If Reagan Played Disco
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Evolution of the Dark Side of the Moog
Pete Namlook & Klaus Schulze
Ambient World (Germany)
Not only is this my first listen to any of this long running series, but I also got it just days prior to hearing about Robert Moog falling ill due to a brain tumor. His passing compelled me to give it a listen again, and his spoken introduction makes me both sad and yet also introspective at the music revolution he launched as is apparent from this album. As a friend told me that this sounds like a long lost Jean-Michel Jarre album, and I'd have to agree. It's very deliberately old-school-save for the occasional not-too-ancient sounding drum machine
- and happily so. One could imagine futuristic (by late seventies reckoning) spaceships careening around the room, Carl Sagan in his dandelion-seed spaceship or recall a lysergic memory or two from the pre-Reagan era. Namlook and Schulze lay down big fat Moog lines in a giant, cosmic reverb-y void. All the song titles reference a Pink Floyd song, albeit in a cheeky, rearranged manner (Phantom Heart Brother, Careful With That AKS Peter, etc.) but it's not very Floydian. Folks who stopped listening to music after Tomita, Vangelis Tangerine Dream peaked can have a reason to rejoice and lament no more that the future ain't what it used to be. I've been listening to it for weeks and I'm still not sick of it.
Ambient World (Germany)
Not only is this my first listen to any of this long running series, but I also got it just days prior to hearing about Robert Moog falling ill due to a brain tumor. His passing compelled me to give it a listen again, and his spoken introduction makes me both sad and yet also introspective at the music revolution he launched as is apparent from this album. As a friend told me that this sounds like a long lost Jean-Michel Jarre album, and I'd have to agree. It's very deliberately old-school-save for the occasional not-too-ancient sounding drum machine
- and happily so. One could imagine futuristic (by late seventies reckoning) spaceships careening around the room, Carl Sagan in his dandelion-seed spaceship or recall a lysergic memory or two from the pre-Reagan era. Namlook and Schulze lay down big fat Moog lines in a giant, cosmic reverb-y void. All the song titles reference a Pink Floyd song, albeit in a cheeky, rearranged manner (Phantom Heart Brother, Careful With That AKS Peter, etc.) but it's not very Floydian. Folks who stopped listening to music after Tomita, Vangelis Tangerine Dream peaked can have a reason to rejoice and lament no more that the future ain't what it used to be. I've been listening to it for weeks and I'm still not sick of it.
Filmtracks 2000
Bill Laswell
Tzadik
An odd, mixed bag from Laswell, from the ongoing Tzadic film series. It's not altogether clear if any of this songs have been used in any movies and most are only cinematic by virtue of their exotic, world-beat nature, the emphasis here being on Middle Eastern music styles. Oum El Bouaghi is a great integration of Arabic music styles with dub and O Haji Baig has an almost Turkish flavor to it. Some sound like extracts and/or out-takes from other Laswell projects and indeed Deadly Haven seems lifted out of the middle of 2000's Lo. Def. Pressure. Fans and completists of Laswell's recorded output would do well to snap this up (I did), even though, taken as a whole, it seems kind of redundant or unnecessary.
Tzadik
An odd, mixed bag from Laswell, from the ongoing Tzadic film series. It's not altogether clear if any of this songs have been used in any movies and most are only cinematic by virtue of their exotic, world-beat nature, the emphasis here being on Middle Eastern music styles. Oum El Bouaghi is a great integration of Arabic music styles with dub and O Haji Baig has an almost Turkish flavor to it. Some sound like extracts and/or out-takes from other Laswell projects and indeed Deadly Haven seems lifted out of the middle of 2000's Lo. Def. Pressure. Fans and completists of Laswell's recorded output would do well to snap this up (I did), even though, taken as a whole, it seems kind of redundant or unnecessary.
