Sunday, December 19, 2004

Inhale, Intrude, Index the File

It's been months or some time period that stretches between two nails but won't snap. Driven out of the stairwell with the flickering bulb that's more off than on (it's not just the bulb -- the whole place is wired up with this indeterminate sort of electricity, and we all just give thanks every day that the power doesn't stop, or the place doesn't melt down, entirely.) Standing out in the entryway, naked and staring while mezmerizing sounds reverberate from ear to ear. Not sure if they're in me or out.

With a voice like John Martyn after he's swallowed Peter Murphy's psychotic twin brother, Mezmariah presents a full seven songs on Dmusic that should be downloaded, burnt onto a CD, or onto the skin of your upper arms, and displayed for all of your neighbors. There's at once a feeling that you're lost somewhere in the 1970s underground and coming out sometime after the millenium flipped all the numbers covered with cobwebs and followed by some creepy little guy in a hooded sweatshirt. Eosophiles and Eosophobes will both show you what I mean; if you don't love this guy already after hearing either of these two songs then what the hell are ya doing here?

This music is highly recommended, and has received 14 and a half out of a possible pi corpuscles, on average, from halaka's crack(ed) staves. Write home and tell the folks.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Pulling Shards of Bone Out of my Throat

Bonnie and Spiff:

I hate the way this editor works now. I am nearly going to throw in the fucking shitcan and forget using this place. I can never remember how it's going to format it. I DON'T WANT YOU TO FUCKING FORMAT IT, OKAY? CAN YOU JUST NOT FUCKING FORMAT ANYTHING? CAN YOU LET ME FUCKING DO IT?

But anyway, sorry about my recent meltdown. I really had great things to say about them one people. I will try, with my forearm as the treetops, to endeavor to later think about considering some future revisitation rights.

But currently I'm on a different ledge, and scarier place with dark eyes and impacted skin. There isn't a strobe light while I'm listening to the things on matt maddex's dmusic page; it's darker, longer. But there are bright flashes of light, like maybe there's lightning in this little concrete room we're in. Everytime those lights slash like that I'm sure there are things on the floor. I don't know what the fuck's in here.

There are three songs apparently credited to Breaker of Horses. Two really have torn me into shreds: She's probably a lesbien anyway and The Artist:Beaver. In these there are occasional vocals, screamed like it hurts, not out far in the mix. The playing is jagged, drunken, precise yet precisely unconcerned, an abstraction. This stuff holds together like a beautiful statue that someone drove a dump truck into and then tried to put back together with wire and coat hangers.

In the other track by Breaker of Horses, Too arty, for your own good, there's slightly less aggressiveness, more puzzled punches in the dark. There's a voice, here, too, though I'm not sure it's in the recording and not just an artifact of the energy. This shit is strong, and I wish there were more.

There's something else, enticingly titled solo thing(not finished), that makes me assume this Maddex guy is maybe the guitarist for that Horses conglomeration. Or maybe not. There's a similarity here, and this is another frightening, creepy piece of music. There's water splashes at the end that really just freaked me out coming out of the rest of it.

Go get a fix of this shit. Keep the lights on, though.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Seven Heads and Sven's Sheds

fuck. i thatatoiu. I hate this fucking place with a passion now. Anyway, I just wrote a huge thing about someone it's utterly gone now. go fucking listen to The Masons. Really. And I am so fucking on fire with anger about how I just wrote something that was actuallly sometohgning to fucking write and it totally just LEFT THE FUCKING THING now that I just want to lidf fucking kceirl.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Orvert, Do you want a sexy dancer dance on your desktop when playing Halaka I The Heater Was Going To Come On mp3? (Do Not To Be Clicking That Link Unless You Feel Like Dumb)

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

You Never Told me You Didn't Care About the Color of my Underwear

Beemy, Steum, Largesse, and Craig:

These fucking guys in Wumpus are distracting my self. Off on a tangent, twisted in this wind they're blowing. They're that rare sort of utterly perfect do-exactly-that-one-kind-of-thing-that-I-ain't-got-words-for band, the kind I just want to, you know, listen to. And then repeat. And then rinse if necessary. Not necessarily in any order.

