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July 29, 2011

Paranormal in the West Country EP - Julian Cope [1994]


Inaugurating imminent West-East Ridgeway walk by Pingas, Welsh Connexion and Y Brawd. Let's hope we don't startle this fellah bustling in hedgerows, snuffling around barrows.  

Oddi wrth y brawd

July 24, 2011

Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison [1974]


"Forgotten masterpiece"? Not in this parish. Companion piece to Astral Weeks in stream of consciousness channeled songwriting and off the cuff delivery (plenty choice vocal tics and trademark mannerisms to be had). Journeying westwards as ever, into pastoral Irish tradition, invoking poets -  Blake and the Eternals - and citing metaphysics - discussing Baba, no less - before this became depressingly rote in yer man's oeuvre. Still possible to care about the quest and, lest we gush, get swept away.


Goin’ as much with the river as not.


Oddi wrth y brawd

July 23, 2011

Bullinamingvase - Roy Harper [1977]


As Mr Harper basks in warmest media glow he's enjoyed for quite some while, y brawd offers an uncharacteristically cheery set recorded, mostly, on then newly acquired Hereford sheep farm. Perhaps it was the Farmer’s Weekly Roy feature - odd but true - that alerted Macca and Linda to woolly livestock mutual appreciation as both are along for the ride, adding uncredited guest vocals.


Roy mellow and reminiscing; still Roy trenchant and biting. 



Oddi wrth y brawd

July 22, 2011

Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom [2010]



Ladies and gentlemen, 2010's songwriter nonpareil. Embarrassment of riches over three CDs. Plush divan and nary an ounce of padding.


C'mon, you need this in your life.



Oddi wrth y brawd
1
2
3

July 21, 2011

It's a Feedelity Affair - Lindstrøm [2006]



Hans-Peter Lindstrøm gets his space, dance, electronic, psych-out synth climax thing on; rounding-up greater and lesser-known tracks off earlier vinyl releases. Clinically crafted retro-disco sound that's as much home listening as dance floor friendly. Deft melodic hooks and lying in wait at epicentre: ten-minute Moroder monster There Is A Drink In My Bedroom.


Ace.


Oddi wrth y brawd
cane it

July 20, 2011

Wuste Zeremonie - Gnod [2009]


Neo-pagan thaumaturgy as Gnod swap spacerocking capers for percussive ritual in acoustic Kraut vein. Three jammed out Cosmic Joker slabs of peyote enhanced building bass loop, chimes 'n bells, drone and chant. Patience required and amply rewarded. Ability to pull off hackneyed Native American vibes without embarrassment shows certain Gnodlike genius.


Go chop up combustibles, light  bonfire and watch strange faces in the glow.


Oddi wrth y brawd
the ceremony is about to begin

July 19, 2011

The Wicker Man - Paul Giovanni & Magnet [2002]



And now, for our more dreadful sacrifice.  Sumer is a-cumen in. Saints preserve us from the landlord's daughter. Mirie she is.


You have come of your own free will to the appointed place. The game is over.




(Herein, 2002 Silva Screen Records release: stereo version using cues from found tapes mixed with recordings from first Trunk Records 1998 release)


Oddi wrth y brawd
Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man.



July 18, 2011

Is This the Cumming of Sumer? - Moongazing Hare [2011]


Death In June's romantic despair and apocalyptic fear reinhabited.  Denmark's Moongazing Hare serves up five Douglas Pearce pieces with understated measure and emotional connect that, to y brawd's ears at least, render more illumination and drama than portentous source material. Personal revelation, sturm und drang free.


Book-ended by original weirded out versions of Seeger's Book of Ecclesiastes retold Turn! Turn! Turn!. Sweet Judy Collins points the way: getting under the skin of others'  work while having her own tale to tell. Holding the knife bloody to the throat of love.


Check out more Moongazing Hare music making here


Oddi wrth y brawd
worm turn the knife


July 17, 2011

Atavistic Fetisj - Hybryds [1994]


"The world hangs on a thin thread, and that is the psyche of man...and we know something about it and we know nothing about it..."  C.G. Jung


Hypno-cognitive rhythm loops. Growl, caw, snarl and mind scree. Inner voyaging across Pandaemonium. 


Music for rituals and other joys.


Oddi wrth y brawd
totem of revelation

July 16, 2011

The Polyphon Musical Box - Music Box Dancer [1985]



By turns captivating, cloying and vaguely sinister in sickly Victorian drawing room style. 


Oddi wrth y brawd
polyphonic spree

July 15, 2011

Cannabis - Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier [1970]



High water mark period Serge. Paired with Jean-Claude Vannier to build monolith in miniature with this fabulous soundtrack set. Masterpiece Histoire de Melody Nelson is just around the corner, and it shows.



Oddi wrth y brawd
cannabis-bis

July 13, 2011

Dimentia 13 - Dimentia 13 [1985]


Lysergic garage-psych blending  whose time may finally have arrived.

 
Oddi wrth y brawd

July 12, 2011

Mind Disaster - The Crystalized Movements [1983]


New wave psychedeliscists show what happens when speed is substituted for acid.

Oddi wrth y brawd
orange acid orange

July 10, 2011

Dark Orgasm - Julian Cope [2005ce]


In which LORD YATESBURY (Archdrude) gets pipe-beating Blue Cheer / Sir Lord Baltimore / Sabbath on own ass. Or...


