Sunday, October 31, 2010

VAS DEFERENS ORGANIZATION-NINTH WARD FOURTH WORLD LP - AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER AND FREE PARTIAL DOWNLOAD NOW!


Yes, the wait is finally over folks. The first new album by Vas Deferens Organization (Eric Lumbleau, Matt Castille, Christopher Moock) under our own banner in nine years (coming on the heels of all our recent work with Ariel Pink as Shits And Giggles and Ariel Pink with Added Pizzazz) is now finally upon us. The first title out of the gate in our new 33 1/3 degree series on our Free Dope And Fucking In The Streets imprint, Ninth Ward Fourth World represents the distillation of the VDO aesthetic to a 151 proof fine science; a collapsing of the sinister, the absurd and the sublime into a reality-annihilating gravitational nexus. We've spared no expense in the creation of this remarkable and extremely limited audio artifact, with both the front and back of the jacket sporting full sized four-color hard plastic laminated panels and with eye-popping artwork laser etched into the center of the 180 gram vinyls in place of labels. This LP and all future releases in this series are limited to only 100 physical copies.

With a official release date of Nov. 13, this LP is offered on a strictly first come, first served basis and is limited to 3 copies per customer. Pre-orders are now being accepted Here

and look out for further new albums on Free Dope And Fucking In The Streets by Vas Deferens Organzation and it's satellites as well as the highly anticipated third album from avant pop auteur/one man band/ex-pitchfork scribe Dominique Leone.

To whet your appetite, you can download and check out all of side A in 320 kbps
Here

CHRISTOPHER AND VAS DEFERENS ORGANIZATION-MIASMATA, LP, 1996, USA





To accompany our share of side A of the brand new VDO LP "Ninth Ward Fourth World", it seemed apropos to also unleash this, the first of two collaborations VDO undertook with Christopher Moock (the second being the Vas Deferens Organization & Christopher-Suspension LP on Beta-Lactam Ring) prior to Messr. Moock joining VDO officially some 5 years back, casting as it does some light on how Chris and his sensibility slot into the mix. In truth though, much of this particular release could also be viewed as a Muz and Christopher collaboration, as aside from the last third of side B, I (Eric Lumbleau) am wholly absent from this one, these recordings having come together very rapidly over these course of a weekend while I was away, with Miasmata principally consisting of Matt manipulating and building out material submitted by Chris and my coming in on the end stretch and adding a cherry on top. The results sit midway between the sustained amniotic electronic probings of Matt's eponymous first Muz LP, the krautrock-indebted jamming periodically heard our collaborations with Brad Laner and a sorta swarming avant garde-ish synth-y symphonism suggestive of The Legendary Pink Dots.

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ASPHIXIATION-WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED 'DISCO'?, LP, 1980, AUSTRALIA


A side project of Australia's Philip Brophy, better known for his long running unit → ↑ → (pronounced tsk tsk tsk), this flabbergasting marvel does it's damnedest to wriggle free of tidy explanations. What's being proposed here is a species of mutated and horn-riddled avant electro-funk, but one that's being perverted in the most subtle and slippery ways imaginable, with the sonics here situated (to my ears at least) somewhere between B.E.F., Hajime Tachibana and Ralph Carney's work on Bowling Balls From Hell. 100% irresistible. Thanks go out again here to blog friend Chris, who also brought us last weeks bent Jek Dicoppe LP.

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STRUCTURE-POP MUSIC, LP, 1969, FRANCE



Flute-y and carefree jazzy prog wonderment from one of the earliest notables out of the French underground. Structure and its mastermind Bernard Wystraete anticipate a sound here that was more prevalent a few years later in France, with a distinct akin to the work of fellow scene movers Jean Cohen-Solal and Triode. You'll also find some fab exploitation psych/prog bits in the mode of Braen's Machine and Wolfgang Dauner's Rischkas' Soul, airy Brazilian Bossa overtones, and some bits (particularly on the violin and vocal-driven "Episodes") that presciently propose a sound later taken to the bank in the mid 70's by Polish fusion god Michel Urbaniak, right down to the Urszula Dudziak-like bits of effected scatting. I love it.