Go find such songisms as Porn on the Web, ...As For The Angels, and Boliver T. Shagnasty. Relish yourself with those "aaaaaah" harmony voices in Triumphantly Trudging Thru Mud. Listen to your head explode in space (which shan't make a sound.) while they sing about Rocketship, feeling at once like way early Pink Floyd mixed with something I just can't still put my fingers into. ("There are no boundaries, no gravity. There are some martians out here with me.") Trade them with your friends. Put them all in your same shoebox.

I'm really afraid to follow the links they've got there. Other bands that appear to be of a similar vench. But I haven't listened so I know nothing. Only am I always ever listening to this Wumpus now.

They blog themselves like little fungers, too: Wumpus Central. Tell me, Steve and Burp, if this doesn't sound like an excerpt from something someone other than these guys mightta put somewheres, "Rory tuned the Rhodes. King Wolfgoat became Freddie First Take. DSSTM trudged. I played my part almost good about 8 times. muchos P ber. some re ber. no capt peever. I am a believer."

We Know, Don't Know, Don't Know if we Know

People Who Pretend to Be Me:

DMusic is way down this time. Maybe just for a minute or an hour or maybe for the glaciatic dripping of an age or a colosum. It returns no calls, it picks up no lines.

In that strange world, when it's functioning, there exists a devious enigma that calls itself, variously Mike Hock and the Pigeon Hand Clap Orchestra and Sir Mike Hock. The sounds that come out of those vacuums are tasty and expressive, though (always?) schizotastic and unforgiving. Mike Hock likes to work with luminaries like that guy who plays robocop and the dead dwarf who used to hang around on stage with Kid Rock. It likes to use synthesized voices to read rambling diatribes while the garbled electronic rhythms slam and pulse and break things all over the fucking room. Mike Hock could be a computer, or it could be a disguise for David Hasselhoff, who hates his own famous face.

There's always this hint there though that Mike Hock is an angry ex-person, someone who used to make music with us but then found a religion or a delicious red velvet cake or heeded the words of the Prophet L'oaf. An entity who grew jealous of our power until one day it decided to turn our brains into pickle loaf. We may never know.

Friday, August 20, 2004

The Consistently Missing o

Ben and Harry:

Aleksey Boytsov, who is The Subconscius Lamp Operators, has a handsome and swarthy list of similar bands & artists over there on his/their besonic.com site. It includes such standouts as The Superluminal Pachyderm, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and Halaka.

Did you catch that?

Okay. I tripped over the consciusly missing the 'o' Subconcius Lamp Operators some time ago on Soundclick. That page is still there. They like cheese. They don't sound like cheese, though, so much as psychedelic strangeness, creating pieces of extended freejazzery with heavy use of weird voice and noise samples alongside the swirls of synth washes and a lot of things that sound enough like bass guitars to confuse the intrepid listener.

For a good introduction to what this guy's all about, take a listen to "Within The Earshot Of Cheese (Complete Version)", on the besonic page. Gaze in undulating glory at the breakdown of its parts on the lyrics page; from "Part 1: Duck Memorials and Apple Cones" to "Part 5: Our Piano Joined The Wolfpack" and beyond. I hear a little eerie-movie-musicness to this stuff, like Fantomas if Fantomas didn't have any guitars or any Mike Patton.

Go listen.

In Other Sporting Goods Availability Noose:

dmusic.com is hiding from me today. For any other dmusic-addled persons reading this: here's to you. Or someone.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Billy and The Have Been's Mittens:

Listen to Zsammy at DMusic. Catchy and quirky, home-produced (in Cakewalk) music that doesn't sound like it. This stuff shines with individuality, but most importantly the songs are good. Clean electric and acoustic guitars, eerie atmospherics behind what might at first seem to be simple material. Stream these: Burning Down the Avenue, Tense Men Meet Here, Pitchblackeyed Man. Listen to it all, though.

Browse The Red Ferret Journal's One Million Free & Legal Music Tracks Wiki. (Credit where it's due: The Left Half of My Brain.)

