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelations, which would inspire his second album, Time of the Last Persecution. But before the born-agains jump on to the Fay bandwagon, they should be warned that the artist was equally influenced by the ravaging events of the day. The title track, "Time of the Last Persecution," was written in an immediate and visceral response to the killings of four students at Kent State. Even in 1971, the intensity of Fay's lyrics -- reflecting his commentaries in their poetical language, their highly introspective nature, the brooding quality of the music, all exquisitely enhanced by Ray Russell's evocative blues guitar work -- left most reviewers cold and confused. In truth, the album would have slotted much more neatly into the coming firestorm that descended on Britain later in the decade, and would have provided a surprisingly supple bridge between the apocalyptic visions of roots reggae and the political polemics of punk. The set certainly contains all the fire and fury of the latter movement, as well as the deeply dread atmospheres of the former. By 2005, with the rise of evangelicalism and Christian rock, Persecution no longer sounds so obscure or out of place; it is, however, a personal journey of spirituality, not a platform from which to proselytize. For all its dark vision, it's the possibility of peace and hope that shines through the gloom, and as for all the seeming quietude of the music, it thunders, too, with a power and emotion that speak in volumes as loudly as Fay's striking lyrics...."

11. Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy
..." In 2006, the release of Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped brought a lot of the band's ex-fans-- people who'd either gotten over them with the help of 2000's NYC Ghosts & Flowers, or just thought they'd finally aged out-- back to the fold. The more tuneful record was different from anything they'd done this decade, re-establishing the direct line many of us had to the Sonic Youth of our teenage years. At the Pitchfork Music Festival this summer, Sonic Youth played a well-received Daydream Nation, but a bunch of people I talked to after their set thought the group sounded even better during the encore, when they tore through a handful of newer songs.

As a separate entity from Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore's reputation as a basement icon precedes him. Where it was once surprising to find him at Connecticut noise shows, Brooklyn No Fun fests, and Western Massachusetts DIY open mic nights, his recent role as mentor to (and collaborator with) young rock dynamos has since made his presence in the underground a constant. Given these feedback showdowns-- not to mention the solo work of his distant past-- it came as a mild shock when his Ecstatic Peace label recently announced that not only was there a new Thurston Moore solo album in the works (his first formal LP since 1995's Psychic Hearts), but that it would also feature actual songs.

Trees Outside the Academy is, in fact, a song-based album-- and they're good songs, too. Rather Ripped had whistle-clean guitar lines and minimal melodies-- the noise had lifted to reveal Sonic Youth still picking out sharp hooks, with songcraft as sparkling as ever. Those pop songs were a good place for them to return to for inspiration-- they gave the band a form (rather than void) to play around with-- and Trees takes up a similar challenge: What can a guy like Thurston Moore do with the bare, noiseless architecture of an acoustic guitar and verse-chorus-verse structures?..."

12. Sun City Girls - Blue Mambo
From the album, Torch of the Mystics.
Torch of the Mystics represents the pinnacle of the first phase of the Sun City Girls. A concise, pinwheeling album that captures the band's pure commitment to emotional transcendence through music, the 11 songs here fly off into the netherworld of ethnic avant-garage rock with startling clarity. The band had never fully explored the Middle Eastern tones accumulating in their brains as they did on this 1990 masterpiece, nor had they been as clearly and smartly recorded as they are here: guitarist Rick Bishop's tone slices, drummer Charlie Gocher is wider than he has ever been, and bassist Alan Bishop rumbles with an ominous ferocity. Songs like the pile-driving "Esoterica of Abyssynia" sound like your radio has leapt into a dreamy foreign astral plane of its own volition. "Space Prophet Dogon" is a dance of the seven veils as played by the freaked-out Mothers of Invention, while "Radar 1941" crash-lands in the middle of Egyptian Top 40 as imagined by "Count Five." Every track contains a shimmering melodic phrase or haunting undertone that the Girls mine like pure manna, and the occasional bursts of delirious chanting still summon goosebumps on the listener's skin. Every argument made for the greatness of the Sun City Girls has its roots in this platter, and if you have never understood what the fuss is all about or if you ever needed something to convince you of their (deservedly) sterling underground reputation, this is the original testament.

13. Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love for Planet Earth.
Brits Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power formed the group in 2004 with the goal of creating pain-inducing noise music, but soon became curious about mixing in prettier sounds, and adding structure and melody to their brutal tracks. Still, they never lost the aggression and abstraction of their noise leanings: They're not afraid to let a beat pound forever, or let a drone wash slowly, or let a pedal loop endlessly. Where more traditional groups might worry that a part goes on too long, Fuck Buttons seem fascinated by what will happen if it does, riding it just past the point of expectation before hitting you with the next big switch-up. It's a trick that gives Street Horrrsing a sense of constant tension, with another surprise detonation always looming around the corner.

14. Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
If not for the Mahavishnu Orchestra's first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, this second, 1973 outing might well be considered the greatest of all jazz-fusion essays. Both are staggering calls to celestial coursing and reckoning, and to resolution. All is breathtakingly purposeful and assured, with vast group cohesion, and phenomenal contributions by keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, bassist Rick Laird, torrential drummer Billy Cobham, and foremost, by the leader, guitarist John McLaughlin. One hears all the elements of his musical makeup: Tal Farlow; Django Reinhart's stunning single-note runs; flamenco guitar; sophisticated Delta blues; way-over-the-top arena-rock distortion, feedback, and power amplification; and Indian classical and folk music. All that, plus childhood lessons in classical piano and violin and recent studies with spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, set the cosmic stew to boil.
and for those not familiar with jan hammer, he went on to make the theme music for miami vice! fuck yea!

15. That's Rockefeller - Stimulan
This is live at the star deli in jakarta, indonesia,.
don't google this band or you might see them on youtube. and their music is a lot better if you turn it up really loud and jump around. to see them actually play it takes out some of the awesomeness. they need a little work on their stage presence. or i dunno, maybe i've been jaded by rammstien's giant flamethrower dildos and keith flynt from prodigy.

16. Ben Reynolds - Gravity Never Wins
Glasgow, Scotland guitarist Ben Reynolds has been a prominent player in and contributor to the United Kingdom's fertile underground psych/drone scene for many years. A current member of the long-running and highly influential Ashtray Navigations, Reynolds appears on numerous recordings in the tight-knit UK drone cabal, including those by the venerable Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sunroof, and is also active via his duo project Motor Ghost with Directing Hand's Alex Neilsen. A cascade of solo excursions documenting a fractal of avant-thinking themes are available in limited DIY fashion, while proper pressings are available through Last Visible Dog, Digitalis Industries and Time-Lag. Although Reynolds has touched on acoustic elements in the past, it has mainly been as a textural layer to his psychedelic whirlpools, at which he is so adept. Reynolds puts his electric guitars aside in favor of exploring expressionist acoustic steel string terrain on his astonishing new solo recording Two Wings.


download part one.


download part two.

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