No Eyed Bird

Bi-coastal artists collaborative percussive clash creating the lesser known, yet longer lasting experimental stepchild of Drumline. Unlike that shitty movie, these guys use more sounds, play improvisational self composed pieces, and ahem; a glockenspiel. Mike Pride of New York City, has studied under the likes of Amir Ziv, and more recently, his mentor Milford Graves. He adds sinister vocals at points as well as electronic freakouts, but offers no words. Pride runs the studio FUNHOLE where this album was produced live! Japanese born Marcos Fernandes recently played the KFJC pit (04-2007) and is an active live performer in the San Diego scene. This particular release came from Fernandes and Pride meeting in Japan while both on tour in 2005. They later decided to take a day out of their lives to record this tasteful piece of percussion art fusion. A Mountain is a Mammal starts out with acid jazz fluxations, enters into a 27-minute piece with surprising sounds of bells, and ends with evil earth imploding electronic experimentalism.

Re-release of the 1983 cassette comp under Iham Products and FOPI. The album features shorts clips, most under a minute with clips like a 39 second Frank Zappa interview to to a piece by Charles Manson called Charlie and his MAM. Compiled by David Tibet (of Current 93), many are looped, foreign language and mostly of Throbbing Gristle material. This stands as the missing piece of the jigsaw between Coum Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV including rehearsals, radio bytes, phone calls, unreleased demos, interviews and ultra nonsense. The original release was issued in February 1983 as the fourth, and final issue of the Nanavesh magazine (The tape was the issue and didn’t include a written publication with it). The magazine concentrated initially on Throbbing Gristle and with its demise it moved onto Psychic TV. 23 Drifts To Guestling is a retrospective tape of Throbbing Gristle & basically a magazine on tape. It contains an interesting insight into TG with messages from their ansaphone, some material, an interview with Genesis following the ‘Prostitution’ exhibition at the ICA, an interview with American spree killer Gary Gilmore, a chat between Genesis and Monte Cazazza, bits and pieces of songs and a few death threats over the phone. It makes compulsive listening because it’s so strangely put together and it’s a good insight into the character of Mr P-Orridge.

-johnny darko

Big hole, white label vinyl, limited, live performance by former Wolf Eyes member Aaron Dilloway and John Wiese of (Sunn O))) back in 2006 in the UK at a place known as Chislehurst Caves. These man-made caves stretch 22 miles long under the eastern suburbs near London, used for such things as mining chalk & flint, they were also used to shelter the Brits during WWII air raids. Even more interesting, the caves are speculated to have been used by the ancient Druids and also by the Romans and Saxxons. From this very rich background it would seem there was little left to accomplish until more recently when the caves began to be used as a music venue. Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Stones, and Hendrix have all played there, and now too have ear-piercingly experimentalists Dilloway and Wiese. Art noise meets electronic crunch. Three untitled tracks totaling over 8 minutes of pure noise in possibly one of the nosiest settings imaginable. Imagine sounds of Satan vs. television fuzz in a battle with loop pedals plummeting asunder with each attack. Frequencies so high they may reinvent hearing by broadening the spectrum of the human ear. Later sounds resemble background tones of the Atari 2600 game Wizards of War. Loopiness to the point of near locked groves, but leave your patience at the door as no track even reaches 5 minutes in length, distance or circumference.

-johnny darko

Beautiful Baltimore instrumental duo of Nathan Bell of Lungfish and Arbouretum’s David Heumann. Drifts out and outer into subconscious subspace, 10 strokes above par. Recorded in Kentucky, these men of rock envision a dustbowl full of baritone and orbital spirit guitars, the bowed banjo, and amplified kalimba. If that’s not enough for your tripp into oblivion then your momma taught you wrong, and listen for the sexy trumpet smattered all over the B-side cut Ephaphatha. Themes of flooded spaces with secret hide outs and endless network of sprawling wires like rays of the sun, Human Bell takes elements of Godspeed You Black Emperor and strips them down to the soul. Much like them, it may be difficult to remember much of the melody after even multiple spins, however like their theme, they aim isn’t set to stun. Moody and morose, most build-ups perish as they build, quite opposite of powerfully moving music. Could very well be a good theme to a slow escape, or a lukewarm flood lifting you out of your seat and into the ocean ever so gently, and then leaving you there to float away. Like the best moments in life, enjoyable during the ride, but lost forever after the moment is gone.