Otherness:
Our track, Something Fantastic (Hey Ernie), has been nominated as best song in the "Other" category in the First DMusic Awards. We're up against an excellent track from our friends in Blubat called The Spaceman Romantic. There are also other nominees, of course, and at least one of them strikes me as decidedly un-other-like. Regardless, it's all good stuff. Here's the complete list of nominees in all categories.

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Halaka Soup

SAUCE: 1 quart Kylerian goat's milk 1 tablespoon Jibellian seven spice mix 1 cup Bantan 2 tablespoons Halaka soup base 1/3 cup Prishik 1/2 cup Silmic wine 1 pound Alfarian hair pasta 1 red Neccel 1 green Neccel 1 orange Neccel 1 yellow Neccel 2 Felada onions 2 tablespoons Spik basil 2 tablespoons Chadre-kab 4 Eskarian breasts

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

permanent and total loss of industrial use

The Court of Appeals also does not recognize that Hakala does not say its rule only applies to vision cases. Halaka said that an uncorrected test is to be used in that T&P case even though the inquiry was not “loss of industrial use”. It is no “exten[sion]”, therefore, of Halaka to say it applies to T&P loss of industrial use cases. A corrected test would be more – not less – applicable in a “permanent and total loss of industrial use” case where the inquiry is economic than in a strict physical impairment situation as in Hakala. Non-economic T&P cases demand a corrected test because “the concept of permanence . . . involv[es] . . . consideration of medical treatment options.” O’Connor, citing Larson. That “concept of permanence” plus an economic inquiry most assuredly requires evaluation with assistive devices.

Sunday, April 04, 2004

The Death of the Shooting Arm

My shooting arm's getting very sore, right in the tricep, from sitting and trackballing too much. That's a sad statement. Sometimes I think I'd like a do-over.

Found Uterine Fury, not sure how. Some MP3s include work by Natur'es Incubator (tha's the way they spell it,) like The Madbird - "you rubbed this in a rabbit's eye." I'm pleasantly surprised by the vocals here, droning and hypnotic, with strange (and very cool) harmonies. Sometimes they sound a little shaky, but these lyrics and this melancholy feel are suitable to my inept paucity. Some samples of birds and water are a good touch. The song stretches across its length surprisingly well, drifting from the dronings to some drum-machine rhythms with moody clean electric guitar. Also listen to Waltz of the 2 Eyed Spider; possibly just these two titles can indicate to the more pay-attentioning of readers why I might be interested.

Further things I should calcify (for my own sake as much as that of any of you not reading) -- I often talk about MCLD, who I "know" (in the online, how-can-we-really-know-anybody-this-way sense) as Dan, in the same grammatical structure as The Bellerophon, who had music I liked on mp3.com back when mp3.com had music on it. So yesterday I was looking at Samscam, to which I've had bookmarks for years and years, and I came to understand some of what maybe I was told before (because I do remember some words from Dan about this at some point,) but which I'd maybe never digested. Dan apparently at some point worked with the Bellerophon, but their primary instigator is this Sam person. Who I've probably also spoken to at some point in the past. Obviously these two guys are friends in some capacity, and possibly I've never actually said anything about Dan having been the main Bellerophon person, but in case I did hint in that direction at some point, I just want to apologize now and clear up that I do (now, anyway,) understand what the hell's going on. I think I get confused by these short-a sounds in one syllable names. It's just too much for my feeble capacitors.

At any rate, while you're hopping around those links (you are following the links, right?) be sure to listen to some of the music Sam makes -- from the Bellerophon as well as missmyheartbeats.

Another recent discovery - Danfezzeko Padekodus.

That is all.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

up from the throat

Lynch and Lemonade:

Give it a second. Listen for long enough for the droning layers under the beatboxing to really move you around. You'll move, you will. At some point, if you're like me (which, really, I hope you aren't,) you'll start wishing you could do this many cool things with yer voice. Especially that throatsinging thing, that's amazing. His website's called dredzelblab, and the song I'm referring to is rababih, and you'll know why it's called that if you keep on a' listenin'. And I don't know how you couldn't.

You'll then immediately want more, and so you can try wa-u-wa-u and try not to pay attention to the fact that you can't stop rocking around in your chair.