"I should warn y’all that I have, for this particular album, returned to some pretty fundamentalist rules regarding the recording. As you know, Brain Donor adopted a tight glossary for their music very much in the same style as that found in the ZOOLOGY retrospective from The Teardrop Explodes. Inspired by both, I’ve returned for DARK ORGASM to some of The Teardrops’ 1978/79 work and plundered not the music but the law in which it was created. From my point-of-view, only a coupla months into the recording schedule, the method has already yielded several excellent new songs that I could never have reached without the formula. Three songs (“Hell or the Other Place”, “White Bitch Comes Good” and “Looks Like I’m Goin’ Down”) are dedicated to my ardently heathen belief that (in these increasingly Christian=Sir Cliff times) St Peter’s place as the pearly gate-keeper is no longer tenable, and that the blond Death Goddess Hel should be returned to her rightful position at those sacred portals – just as she always was in these northern realms (see Norse Myths and early German tales) before cruel Christian theologians appropriated her name for the hot place where all the baddies go. In the wake of the London bombings, what has become most clear to me is the importance of every Briton’s fundamental right to believe in Fuck All, motherfuckers! Those who choose to insult and murder and create mayhem on behalf of their own deities (“My invisible sky God is better that your invisible sky God”) can take a motherfucking hike across the Channel… and that includes all monotheists. Meanwhile, all the rock’n’rollers, artists, Hindus, and other free thinkers can get down to some real living on these sacred islands."






Oddi wrth y Brawd
try try try
buy buy buy

July 09, 2011

Sing Brother Sing - Edgar Broughton Band [1970]


Thrilling, chem lab experimental blues tinged rock. With Beefheartian yeowl Edgar sings insouciant and groovy. Letting it all hang out to the point of downright unpleasantness - viz. Psychopath. Cracked English tea party vibe in Kevin Ayers vein and well worth investigation.


(Read PV-Y!'s short-trousered EBB reappraisal over at Terrascope)



Oddi wrth y brawd

July 07, 2011

Stand And Give Praise: Trojan Roots [2010]



70s roots reggae. Feast.

One
01 Babylonian – The Officials
02 Dread Out Deh – Joy White
03 For I – David Jahson
04 Sons Of Negus – Jimmy Riley
05 Rainbow – Michael Dyke
06 Tradition – Ronnie Davis
07 Many A Call – Unforgettables
08 World Class – Jah Lloyd
09 Rise & Shine – Watty & Tony
10 Discipline – The Prophets
11 Psalms Twenty – James Brown
12 King Of Babylon – Junior Byles
13 Long Long Time – Winston Heywood
14 Story Come To Bump – Prince Jazzbo
15 Roots Natty Roots Natty Congo – Johnny Clarke
16 Mash Down – The Roots
17 Kunte Kinte The Dread – Jah Ruby
18 Freedom – Earl Sixteen
19 Diginty & Principle – Big Joe
20 Wolf Out Deh – Lloyd & Devon

Two
01 Migrate – Earth & Stone
02 I Man Free – Watty Burnett
03 I Love Jah – Ethiopians
04 Take Warning – Ralph Haughton & The Ebony Sisters
05 One Lick – The Jewels
06 At The Feast – Congos
07 Judgement Time – Junior Ross & The Spear
08 Stand & Give Praise – Royals
09 My Country – Cornel Campbell
10 Ball Of Fire – Israel Vibration
11 Lonely Walk – Albert Malawi
12 Behold – Heptones
13 Living In The Ghetto (12” mix) – Delton Screechie
14 This World – Sugar Minott
15 Life Is Not So Easy – Trinity
16 Moving On To The Promnised Land – Barry Brown
17 Step It Inna Africa – Lone Ranger
18 Walk 2000 Miles – Barrington Levy
19 Penitentiary – Kojak
20 Roman Soldiers Of Babylon – Freddie McGregor

Oddi wrth y brawd

July 05, 2011

Recomposed by Carl Craig & Moritz Von Oswald, Music by Maurice Ravel and Modest Mussorgsky [2008]



Think Eno's discreet deconstruction of Pachelbel's Canon meets Göttsching's E2-E4. Yes, pumpingly pleasurable. Ravel's Bolero and Mussorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition  given to von Oswald and Craig as unmixed multi track recordings of Berlin Philharmonic directed by Herbert von Karajan. Moritz isolates individual elements and assembles lines for pre production subsequent to creative fiddlage under duress of vintage drum machines and serried ranks of analogue synth.


Listen in one sitting. Gym rats on treadmill and OCD house cleaners will find particular fulfillment.




Oddi wrth y brawd

July 03, 2011

Sadly, the Future Is No Longer What It Was - Leyland Kirby [2009]


A step on, up and perhaps backwards. Amnesiac fog 78s sampling plunderphonics stripped away, leaving a frequently piano driven ambience recalling Harold Budd, Max Richter, and Erik Satie even. Elegiac and melancholy vacuum hum and static crackle. Kirby / Caretaker is still in mourning, though no longer for a history repressed and returned in spectral form. More straightforward modernist angst: fin-de-siècle paean to degeneration, cohesion and connectedness. More haunting than haunted.



Oddi wrth y brawd

July 02, 2011

Le Divin Cagliostro - Silence & Strength [2006]



 "Mesmerising" journey through life of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro [1743-1795],  Grand Copt, Egyptian Freemasonry ritualist, numerologist.




Dark ambient, esoteric neofolk.



Oddi wrth y brawd

y   b  r  a  w  d
1  2  2  1  6  4

11

2


July 01, 2011

Second Coming - Mater Suspiria Vision [2010]


Occult, hypnagogic electro-drone trance. Chilly industrial esoteric. Splendid.



Further visual summoning -  not on this release but renders the mystic measure.


Oddi wrth y brawd