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TOUPIDEK LIMONADE-IL Y A DES NUITS ET DES NUITS, CD, 2000 (RECORDED: 1985), FRANCE



I've spent a fair amount of time documenting the peerless and inter-related doings of the cabal of art brut mages associated with the bands Look De Bouk, Szentendre, Rock Feller and Germain Hubert Ales, but somehow failed to get around to the remarkable iteration of this aesthetic proffered by this wonky sounding collective. The sonic universe investigated on their debut outing here (originally issued as a cassette in 1985) is fragmentary, irregularly shaped and larded with charm. Offered up in bite sized morsels, their sound at times comes very close to Pascal Comelade's toy instrument constructs, but affecting a more cockeyed posture and buttressed by wheezing clapped out carnival organ in the mode of Jo Therion from Etron Fou Leloublan.

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CONRAD SCHNITZLER/JORG THOMASIUS/LARS STROSCHEN-TONART EINS, CD, 1992, GERMANY




I've previously shared albums by both German electronic music pioneer Conrad Schnitzler and his frequent collaborator from this period, former DDR resident Jorg Thomasius. This 3-way split release pulls in dark ambient composer and associate Lars Stroschen (better known for his work under the moniker Propellor Island), who initiates the proceedings with a blast of frosty isolationist ambience and follows it up with an inversion into maximalist complexity with a writhing mangle of processed rhythms. Schnitzler's contributions here are very much in keeping with the approach of his other releases from this period, with swarms of zinging and pinging sonic hailstones whizzing around thickly churning sonic wedges while chrome-plated rhythms irregularly judder. As for Thomasius, his contributions here are rife with tension, with thickly effected and cavernously churning environments vaguely reminiscent of Mechthild Von Leusch, but which also unexpectedly (and briefly) explode into full art rock territory in the mode of The Blech.

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Sunday, October 24, 2010

CHECK BACK AGAIN NEXT WEEKEND FOR ANOTHER ROUND ALONG WITH SOME EXTRA GOODIES

Despite my usual habit of posting once every few weeks lately, there will be a full round of new posts up by next weekend to accompany news and an advance preview of forthcoming Vas Deferens Organization work, as well as other items soon to be issued on our Free Dope And Fucking In The Streets label.

JEK DICOPPE & KILROY-KRAMEMBOLI, LP, 1981, ITALY



There's a thread of gruffly (and often hilariously) uncouth sounding post punk rammalama that I tend to associate with early 80's Yugoslavian units like Zabranjeno Pusenje, Lacni Franz and Marjanov Cudni Zajec. It's a musical impulse that also rears it's ungainly head on the fab Austrian V/A-Weiner Blutrausch LP that I recently shared and it's a spirit that is in full flower on this resolutely obscure Italian crew's sole release, which shares with the Weiner Blutrausch comp another key distinction in having one of the more fabulously foul covers to have ever assaulted my eyeballs. It's fair to say that the opening gambit here could set eyes rolling, but stick with this stuff and it'll at least periodically plaster a grin on your face. And for those of you with a weak spot for the truly absurd (intended or not) it's pleasures are decidedly more manifest, as between the hard rock poses, spacey post-prog musical impulses and new wave era quirk mongering, there really is some fairly nutty shit transpiring here that's well worth your efforts to mentally unpack. Thanks go out here to blog friend Chris for coughing up this curio.

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THE PRESIDENTS-WHY WE WERE RIGHT, LP, 198?, USA




Culturcide meets the 49 Americans en route to a Barnes and Barnes gig as this crew of utterly obscure pranksters back their turntables over a crop of pop culture's moist meat (Beatles, Hank Williams, The Supremes) and then send a midget brigade of slide whistle and toy keyboard-armed dadaists marching forward jamboree-style over the resulting gibberish. A sound soon to be accompanied by the collective scratching of your worldwide heads.

new link!:

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RHYTHM PLAGUE-DRESSED FOR THE APOCALYPSE, TAPE, 1985, USA


Emerging out of an early and more discernibly jazz-oriented era of the work of high profile avant axe slinger Nels Cline (Wilco, Geraldine Fibbers, many others), the period documented here having bridged his time playing with and recording for Vinny Golia and his Nine Winds imprint and collaborations with the likes of Tim Berne and Julius Hemphill. Rhythm Plague was the unit that would initially launch him into a less idiomatically peg-able sound world and create an intersection with the C.O.M.A. (California Outside Music Association) crowd, with Rhythm Plague frequently gigging alongside the likes of The Motor Totemist Guild and PFS and appearing on the seminal A Beginners Guide To C.O.M.A. LP that I've previously shared. Pairing Cline's increasingly outwardly bound guitar playing to keyboardist, fellow Golia alumni and current Iceburn Collective producer Wayne Peet and bassist and one-time Hemphill collaborator Steubig, these three whip up a huge expanse (over 90 minutes) of interesting and occasionally fascinating open-ended atmospheric jams and dark-tinged flows of strafed abstraction underpinned (and occasionally undermined) by the exoskeleton of cheap rhythm box presets that about half of this is constructed on top of.

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SCHATTEN UNTER EIS-1984, 12" EP, 2006 (RECORDED: 1984), GERMANY



Yet another hunk of minimal synth joy rescued from cassette oblivion by WSDP, this particular unit being led by former P.D. and L'Aventure Imaginaire member Joachim Stender and negotiating some of the same spare and quirky musical concerns previously explored during his work in L'Aventure Imaginaire, with whimsy and melancholia sitting astride one another here, some of the latter aspects bringing to mind Mark Anthony Heide and the Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier "Home Comfort" albums that I've previously shared.

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V/A-PASSED NORMAL VOL. 4, CD, 1991, VARIOUS



One of the few American R.I.O. outposts extant during their existence from the mid 80's to the mid 90's, Fot Records during that time issued a spate of these Passed Normal compendiums as a means of documenting some of the crosstown traffic between the R.I.O. scene and a particular iteration of experimental rock as seen through a distinctly American prism that spans from Snakefinger to Eugene Chadbourne. Most of the excitement that's generated on the compilation at hand though is coming courtesy of the non-American contingent, the exception to this rule being the first number out of the gate, a total stunner from a seemingly short-lived outfit named Fred and featuring Amy Denio of the Tone Dogs, whose recently shared album this is in the precise mode of. Other peak bits here include a diamond cut R.I.O. gem in the dancing folkloric style of Samla Mammas Manna and Fred Frith's Gravity/Speechless period served up by a quartet featuring Quebecois R.I.O. stalwarts Rene Lussier and Jean Derome, working together here with avant cellist Tom Cora and R.I.O. godfather and monster drummer Chris Cutler (a slightly different version of a suite from their Three Piece Suite CD). Lussier and Derome also score another winner with a trio in tandem with their Quebecois compadre Robert Lepage, whose lyrical yet wonky clarinet work tugs their track into David Thomas "More Places Forever" territory.

Track listing:

1. Fred with Amy Denio-Golden Rule/Mad Furry Love
2. Peter Blegvad-Shirt & Comb
3. Jeff Kowalkowski-Prelude To Houdini
4. Eric Drew Feldman-One Stray Hair In The Beer
5. Tom Cora-Experts
6. Tom Cora/Chris Cutler/Jean Derome/Rene Lussier-Trois Pommes à Coté Du Sommeil
7. Edwin Pearce/Secret Dave-Blessed Are The Meek
8. Zozobra-I'm Blind
9. Jeff Michael & Scott Lucas-Space
10. Brave Combo-Tick Tock Polka
11. Blitzoids-Hell Hound
12. The Sediments-Old Man Campo Santo
13. James Mcmanus/Pink Bob/Tom Cora-Sleepy Old Snake
14. Rene Lussier/Robert LePage/Jean Derome-Adieu BiPede
15. Jeff Michael-Chimes
16. Snakefinger-Save Me From Dali (Live)
17. Snakefinger-8 1/4 (Live)
18. Shockabilly-I Keep The KKK In Line
19. Shockabilly-Shockabilly Weekend
20. Skeleton Crew-Killing Time (Live)