For more throatsinging (including instructions) and voicevoicevoice antics, don't forget about MC Loonee Dan, MCLD. You can hear samples here, from his release Mouthpeaks, as well as others. Dan's been a favorite since back in the mp3.com radio station days, and this page has a lot of examples of the reason. (Examples of the reason? Pardon, I've got to twist my twister around, it seems to be on bassackwards.) While you're over there you could also have a look around; he's got a lot of helpful info. about building some crazy instruments, links to other music projects he's involved in, little interesting writings (right up our hop-along, that,) and other equally entertaining stuff. Dan's also planning some sort of online miasma of oddmusic, a radio broadcast online sorta thing, and I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

holy pornography, batdog

I hate to be so fucking pushy today, but DROP YOUR GODDAMN PANCAKE RIGHT FUCKING NOW and go listen to pornographic priestess; listen to celebrity prison (has got to be the shit) RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Thanks. You should then listen to whatever else they have there, cuz they all kick ass.

a great fall

Fanch (the returned and unbuttered gormph-child) :

This strangtecular stuff you mentioned is fucking nuts, besides being hard to spell. Got them goofball vocals like some Fuchsia Death fuckers we used to know. And listen to that squirmering sound on Fancy Love Songs. Whadyaknow. Now how'm I gonna buy a CD with my wallet out in the picnic truck?

So here's the gongtree: I took those CDs we were supposed to do something with and hit 'em on the corner of the desk and they cracked like a motherfucking egg. What the hell? I thought you told me they were indetestructible. Err, indeterminate? Uncorrupted? I dunno. Anyway, we might have to wait a while longer for stuff to come to fruition. Just a minor, err, well, I don't know how minor, there's pieces of CDs all over. Just like when we threw those stacks of My Steez all over the studio. Look at those shards of shiny busted Steez!

Okay, so today I inadentally came across Mr. Doofyhead. There are two tracks there right now, Going to Catch a Catfish and Soft Lillies. I'll leave it up to you rascals to go see if they're still there and listen to 'em. We've certainly gotta admit to a certain amount of resemblement to one Mr. Bungle in this material, but it's energetic enough, and nuts enough, to stand upon its own leotards and hoodle to the toodles. It makes me very hamper.

Toodles.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Farmer's got a Brand New Bag

Hey Eleanor Throckmorton:

How's it rubbing? I remember striking a pose on the edge of some soft-bodied clam, or maybe it was a crawfish, up in the building pattern office. Remember? They had blueprints strapped to all the walls except that they were orange. Fuckin' weird, is what you said, before that dude with the too-tight bowtie came charging through the door and tackled you, trying to knock you out the window.

That was a close one, no?

I was thinking about that for the past few days as I was subsumed beneath this dmusic thing. It's too bad you hit your head so hard on the glass, you'd probably enjoy this place if you still had a grip on your faculties. So while struggling with this I decided it's time I point you to some of the real heroes over there. Those would be the ones who actually light up when you plug them in.

Blubat, for instance. The first thing you'll trip over when you wander into their hemisphere is an oblong Farmer's Bag. I think you're supposed to refrigerate that, or at least keep it out of the reach of childrens. You might recall one of the times when we used some external source material in liu of lyrics. I, of course, don't remember that. But you might. If you had a faculty. At any rate, this particular song, about the Bag, is like that. Sort of.

Later you can find a different twist on the monkeysphere. A tune called Lovic, a mellowness wrapped in ethereal, erm, candypaperbobbleheads. Or something. (Granted, for whatever reason I can't stream that fucker now, but what the hey. I remember it, that's the cool thing about heads and ears.) This thing moves the trance from the back of your memory, where you left it back around the time we were doing that Slinkyhead stuff, and right into your foreground, your frontal field, your comfort position. Just hear those percussive percussives, and that blowing bottle (if that ain't a blowing bottle I don't know what is, except I'm fer sure we used one on that Slinkyhead thing,) and then there's that thing what sounds like a single-note chord organ. Aaaah.