Monday, September 12, 2005
LSDC&W
Eugene Chadbourne
Fundamental
For those intimidated by the formidable size of the good Doctor's discography, this is probably the best jumping in point. It focuses primarily on his pre-Shockabilly days and features not only that line-up (Mark Kramer, David Licht) but also some of his collaborations with John Zorn and Tom Cora. There's more of his mutant hybrid country/jazz/psychedelic/hoe-down stuff than in later bands/pairings, etc. The Beatles medley simply must be heard to be believed. There's also some early stabs at sound collage in the style that was soon to be a staple of his home recorded output. This has been released by Chadbourne and may vary from the earlier version put out by Fundamental Records in the eighties.
Fundamental
For those intimidated by the formidable size of the good Doctor's discography, this is probably the best jumping in point. It focuses primarily on his pre-Shockabilly days and features not only that line-up (Mark Kramer, David Licht) but also some of his collaborations with John Zorn and Tom Cora. There's more of his mutant hybrid country/jazz/psychedelic/hoe-down stuff than in later bands/pairings, etc. The Beatles medley simply must be heard to be believed. There's also some early stabs at sound collage in the style that was soon to be a staple of his home recorded output. This has been released by Chadbourne and may vary from the earlier version put out by Fundamental Records in the eighties.
Faith Moves
Nicky Skopelitis & Sonny Sharrock
CMP
I'd always wondered what this collaboration between these two guitar giants would sound like and now I know. Nicky Skopelitis is responsible for most of the string sounds on peak-era Material's albums, playing guitar, oud, baglama as well as Coral sitar, a cheesy, sixties novelty which Skopelitis has mastered and forged a distinctive sound all his own. Sonny Sharrock was undisputedly the John Coltrane of the six-string guitar. He could summon up a brain frying barrage of jazz notes one moment and the next beautiful, soulful passages worthy of Bird or Coleman, all with a fat, warm overdriven guitar tone that would've had Fripp or Santana green with envy.
This album features surprisingly upbeat, bright sounding compositions with Skopelitis providing exotic, multi-ethnic beds of music for Sharrock to solo over or at times play counterpoint to.
Beautiful.
Fans of the nineties incarnation of Material will undoubtedly love this album as most of that era's crew is on board.
CMP
I'd always wondered what this collaboration between these two guitar giants would sound like and now I know. Nicky Skopelitis is responsible for most of the string sounds on peak-era Material's albums, playing guitar, oud, baglama as well as Coral sitar, a cheesy, sixties novelty which Skopelitis has mastered and forged a distinctive sound all his own. Sonny Sharrock was undisputedly the John Coltrane of the six-string guitar. He could summon up a brain frying barrage of jazz notes one moment and the next beautiful, soulful passages worthy of Bird or Coleman, all with a fat, warm overdriven guitar tone that would've had Fripp or Santana green with envy.
This album features surprisingly upbeat, bright sounding compositions with Skopelitis providing exotic, multi-ethnic beds of music for Sharrock to solo over or at times play counterpoint to.
Beautiful.
Fans of the nineties incarnation of Material will undoubtedly love this album as most of that era's crew is on board.
Will Work for Beats
Gonervill
Innerhythmic
If there's such a thing as instrumental hip-hop, here's a mega load. Lots of cool beats from Brain (Primus, Buckethead, Praxis), with turn-table-isms from Extrakd and Eddie Def. This is slick, urban driving soundtrack music at it's finest, with organic, funky beats and lots of vinyl-melting scratching and mixing. Deep bass by Laswell (credited here with Realization) and surprise guests Buckethead, M.I.R.V. and others. Get real Gone.
Innerhythmic
If there's such a thing as instrumental hip-hop, here's a mega load. Lots of cool beats from Brain (Primus, Buckethead, Praxis), with turn-table-isms from Extrakd and Eddie Def. This is slick, urban driving soundtrack music at it's finest, with organic, funky beats and lots of vinyl-melting scratching and mixing. Deep bass by Laswell (credited here with Realization) and surprise guests Buckethead, M.I.R.V. and others. Get real Gone.