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

SVEND CHRISTIANSEN/FUZZY-ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCED IN AARHUS, LP, 1974, DENMARK



This fantastic and fantastically obscure Danish split LP of avant garde electronics was bequeathed to us by Mikkel, the fine gentlemen also responsible for unearthing the Gunner Moller Pedersen Stoned LP for us. This one's every bit as sensational. Christiansen occupies the A side and does a great job conjuring barren plains and inky voids pierced by squiggles and squelches on Urvaerk and high tension power lines under insectile assault on Noir but the real discovery here is Fuzzy. Not exactly your average moniker for this sort of rarified electronic music LP, but then Messr. Fuzzy is not your average practitioner, his side long track Blau slowly taking shape as escalating cascades of woody clatter and chain-linked thrum congeal into bursts of through-composed cartoonish electronic tomfoolery in the mode of Perrey & Kingsley and Tom Dissevelt, before glissing off into a twilight mystery electronic realm somewhere between Gunner Moller Pedersen and Ragnar Grippe and spinning out into a vortex of Vorhaus-like delirium at the finale.

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V/A-RANDOM RADAR RECORDS (A RANDOM SAMPLER), LP, 1977, USA/UK





Issued by avant proggers The Muffins on their own house imprint, this little gem higlights the intersections of a certain post-Canterbury/post-R.I.O./pre-Cuneiform sector of he American avant prog continuum as it collides with those responsible for influencing 'em, with brilliant Canterbury and R.I.O. jams being kicked out by Logproof, Illegal Aliens and The Muffins, bombastically surging electronic environments being unleashed by Mars Everywhere, druggy improv sprawl from Catch-A-Buzz Studios and two brief bursts of R.I.O.-esque whimsy from Cuneiform Records' Steve Feigenbaum (the first and last time he's on record, I believe) representing the American contributions and extended solo improv essays from both legendary alto saxist Lol Coxhill and avant prog all-star Fred Frith, who offers up four gorgeous fragments of intricate tabletop guitar dissections in the same mode as those heard on his Guitar Solos LP outings.

Track listing:

1. Logproof-Monster Comes To The City
2. Lol Coxhill-RR1 and RR2
3. Steve Feigenbaum-Borrowed Inspiration
4. Catch-A-Buzz Studios-Cream O' Wheat
5. Mars Everywhere-Attack Of The Giant Squid!
6. Steve Feigenbaum-Enharmonic Toads
7. Fred Frith-Lively Hills
8. Fred Frith-Ragged Rag
9. Fred Frith-Sorrow Music
10. Fred Frith-Sell-Out Music
11. Illegal Aliens-A Mutant Underglass
12. The Muffins-Peacocks, Leopards and Glass

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COMMUNICATION-S/T, LP, DENMARK, 1982



Contributed by an entirely different Dane named Mikkel than the Christiansen/Fuzzy LP also on offer today (it seems to be raining them) this adventurous electro-pop outing was issued on the Irmgardz imprint that brought you other vital Danish synth pop experimentation by the likes of Mind Pollution and Scatterbrain (both shared elsewhere on MS), the latter of whom share some of Communication's interests in artily extending the syntax of dark-tinged synth pop while still keeping events tidily organized; tendencies that elsewhere tug the proceedings in the direction of both Martin Dupont and Keine Ahnung.

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OSSIAN-S/T (AKA KSIEGA DESZCZU), LP, 1975, POLAND



A truly stunning weave of psychedelic avant ethno improvisations and compositions with powerful ritualistic overtones are on offer from this landmark Polish outfit, here with their debut recording. You could situate the sonics on this outing somewhere between the the Italians in Aktuala and Finland's Piirpauke, but overlaid with a spectral and eerie air that's theirs alone. It's a heady brew and one that created the precise template for celebrated latter day Polish units like Atman and their descendants The Magic Carpathians.

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PSI-HORIZONTE, LP, 1977, GERMANY


Peachy keen kraut jazz rock stylings squarely in the late 70's mode of Munju, Aera, Passport and Release Music Orchestra from this rather obscure ensemble, but with a sorta liquidly nimble elegance that also calls to mind Italy's Perigeo.

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Saturday, October 9, 2010

SORRY, FOLKS...NEW POSTS UP BY TOMORROW...

Things have been in a bit of a frenzy of late, as a bunch of long-in-the-works projects are now reaching fruition (all shortly to be announced). Look out for some real gems tomorrow, including two further top tier Danish rarities that we've been gifted with.