Don't forget to steer yourself back into the territory of the absurd, with Dicin' up the Rug. There's a Jaw Harp! And a thing that sounds a lot like one of the stringed instruments YOU'D pretend to be playing. Eleanor, you drippy bitch.

I'd love for you to listen to every one of the songs there, okay? Just, okay? Is that? C'mon, stupid, it's not that hard. Anyway, at the very least check out A Song for the Sickness, which is a very sparse and zoned-for-packaging instrumental with some creepy, way-back-in-the-back sounding rumbly stuff going on in my right ear. Of course I usually have shit plugged in backwards so it might come out above you. How the fuck should I know? There's also a remix of that thing by some other guys over there, but personally I have it in for the original. It's got something that helps my cramps.


Give those guys plenty of your aural behoofment, but then also, at some point, find Twinkiebots, okay? Be sure you stick Cracks in the Fairytale into your pipe and lick it. It's a twisted piece of something, though clean and well-paced. You'll think you've just inundated the fluxus, Eleanor. Really.

Some other goodies (though listen to 'em all!): Something Beautiful, I Held Her All Night. (These guys have some serious post-beatles/beatlesque/whatchymutchit stuff goin' on.)

Alrighty now. You'd better get your ball on the act, there, spendows. I've found some other stuff there, too, but you need to get on the ball and do some homework before I fill ya in.

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Sometimes God Poops Out a Small Childrens

Ebenezer Poo:

You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you all, fuck you. I don't. I just. Fuck. I mean. I mean, to say fuck. Is what. I.

Anyway, if you're here reading me say "fuck you," you aren't who I'm talking to, cuz the guys I'm talking to are supposed to put stuff here but never, ever have. Or do. So fuck you, and your horse's left nut. Fuckers.

While you're reading about fuck you, you should go over to another dmusic artist. These guys are midget golf. They want to know "What the hell is Kwanzaa," (Kwanzaa), and, most importantly, they have advice in Luke's Advice to Kids. My advice, of course, is fuck you. But you could just listen to these guys and fuck them, or something. They're good, this is what it's not about but never was, but when you're fucking you, who cares? Fuck?

DID I SAID FUCK ANYTIMES? FUCK. Oh.

Oh, and I didn't notice about Stop, Drop and Roll, wherein the fucking absolute CLASSIC line is uttered: "stop, drop and roll when you're on fire." Fuck yeah. I mean fuck you.

Saturday, March 20, 2004

nostalgialism

Remember the days when I could dig up weird, off-the-cuff, fuck-it stuff from mp3.com easily? I've been missing that. Am still missing that. But I have just stumbled onto something on DMusic.com that reminds me of them good old... good uhm. Good. Whatever. Anywah.

etheracide, mostly seems like two voices and an acoustic guitar. There's mellow, undercooked stuff that I'm digging, and then there's I'm Gonna Kill Osama, which is raw and stupid and kicks ass for it. listen at least until the two voices start trading back and forth... that "oohlah boolah" part. Mmmm.

Friday, March 19, 2004

What You See

Hey penholders, got something not in the same vein. Again. Denny has a couple of cool tracks at DMusic. Especially the first 'un, The Heart on My Sleeve. Experimental but pop, trip-hoppy and great. The other one's not nearly as much my bag, but I can't find my bag anyway.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Little Men

Crisco Shortbread:

The Littlest Man Band says about themselfs, "If Ben Folds, Harry Nillson, Stevie Wonder, Tom Waits, and Frank Zappa had an orgy, The resulting love-child would be The Littlest Man Band." On Drunk Again (which I want to call Scared of Myself), I can seriously hear the Ben Folds thing up and down, in a good way. (Try streaming it, or downloading it, but those probably won't work so go find it yerdamnself.) This guy's voice is a lotta powerful and a lotta singy, and a lotta good. If you like this sort of thing. In other tracks, like Always Sayin'(download, stream (maybe)) there are horns and guitars and keys and drummers and more of the guy's voice doing good things. Even better things, in fact.

Then there's Better Man(demo), which is not any of the other songs called that, but a really excellent mellow acoustic thing with some solo trumpet.

