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May 31, 2011

Onokoro - Yasnaia [1997]


Darkling  ritual from Leen Smets. Stunningly hypnotic, compulsive and not a little disquieting. Aficionados of The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, Dead Can Dance and suchlike will find much to divert on this esoteric gem.


Belgian.

Oddi wrth y brawd

May 30, 2011

Mantras - The Division [2009]


Matthew Schultz (Lab Report founding member) offers musical reconstructions of ancient spells and rituals filtered through esoteric fraternal order of THE DIVISION. Synthesizes eastern trance, dark ambient and magick. 

THE DIVISION seeks truth and promotes use of the will. Whatever.......gripping sounds.



Oddi wrth y brawd

May 29, 2011

Never Stop It - The North Sea [2010]




Grey lead sky over watery slate expanse. Depths starved of oxygen, where no things live. Blackened mandala of suspense and limited field of vision.


Side A -  Destroy Her Blue Eyes: 20-minute single tone manipulation. Engrossing and seismic.


Side B - Quiet Underneath: even longer slab of Sisyphean discontent. Oppressive.


Oddi wrth y brawd
screaming from beneath the waves

May 28, 2011

Kompilation - Plastikman [2010]



Krazy K-hole kapers kompiled. Richie Hawtin’s clearing house for techno acieed experimentation. Gormless repetition and unrelenting drum programming will appeal to dedicated futurists. Plastic indeed, as if recorded verbatim from machine with minimum studio meddling. Hygienik.



Oddi wrth y brawd
kak

May 27, 2011

Tanzania: Gogo Ritual Music [2001]



Straight field recording of Wagogo people ritual music. Vocal driven: solo, choral, some a cappella, a few with rough and ready accompaniment. 


Oddi wrth y brawd
go go

May 26, 2011

At The Pure Fountain - Robin Williamson & Clive Palmer [1999]


On this CD my old friend - Incredible String Band founder member - Clive palmer and myself perform together for the first time in over 30 years. These are songs and tunes and the sort of songs and tunes we were doing as the duo Robin and Clive between 1962 and 1964 before the ISB began. The freshness and simplicity remain. The depth of experience is added. All the pieces are familiar and very meaningful to us. They have a lot to do with who we are.
 - Robin Williamson

Oddi wrth y brawd

May 25, 2011

Cool Water - Sons of the Pioneers [1959]


The music of the West was born for a purpose, and I'm sure that the Sons of the Pioneers were born to sing it. This collection of favorite Western songs, headed by their greatest hit Cool Water, will go down in the heart of America as a living tribute to the land of the West that is loved the world over for its music and heritage. It will also go down in the heart of this old cowboy as "The Greatest Western Album Ever Recorded" and nothing could give me more pleasure than to mark it with my OK brand.
Sincerely,
              Yellowstone Chips
                             (Montana's Singin' Cowboy)


The Dude, in his own personal way, he is a pioneer too.



Oddi wrth y brawd

May 23, 2011

John Hardy Variations - Various


West Virginia railroad worker John Hardy, ‘a desperate little man’. Kills craps game  opponent, convicted of murder in the first degree, hanged 19 January 1894 (photo).

First known recording by Eva Davis in 1924. Banjo prestidigitators Buell Kazee and Dock Boggs released distinctive versions shortly after. List goes on.

In liner notes for his legendary Anthology, Harry Smith reproduces order of execution:

State of West Virginia vs. John Hardy. Felony. This day came again the State by her attorney and the prisoner who stands convicted of murder in the first degree.... The prisoner saying nothing why such sentence should be passed.... It is therefore considered by the court that the prisoner, John Hardy, is guilty... and that the said John Hardy be hanged by the neck until dead... on Friday the 19th day of January 1894.

01 Ernest V. Stoneman
02 Doc Boggs
03 Drunk
04 Glen Smith
05 Bonnie Russell and the Russell Family
06 Buell Kazee
07 Alvin Youngblood
08 Dick Rosmini
09 Chris Smither
10 Frank Proffitt
11 Ramblin' Jack Elliott
12 Korner, Ray & Glover
13 Country Gentlemen
14 Woody Guthrie
15 Almeda Riddle
16 Jake Krack, Bob Buckingham, Todd Clewell, Amy Buckingham



Oddi wrth y brawd
a gun in every hand

May 22, 2011

The Best of the Memphis Jug band - The Memphis Jug Band


Excavatory American musical group, late 1920s - mid 1930s. Bootcamp for harmonica, violin, mandolin, banjo, and guitar. Hitherto washboard, kazoo, and jug play them little tunes for us. Salty lyrics, added piquancy.



Oddi wrth y brawd
take a whiff on me

May 21, 2011

Elvis Gospel 1957-1971 - Elvis Presley


It's Elvis. It's gospel. Further encouragement otiose, nay, churlish.

Oddi wrth y brawd
who am i?

May 20, 2011

Bore Da - Euros Childs [2007]



No one does eternal sunshine sandals in the childhood summertime pastoral quite like Euros. Like a big huge splurgy primary colour kid's painting, Euros smacks you round the chops with effervescing feeling laid bare. Jaunt, ditty, quirk and low key angst. Sung in Welsh but belay your geiriadur mawr mates and let the psych tinged melody work its magic. Super.




Oddi wrth y brawd
dewch i dawnsio dan y lleuad

May 19, 2011

Aural Structures for Rituals - Deva Loka [2001]


Vital sounds for droned out ears. Savvy title. Whether construed as high art , low, or somewhere in between, what is authentic music if not a framework for sacrament? Monumentally blissful thaumaturgy emitting positive metaphysical energy with occasional solemn post-industrial patina. Three 10 minute+ early noughties slabs of esoteric pulse, vibration and thrum before field got overcrowded with lysergic ninnies looking for a cheap pituitary fix:
Body Trance: tell-tale heart beats, oscillator / modulator whirrs..on forever; opium with lithium chaser.
Towards the Inner Sun: martial assault on the inner citadel; strength through stealth, persistence and bombination.
Ascending to the Bottom: phased ascension, though remember, the opposite is also true.

