Friday, November 21, 2008
Robert Wyatt - Old Rottenhat
More Wyatt greatness. This is an explicitly political album, and altogether darker and pessimistic.
PLA
Robert Wyatt - Ruth is Stranger than Richard
For Howard.
More amazing songwriting from the Seer of Canterbury, his third album. Includes Eno on "anti jazz ray gun".
Soup
Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
Go get "Comicopera" and enjoy the work one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And then get this masterpiece, his second album and to me still his best. Listen to "Sea Song", with a coda that melts the sternest heart, and you'll know why it's one of my top five favorite songs ever. A monumental achievement by Mr. Wyatt.
Hit the Road
Friday, November 14, 2008
Slapp Happy - Sort Of.../Acnalbasac Noom
Acnalbasac
Sort Of...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Magma - 1.001 Degrees Centigrade
Another great fuckin' Magma album (their second), more in the jazz-rock vein of Nucleus or Soft Machine, but with the Magmaesque signature already in place.
Get It
Magma - Live 1975 Paris
Zeuhl it
Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh
They invented their own language. They created an impossibly complex opera across six or seven albums that entailed the destruction of Earth an its impending salvation by a race of benevolent, highly advanced extra terrestrials. They married the emotion and power of Love Supreme with the grandiosity of Stravinsky and Orff and the technique of Mahavishnu. They all dressed equally and wore a huge fucking necklace with their logo. They had a whole genre named after one of their songs. They were demented. They were Magma. Kobaia is de hundin!!
Get it
Monday, November 10, 2008
King Crimson - USA
There's a lack of Crimson here that I'm about to remedy. This album was recorded live in 1974 with the line up of Fripp, Wetton, Cross, and Bruford. It's one of Crimson's best line-ups ever which gave us the classics: "Larks' Tongues in Aspic", "Starless and Bible Black", and "Red". Not surprisingly most of the songs on here come from those albums. Be sure to check out the improv session titled Asbury Park where Fripp goes mad on the guitar. Technically though, he goes mad on the entire album.
Get it.
Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei
Props to Abe for uploading the seminal "Yeti". Download it and let those german freaks tear a hole the size of a pineapple can in your skull. And you can add this one to the sonic debauchery. "Phallus Dei" was the group's (Amon Düül II, the first one had released a couple of albums based on one demented and drug addled jam session, to be posted soon) first album and a sign of (lysergic) things to come. Top notch disorienting freakiness with more than a hint of darkness and paranoia. Cop it.
Phallus Dei
Amon Düül II - Yeti
My favorite Krautrock album and one of my fav albums of all time, period. Amon Düül II were "the second incarnation of the Amon Duul entity, originally a political commune in Germany that happened to record their extended, drugged-out jam sessions." Yeti's a double album that's one half composed music and one half improvised. It's extremely unique and still blows my mind every time I listen to it.... Wait till you hear the 18 minute long improvised title track.
Julian Cope's take on it:
"The definitive 'progressive' Krautrock double album. This album should be included in the top 50 albums of all time, ever. It destroys the credibility of so many of the so called 'great' progressive bands of this era. It should form part of a European national curriculum and be enshrined as part of our great musical constitution. It is a huge huge success and should be lauded as such. It is absolutely crammed with riffs and rolls without ever drifting into the realms of pretenious meaningless drivel. Think of the great sounds of the Kinks, Stooges, Fairport Convention, Pink Floyd, Can, Traffic etc, mix it all together and chuck it through a mincer and you end up with Yeti. If you think that you know about your musical history then you will need to own a copy of this album."
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Frank Zappa - Roxy and Elsewhere (1974)
So I have this memory of being wasted out of my mind on magic shrooms and listening to this album with my buddies Javi and Marisa wondering whether or not I had BBQ sauce inside my sneakers. That was my introduction to the wonderful musical world of Zappa and I may never forget it. Frank Zappa needs no introduction and this album (among many others) is a testament as to why. Released in 1974, this live album features Frank Zappa & the Mothers in one of their most acclaimed incarnations performing tracks which remained unreleased on any other Zappa album. Features highly complex instrumental sections with challenging synchronization among the musicians and their respective instruments. These guys speak in another language. You'll wonder how the fuck they managed to pull off these dazzling arrangements. A great Zappa experience nobody should miss out on.
Download