It would behoof all of the whatevers of you to go get some tracks heard from these littlest men. They make one's head become less burdensome. (I'm just realizing that these guys remind me of a band from somewhat ago called Dayroom. Anyone remember them?)

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

bubbling a little close to that non-edge

Endive or Cloven Hoof:

Liberation Jumpsuit play music(s) that is/are a little close to the center. Vs. what we usually talk about. That is. Something like Incubus, maybe. Right now they've got three tracks up from their new album, Superpower of Choice. Since I can't link to their entries, I'll link to those tracks here; but go check out the site maybe. Or maybe not. Or whatever. I'm linking because I like the stuff, regardless of your haggard faces and misinterpretive dancing. You're all hiding beneath the something anywhat, and so here's what you've driven me to, this edgewaterblunkfork of something lessthanexperimentative. superpower of choice, barren, a love song for chiquita.

And Remember: Do Not Trap Your Fender.

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Messrs. Tender Jive Fingertrap and the Caltrop Display Case:

blueWank is so named onaccounta "It was written. On the note board at our first jam session. Nobody knows how it got there." If nobody knows how something got somewhere it's better than the alternative.

Let's digest this for a distended condition: there are six (upside down 9) musics in this section here, where their musics is. You've gotyer Happy Go Lucky, about a lawn ornament. There's this guy talking, like Lou Reed without sounding anything like Lou Reed, while some extended collection of the same sounding things over-and-overs itself (again or again.) "Never hesitating to put the bar in the middle." Sounds like a lot of keyboards, really, kind of, with some sounds coming out of them. Later things are in reverse for a while.

You can hear the selfsame voice saying some other things in Hello.Enthusiasm.Thank You. Or, if you prefer, you can join them while they're Waiting for Toast, where there's something else going on, vocally, and a distortion guitar, and a bikebell. It's clearly a bikebell, except maybe it's not. At any rate the dude ain't talking here, anymore, but sort of moaning some things out about how he's, believe it or don't, waiting for toast. Apparently it's taking too long.

Other importance: "blueWank uses and endorses pawn shop and garage sale equipment and toys. We enjoy the hum."

Thursday, February 19, 2004

vegetative hiding

Head, Neck, and Throat:

Hiding in the Rhubarb could possibly be behind the plant, but I doubt it. They've got two ditties, Applejuice and Demo. Applejuice is mellow the way your head feels when there's a pillow. Demo is mellow the way there's a cool breeze, with no words.

They're very sneaky, with no information about who or what. But Rhubarb, so.

Further, there's a fucking banner advertisement that fucking TALKS now. "Hi there, my name is Tina." Fucking fuck.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

first take

Clive, Cleve, and the Other One: Do the mindset sounding familiar? Little pieces of this found in obscurest corners, back away from the windows and out of the light. Quoting: "I am also *tired* of polished music - by virtue of so many people making music for money, that solitary, myopic aim tied deeply to things being polished and calculated and perfect and pleasing to the dummest of the people, which leaves little room for EVERYTHING THAT MAKES MUSIC SPECIAL. Being an amatuer is nothing to feel shamed of. Because making things for fun and for free as exercise anti-cap impulse and using first takes and unperfectedness as a show of force that idealism is something to hold tight to - feels nurturing and wholly, truly important in the face of a war and an administration and Chicago Machine Politics that desires submission, where powerlessness is a forgone conclusion." (from a tinyluckygenius post.) unperfectedness, indeed. Don't know exactly about the politics machine, but do know about the first takes. Maybe this person can share the first takes with the rest of us, out here in first takes and unperfectednessvalley, where we don't talk to each other anymore and we wonder if the echoes is listenin'.

Monday, January 19, 2004

brief visit to Vitaminic

Dragon C & Lizard M:

Went to Vitaminic today. On the artist side they've been slow as dead monkeys climbing trees. We've got one track there at this point - And, For Another Thing, It Doesn't Seem, Uh.

Downloading tracks works well, however. Here's just a few things (nothing outstanding.)