Wiki informs that in Hindu tradition deva loka is the plane where gods exist and is reachable once sufficiently attuned to light and good. In Buddhism, a deva loka is dwelling place of devas: those beings more betterer than humans.

In goodness and light may ye dwell.

(Further Deva Loka musical provenance, particulars and MO appreciated; merest whispers only on web.)

Oddi wrth y brawd
inmost light

May 17, 2011

Funeral Mariachi - Sun City Girls [2010]



Final Sun City Girls studio album, ending 27-year run for our bizarre, eclectic and provocative musical trio - now sadly a duo, hence the final outing. Rich and accessible forays into global psych and Morricone-esque soundscapes. 



Oddi wrth y brawd
uncle jim



May 15, 2011

My Favorite Things - John Coltrane [1960]


Coltrane's alto-sax pre into the mystic blow out. Classic. Simple and pure.

Oddi wrth y brawd

May 14, 2011

The Marshall Suite - The Fall [1996]


Stick to what you know journo tag “return to form”. Post bankruptcy new real deal, domestic fisticuff ruckUS rehabited.

The Marshall Suite was my glorious return after the New York ordeal.
 - MES Renegade

No mithering shambling energy, rockabilly / garage interprets (Tommy Blake’s F-‘Oldin’ Money; Saints’ This Perfect Day), roughshod stomp MES skeletal rant/rap leavened framework.

Glorious up agin the mic racket. Hungry intent, unrepentant simmer.

They say “What about the meek?”
I say they’ve got a bloody cheek.
 - Touch sensitive


Oddi wrth y brawd
hey, hey, hey


El Topo [OST] - Alejandro Jodorowsky


Not Shades of Joy: Music of El Topo but original Apple released soundtrack at fan boy / man child John Lennon's urging. Composed by director Jodorowsky and amply reflects the fractured mystical contrariness of the film.

"El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man. El Topo (the mole) claims to be God, while dressed as a gunfighter in black, riding a horse through a spiritual, mystical landscape strewn with old Western movie, and ancient Eastern religious symbols. Bandits slaughtered a village on his path, so El Topo avenges the massacred, then forcibly takes their leader's woman Mara as his. El Topo's surreal way is bloody, sexual and self-reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters."
- imdb



oddi wrth y brawd

May 07, 2011

Soy Dios EP - Dead Sea Apes [2010]



Attentive comment readers will know recommendations by erstwhile Terrascope reviews writer Pastaman Vibration - Yeah! are invariably bankers. And Dead Sea Apes indeed come most highly recommended, courtesy PV-Y!

With 3 different mixes of the immodestly tagged Soy Dios, Manchester's own psychonautic explorers deliver the trippy goods: recherche guitar space chug, bass throb and post-rock discipline. Soy Dios takes inspiration from Jodorowsky's surreal cosmic Western film El Topo. A measure of the madness found along these crystalline arroyos.


Oddi wrth y brawd

May 05, 2011

Black Medicine Music - Stag Hare [2008]


Yay for woods music, crystal worship, and percussive rattling free spirit. Melodic, forest drones, primal drums puttering along throughout. Shorter than normal tracks yeild transcendent peaks among a multitude  - never a muddle -  of additional ideas and movements.



Oddi wrth y brawd

May 04, 2011

Gnod - Gnod [2009]


Manchester's own fucked up psychedelic, spacerocking, weird improvisational, lo-fi, far out, krauty, droning, astral groovers. Yup, they're good. Only 500 copies pressed on vinyl. Come 'ed.


Oddi wrth y brawd
oh my

 

May 02, 2011

Last Day On Earth - John Cale / Bob Neuwirth [1994]


Last Day On Earth is a blueprint for theatre.

A "tourist" is guided by Opportunity to a Great Cafe. Inside he is introduced to the habitues whose tales, thoughts and experience become an Interior/exterior travelogue as told in song and interlude.

Eventually the "tourist" discovers that while topographic mappings are subject to sudden rearrangement, interior shifts remain predictable and timeless.
 - liner notes

Pretentious? You betcha. Betwixt impressionistic texture and gauche conceit you'll find some riveting traditonal song structures. Bob Neuwirth - Bobby D. entourage jefe in chief / factotum 65-65 - counterbalances Cale's electronic keyboards with "earthy" banjo and harmonica and old fart country vocals.



Oddi wrth y brawd

May 01, 2011

Wrong Way Up - Eno / Cale [1990]


There's also something really English about this record that I like. It brought me back to what I would do if I was at home, a kid in Wales again. It's something I can't get away from and Brian brought it out of me. I had been unaware, however, of the manner in which all this pushing and pulling, in an effort to draw out the best results, had been affecting Brian personally. He has an extremely volatile temper. One afternoon in the studio I was confronted with a livid Brian, charging at me with a thin stick as if to stab me. He stopped inches away, and I quickly left the room.
What's Welsh for Zen - John Cale

Eno doesn't recall any such violent episode, but admits to a heightened level of friction during much of the recording... [Eno] "No, it was more like cabin fever - he and I stuck in a house together screaming at the walls and eventually at each other."
On Some Far Away Beach - David Sheppard

Whatever - and "creative friction" trails in the wake of both artists' collaborations with others over the years - the results are a cracking pop oriented record with painterly enigmatic depth. Taste, mystery and charm.


Oddi wrth y brawd