Million Brazilians - New Ideas in Psychic Music (2009)

New Ideas in Psychic Music is a tape from Porland's kraut/psych/free jazz band Million Brazilians. As you could guess they like to experiment and their releases could be quite different one from the other. On those two songs they sound a bit like Can with some sax playing from Albert Ayler. Which is cool. Good stuff!

their BC page.   

movie review : The Witch (2015)

Last time I reviewed a movie on Blasting days was more than four years ago (the excellent Balada Triste de Trompeta, read the review HERE). Also I usually review only things that I really like (got no time for the rest...). But the reason I'm reviewing this one is because it got me angry. Let me explain...
The Witch is not so bad, the main idea is good (and that's why the bad part makes it disapointing and frustrating) : the movie takes places in the seventeeth century New England, the characters are a deeply religious family that leave behind them the "corruption" of their town and goes into exile and isolation on a farm close to a dark forest. The movie does a quite good job in showing the struggle of the familly against the hardships that accumulates against them and their struggles to keep firm their faith and beliefs that are tested by the worsening of their situation and by their confrontation to what they fear might be witchcraft. These trials also loosen the ties beetween the family members and the role of each character in the family is also put to test. This, with a gloomy atmosphere and a growing feel of paranoia, is the successfull part of the movie, with some quite good acting, more subtle than the scenario. The characters marked by religious fanaticism are not showed as one sided and appears human. Even without sharing their beliefs the spectators cares about the characters. The dialogues in old english partly taken from texts of the time are also a good point. These elements would have made a good movie. What wastes for a large part the movie is that witchcraft is not just something that the characters suspects and fears, something in their ideology and psychology that alter their relations. No in The Witch witchcraft is a real thing, there's real witches and Satan for real. I'm not against withcraft and supernatural things in a movie, the problem is not that, the problem is that it is showed in the most simplistic, crude and caricatural way. Witchcraft and evil are depicted in a way that is as bigotted as the characters are. And while the movie manages to show the complexity in its characters, it fails completely to do so about witchcraft and even about the christian point of view about witchcraft. In the Witch witchcraft is what is is in the crudest puritanical christian ideology (same as in other religion by the way). What is evil is women and the flesh. Women fall into temptation and are led by Satan into human sacrifices, blahblah. the withches showed in the movie are just grotesque, and simplisticaly one sided, and not even frightening. I'm not complaining it's giving witchcraft a bad name, I don't care about witchcraft as, like religion, it exists only as ideology, existing only as long as it shapes the psychology and social relations of people bevieving in it (or taking profit from it...). Problem is that the christian war against "witchcraft" was in a large part a war against people being different and questionning the traditionnal social roles and hierarchies, and of course the power of the church itself. So showing witchcraft in the way the church depicts it is like renacting the christian fight against anyone questionning traditionnal hierarchies (male domination, the church, etc.).
A movie released in 2015 about witches that fails to question the puritanical religious take on witchcraft (and beyond that on women, traditionnal family, sex, etc.) is just completely wrong.
If you just edit the film and remove the few scenes with witches and "real" witchcraft you have a good movie, that's why it's a pity these scenes of "real (and caricatural) witchcraft" are just wasting the whole movie in such a way. What a shame...

After seeing the movie I read a few interviews of the director of the movie, Robert Eggers, his views on witches are not as simplistic as the movie could suggest and I suppose his purpose was not siding with the puritan christian ideology. But still the scenes of "real witchcraft", completely in line with the traditionnal ideology, are just clumsy and the movie would be a lot better without it...
Maybe you could say the absurdity of the kind of satan worshipping witchcraft showed and the absurdity of the beliefs of the characters are in itself a critique of this traditionnal point of view. Well... I maintain that removing these scenes would have made a far more subtler and convincing take on the subject.