Niuz Pus are talking crazytalk on "La tazza discografica." I shan't believe that my failure to comprehend what's being vocalized here is in any way related to my inability to understand Italian as a language. There are dog barking sounds coming from a human mouth. There's a definite Mr. Bungle vibe here, with all the requisite style changes and juxtaposed instruments. Did Mike Patton deliver his peculiar brand of insanity to Italy, or did he pick it up from there?

GAV, from the UK, is decidedly more soothing. "Dreaming" is a mellow electronic piece with simple melodies over a somewhat complex bed of sound. "Ice Spy" is more upbeat, with an unfortunate reliance on traditional new-age sounding synth voices. Catchy melodies again, though, and a lot of interesting rhythmic work.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

And Finally, Landing in a Round Swamp

Alteriors: One never thought one would see the day when one's own connection speed would be unimportant in comparison to the speed of a server site from which one was getting files. Or well of course one probably always thought of that, and it's been going on for years, but regardless, it's frustrating. Here I are with this high-speed connection and IUMA just won't keep up. It's nearly impossible to browse material there. First I hit Pennsylvania. Found merely one track by The Notorious BLT, and it's a good one. It's instrumental, it starts off with just some rhythm, but works its way into a frenzied, almost majestic, though gloomy, conclusion. Most importantly, the tune's called Dear President Bush, War is Still a Bad Idea, and I Will Have No Part in it. Thank you. I then smashed into Illinois on a whim, and there were Protein Stained Pants. What a thing. Just one song again, Siding on the House. "The siding's on the house, the siding's on the house. The paint is in a can, the paint is in a can." It's relatively creepy with the inclusion of some bell-dingy-dong thing over some tom-tom drum figure. Figurine. It's a drum figurine, really. On the house, where the siding is. But it keeps stopping its play for me because Iuma is busted all to hell. So having had enough of that, I mean that death-slow Iuma stuff, I moved back to Soundclick (we need some new haunts, persons.) At any rate I've come upon Round Swamp. There's something here with a certain abunk o belt. You know the kind. Start with some cut-up collage sorta stuff, some slampo on the drum machine sounding thing, and find yourself somehow in a melodic mellange. It's My Dead Best Friend, and it's like nothing. It's something, don't get me wrong, but it's like nothing. It's highly recommended, the sort of harmonies trying to butt heads with the piano parts. There are hints of the familiar here, like maybe a little Beach Boys and Ben Folds, but those influences are pretty strongly at odds with what's going on. We like things to be at odds, even if we's just me. Hang on through the end, hear the piano flutter from here to there, walking through a corridor. Not to say we're walking through a corridor, but there's a corridor somewhere. I stick with this right into These Last Few Days. Some little piece of Floyd's pie is here, and more of the Brian Wilson stuff, but holy crap, this is just good weirdness. Weird like progressive 70s pop that I have to take seriously because it just can't be serious. You can keep on listening through all the tracks from these guys. Consistently good. It's disappointing that the one that's not available for download, Loving Her, is one of the best. It's more straightforward than the rest (though that's not to say it's any kind of standard song at all.) Listen, eat, lick. Mmm.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

What's Not For Dinner, in any size

Gentlestems: I understand that you are, all of you, all (each) of you right down to the very one, desisted. I understand this yet I insist on talking as if I'm talking to you anyway. You know who you are, Fanch. You know (I presume) who you are, madhog. You know who you aren't, Sacky. You all (the rest of you too) know who you are or were or aren't. I know you know. Today's lesson comes from an old park bench set at a low speed. Variable motors. In effect what we have is The Price Beacons, a progressive rock band who were crushed by the same weight a lot of us have felt, deformed into some magmatic, smoking puddle of something other. They are Thinking About Thinking, they are Coming Apart at the Seams (instrumentally). They've got a little gothic in the voicecone, a little moodiness with repetetive parts elongated by guitar jamming and drum excursions. Angles jangle, calculators. If mathrock meant anything, it could meant this. There's also a hint of the way King Crimson would sound if the members weren't members of King Crimson. Listen to Cleaning Fish, for example. Scales and all. Disappointment eyes me haphazardly from across the bricks, though. Only a select few of the eleven available tracks are downloadable. Some decision must have been made, I was not consulted. I would've argued against this. Let them eat mp3s.