-johnny darko

Lovely low deep male vocals (provided by Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten) float in ambience, minimally droning with surprise beats. Recorded in Berlin, this German foursome is made of 2 percussionists, Tony Buck & Steve Heather, along with guitarist Martin Siewert, and zietblom on bass. Trippy drugged out feel to much of the album with fuzzed out one note surf style guitar delayed fuzz solos leading the way like a super stoned version of Green Milk from the Planet Orange. Mathematical plays with timing and meter on the lap steel guitar along with a percussive eastern vibe make heaven a much easier place to reach. Relaxing vibes are at a peak with the two guest vocal cuts Scarlet Woman and Prince Priest. But beware; sweet heaven is full of demons just like anywhere as luscious vocals turn into nightmarish Golem growls. Side B opens up nearly 4 decades ago into an age where 6-minute intros in rock music was the norm. Keyboards and industrial cymbal hits join the infinite fretless foundation of sadness envisioned by the band. With their musical canvas they paint landscapes with more freedom and even less optimism than Philip Glass’s audial work in the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi.

-johnny darko

Fusing improvisational Java music performance and electronic composing is Gregory Taylor  of Madison Wisconsin. This is his first musical work, piecing this 7 track CD together live by creating samples and loops of an improv. electronic composition in the vein of Post Modernist and gamelan style music theory. Ambient and soft sounds ring like a cross between soft glass harps and organic wooden church bell. Glitch influence breathes lightly over the entire album that is free from silence and seamless throughout. Minimalistic in ways much like Brian Eno yet closer to Phillip Glass, Taylor uses synth tones performing in both Indonesian pentatonic scales Slendro and Pelog. Many of the track titles come from the Javanese note names of the Slendro and Pelog scales whose 5 notes were named after body parts. Note #2 – gulu – meaning neck, note 3 dada – is the chest, note 5 – lima – is hand or five fingers, and - nem,- note 6 referring to the male genitalia. The scales sad sound sets the mood of this album as its use in countries such as Bali were for cremation ceremonies. Celebrating Indonesian traditions and expanding it into the digital age, watch out for the easy New Age classification of his 25 year devotion to the sounds of Java.

-johnny darko

This self-released 2006 album is hip hop fused with experimental, noise and ambiance. I’ve never heard anything like it. Sleeper (aka Mad awkward) and ID are from Lawrence, Kansas and their music is the perfect combination for drug addicts, antisocial and avant thinking persons. This is Sleeper’s third full length and you can find many remixes and rare tracks their myspace pages. The album features songs created between 2003-05. I bet he has some cool equipment because he thanks bentinstruments.com and I’ve seen some of the cool tricked out instruments they make.

This is a self-titled limited split 7” (33rpm) EP limited to 500 copies featuring Yellow Swans and The Goslings out on Not Not Fun Records as part of the bi-monthly Bored Fortress 7” series. The Yellow Swans untitled track is like a police chase on acid. You can sort of hear the sirens coming after you, but you can’t get all the sticky honey out of your ears. The guitars are freaky and cool and the scraping, static textures fit well with the vinyl. This side of the record ends without warning. So that was your warning. The Goslings track ‘Saw-Horse’ features demented, echoing, female vocals and a simple electronic drum beat in the background with haunting keyboard bass tones as well as slow hitting cymbals. It’s a much slower yet complex track with tempo changes, almost unexpected on a Yellow Swans release. You can buy the record here from The Goslings website.

You may think they’ve stumbled across Tiny Tim’s lost 4-track recordings, but really its another solo project by Washington’s Ryland Bouchard (The Robot Ate Me) highlighting quirky falsettos, a crisp clarinet and drum machine antics. Out on 5RC in 2006, “Good World” is emotionless in its delivery yet creatively full of the delightful surprises found in a magical world. Instruments come and go as all the tracks flow together. Piano, guitar and real drums drop in and out creating a complex rhythmic feel. Tracks are all short at a minute or less. Intricate album artwork illustrates many of the characters named in the track titles such as the She Owl and Djien (a man-sized spider monster). The folk album feels like a trip through an imaginary world where everything is scary but nothing is dangerous. ‘Sin Like Holy Men’ and ‘She Owl #1’ are among my favorites as they are the most playful and childlike which is the theme of the entire album. The production value of the album is excellent with layers of clarinets and harmonizing falsetto vocals. My only complaint is that the album is built like a novel, building up to its peak ¾’s way through and slowly fading out with the final 4 tracks. You can get this album directly here from their label website. Listen to the track Djien courtesy of 5RC.

-johnny darko