Recent Acquisitions, 20080703: Modern Classical

Olivier Messiaen’s (wikipedia)(see also) Complete Bird Music for Piano Solo, performed by Carl-Axel Dominique.  Probably best if I don’t start, I love Messiaen so much.  I’ll just point out that Malcom Ball’s website has a page whereon you can compare the actual birdsongs to OM’s transcriptions, and another page containing midi examples to accompany his manifesto, Technique de mon Langage Musical (see the see also above).

Magick by John Zorn.  Since I’m a drooling bass clarinet fetishist I had to have this for “Sortilege,” a bass clarinet duo by which I was not disappointed.   The accompanying string quartet is also great.  The thing about Zorn is, since he wears his technical limitations as a sax guy on his sleeve, and since he helms alot of high risk endeavors that frequently flop, it’s easy to underestimate both the clarity and potency of his vision, as well as his skill as a composer.  Buy a disc from Tzadik, mp3’s from Amazon.

Recent Acquisitions, 20080703: Jewy stuff.

413 A by Zakarya. I’m enjoying this more than anything new that I’ve gotten since I got Asmodeus (and Ribot’s on this too). Buy a disc from Tzadik, mp3’s from Amazon.

Limbic Rage by the Amoebic Ensemble. How did I miss these guys? Roughly triangulatable between Clubfoot Orchestra’s Ralph stuff (less polished), Degenerate Arts Ensemble (less rock), and klezmer/gypsy/roma accordionny whatever. Posted as wma’s at Mutant Sounds, here are some mp3’s in case you don’t happen to own the Windows Media patent. You can a couple of tunes from this and a couple from their other record at their MySpace page. The main dude now puts out his stuff on Cuneiform. Some of his projects are also sampled at this WFMU Beware of the Blog post about the Providence RI scene, about halfway down.

New Ivo Papasov!!

Hooray!

Link with links to buy mp3’s, buy cd at Amazon, buy mp3’s from Amazon, BBC review.

Ivo’s website, Ivo according to Wikipedia.

via (with mp3 sample)

I went to Amoeba, and all I got was…

Xaphan (Masada Book of Angels 9) by Secret Chiefs 3. I went to see SC3 a year or two ago (w/SGM) intending to totally dig it and to buy some tunes off of them. I dug it every bit as much as I expected to, but instead of buying their cd’s I just went home and listened to some Turkish music cd’s and some Peter Thomas (fansite). This is a good record, a little loungey for me at times, but the band and the material are both interesting. Available from Tzadik. [EDIT 20080618, here's a more detailed review from a less slothful blogger]

Killing Joke by Killing Joke. (eMusic just had their more recent stuff) I have an unhealthy nostalgic obsession with music that I would have listened to as a teenager if only I’d had a brain and a spine. Killing Joke are particularly poignant because I remember in the 10th grade a dude saying “Steve, you gotta go see Killing Joke at the Keystone Berkeley,” to which I probably replied “get serious, man, they have short hair.” (I didn’t even have enough sense to enjoy the Subhumans show that I saw) And I love the anecdote that they got heavy into occult shit and convinced themselves that the apocalypse was coming so they moved to Iceland.

Zemir Atick by the Urban Tunélls Klezmer Band. Total blind impulse grab. Good stuff, kinda mellower than my favorite contemporary klezmer, but energetic and unimpeachably executed. Samples at link.

Recent aquisitions 20080403: Jazz or something.

Light at the Crossroads by Marty Ehrlich and Ben Goldberg. With Trevor Dunn and Kenney Wolleson. Great stuff, go get it now. Real Audio samples at the label’s page for the album.

Monk’s Mood by the Dave Liebman Trio (Adam Nussbaum, Eddie Gomez). These guys are great, and I can’t really say that you shouldn’t go get this, but an album of Monk tunes should be…I don’t know…funnier. It’s like they’re afraid to commit silliness to tape. Also, the emphasis is on mid-tempo, infra-mid-tempo, and meta-infra-mid-tempo, which definitely works against what humor they have. Still, these are great players who are under-represented in my collection.

Recent acquisitions 20080402: Metal.

Lucid Interval by Cephalic Carnage

Organic Hallucinosis by Decapitated

Carnivorous Erection by Regurgitate

I dig ‘em, especially Cephallic Carnage. In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I mainly got Carniverous Erection because of the cover art (NSFW), but I can’t say as I regret it.

MySpace earns its pay for the week (listening diary/recent acquisitions).

I forget why I was thinking about Trevor Dunn (probably something to do with the fact that he’s a great bass player), but I clicked on his MySpace. Before I could hit the mute button (which I always do first thing on my infrequent surfings there), his MySpace player played me a track from Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, which totally outragiously rocked without stopping, so I bought it. While I had my wallet out, I also bought The Same and the Other by the Ahleuchatistas. It’s sector of soundspace is triangulated by the Molecules, the Meat Puppets, and (sorry fellas) Rush. In a good way. (Someone else might have said Beefheart or something).

Something else that bears raving is Ice Cream Time by Nick Didkovsky. Sounds like Dr. Nerve, but it’s just a sax quartet and Didkovsky on guitar (there’s live laptop/electronics too but they’re not out in front).  It totally works.   And I also picked up and am digging Urban Mythology vol. One by Free Form Funky Freqs (Reid/Tacuma/Weston), I gotta go but here’s someone else’s review.

Listening diary: highlights from this month’s emusic take.

Sexotica by Sex Mob- This one is really really fun.

Beat Reader by the Vandermark 5- Great rock-infused improv. I was a big fan of the Vandermark Quartet back before I fell off the edge of the earth.

Betty Davis by Betty Davis Stanky funk that’ll stain your underwear, one way or another. Sly Stone via Captain Beefheart (except, you know, a chick), with an massively gutsy band that includes Larry Graham, Neal Schon, and dudes from Sly’s band, Graham Central Station, and Tower of Power. Thanks for the hot tip, Dren.

Live, Love, Larf, and Loaf by French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson. 4 exceptionally talented (!) droogies hang out and make a record. What’s not to like?

Funky Donkey by Luther Thomas Party music from the 1973, AACM stylie. Lester Bowie, Bobo Taylor, JD Parran, and Joe Bowie! Why didn’t I have this record in 1986 when I listened to nothing but Defunkt (self link)? As much as I like it, the Amazon listmaker who writes “if the hole in the middle of the disc was bigger i’d have sex with it” may actually like it marginally more.

Recent acquisitions, 20080109

Planxty - eponymous first record. High quality Irish folk music, much more traditional that Steeleye or Fairport.  Wikipedia.

Melvin Jackson- Funky Skull.  Late sixties R&B/Jazz hybrid with the melody work being handled by Jackson playing an upright bass through an ancestral form of the envelope filter.  He kinda sounds like the grown ups on peanuts, and I mean that in a good way.   Appearances by Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchel, and Lester Bowie.  Elsewhere geblogkt.

Trio of Doom- Not a bad record at all, but given that it’s Tony fucking Williams, John fucking McLaughlin, and Jaco fuckingfuckmemotherfucker Pastorious, I have to wonder, is that really the best they could do?

Listening diary: Following up on the British prog/folk…

I picked up a couple of those British prog/folk records from that list I linked to a few weeks ago.  Time Will Pass by the Spriguns is perfectly listenable, even if the main effect of listening to it is to realize how great Liege and Lief is.  First Utterance by Comus is quite uneven, its low points are hippy drool (but again perfectly listenable and not without musical skill), but at its peaks it reminds me variously of early Can, pre-echos of Faun Fables, sometimes even Renaldo and the Loaf.