GR-GR & Full blown expansion (2009)

Need your dose of kraut? Then I have what you need. Released in 2009 this record called GR &Full blown expansion by the one-man band GRegory Raimo will provide the mega-KoZmic kraut required. Its hypnotic and groovy beats and basslines, its krautrock guitar twists will take you into a weird journey and will let you gleefully lost into its maze.

get your dose at Bandcamp

Blackbird raum

Blackbird raum plays acoustic anarcho-punk or contemporary folk punk music with  anarchist themes. Since it gives a good idea of what the band is about, I'll cite one of their internet page : "Blackbird Raum formed out of the nucleus of a squatter community living in abandoned buildings and greenbelt treehouses in Santa Cruz, CA, in the early 2000s. Finding themselves living without electricity, they began to learn to play folk instruments from each other and other members of the travelling punk/folk culture. They all grew up playing in anarcho-punk, indie and ska bands and then, knowing next to nothing about traditional music, slowly gathered together the skills to create a new genre of music, based somewhere right in the middle of punk and folk.
Refusing the retro clichés of many of their contemporaries, they write entirely original music (in both senses of the word) that is reflective of the world they live in: a realm of abusive police, ecological devastation, creeping ambiguity and vague fear, but also a strong sense of community and a deep love of a natural world constantly on the verge of collapse. They toured the country in a tiny truck, playing mainstream folk festivals, punk houses, squats and all ages clubs. When they aren't touring, they play various American and European traditional music, hang out in the woods, raise children and read a lot of library books".

But what's also really important to add is that their music is really cool, very good acoustic songs played with a true punk vibe and energy.    

They released a few records, among which "Swidden" (2009) is really good, and you can listen to it on Bandcamp.                                                                                       

Suffering mind

Readers of Blasting days sure have noticed that I love grindcore. And I do because of bands like Suffering mind. They are old school grindcore activists from Poland, and since they formed five years ago they did a lot to keep furious grindpunk alive, radical and intense as it should be. They also carry the anti-authoritarian stand and DIY/underground ethics of original grindcore and that's an important thing.

Musically wise it's blast and d-beat at every stage, barking like a mad dog screamed vocals, short and fast songs. musicianship and production are really good. All that makes Suffering mind one of the best band in that style. They don't invent something, but what they do they do it better than hundreds of bands trying to play this kind of music. Suffering mind don't try. they do it, and they do it the way it should.

They released two LP's (one called At war with mankind in 2009, and another, self titled, in 2010), and countless splits with many cool grind bands (for exemple a split with Phobia coming in june, check their BC page, see link below, and you'll easily see how active they are in recording splits...).

Suffering mind official website

Suffering mind bandcamp

Afro-Beat!!

 Découvrez vitre l'afro-beat, musique intense, dansante, énergique et hypnotique, sensuelle et révoltée!! rencontre du meilleur des musiques de l'afrique de l'ouest et du jazz et du funk. je vus propose une sélection de quelques artistes et disques récents dans ce style créé dans les 60-70 par Fela Kuti.


If you don't know afro-beat you miss a lot!! power, enegy, melodies, rythm, urge to dance and sing, sensuality, revolt, afro-beat is all that and much more!!

created in Nigeria by the great Fela Kuti back from the USA it mix west african highlife, traditionnal with jazz and funk, the result is powerful and mesmerizing.
I recommend every Fela records. But this time I propose you to check recent, still active (Fela tragically died in 1997) afro-beat artists.

First, Fela's sons, Femi and Seun (only their last record but they have some more) :

Femi Kuti / Africa for Africa / 2010             le myspace de Femi Kuti

Seun Kuti  & Egypt 80 / From Africa with fury : rise / 2011     le Myspace de Seun Kuti

also Tony Allen, who was the drummer of Fela's band, now followinf a solo caree :

Tony Allen / Secret agent / 2009

and now Ebo Taylor, a long time highlife/afro-beat musician :

Ebo Taylor / Love and death / 2010 (and a new one, Appia kwa bridge, is coming in april 2012, yess!).

The St.Franc Cartel

As far as I know this band doesn't exists no more. The guys doing that are now in Brighton's Dopefight (I'll tell you more about Dopefight soon I think).

Not used to speak about past bands, but since what the St.Franc Cartel played is quite original and really cool I 'll make an exception (and it works as an intro to Dopefight even if it's really different bands).

The St.Franc Cartel plays a kind of trashy/crossover old school hardcore with rap vocals. yeah rap vocals! it's a bit like the early Beastie boys, but sounding more like Minor threat or Suicidal tendencies but a harder, rawer and more pissed off version. As far as I know they just released a selt titled record in 2009.

just listen to it and you'll see :

here's the bandcamp page.