No Eyed Bird

Mighty mesmerizers from Marcia Bassett solo + live with guitars + effects pedals. Side A Glistens with solar power like sunbathing and falling into alpha wave drenched delicious dreams. Oceanic sounds as if suffused with wale songs for a maximalist droner. Side B takes you from drifting to drowning like a percolation pond of power tools. Ambient alien-scape full of mega-intensity. Heavy hypnosis.

9 of 12 tracks remixed from the group’s 1996 Songs of Love and Hate album. This vinyl is a 2008 re-release/ re-master of the 1997 Earache Records original album. Inspired by the UK band Killing Joke, England’s Godflesh began in 1988 as a duo with guitarist/ singer/ electronic programmer Justin Broadrick (currently in Jesu) and bassist Ben Green. Later they added live drums with member Ted Parsons (Swans, Prong, Jesu). Drummer Bryan Mantia (Primus, El Stew, G’n’R, Buckethead) is the credited drummer for this album only, and first studio drummer on a Godflesh release. Robotically precise industrial drumming style, barkingly livid vocals, trance like looped bass lines, lo-fi at times recording, & infinite dub layers shredded through keyboards and your choice of favorite mid-90’s pedal effects. Exploding bass drum heads and bang on a can cymbals live drumming from Bryan Mantia rescue the album.

-johnny darko

Hair Police is a NOISE/PSYCH group out of Lexington, Kentucky featuring members Mike Connelly (Wolf Eyes), Robert Beatty (Burning Star Core), and Trevor Tremaine (Burning Star Core). Droning screams, alarm sounding keys, distant drums, and slowly sideways pick scrapes equate to a nightmare of analog terror. Side B is sounds of sullen sunken ship exploration using radiation detectors and underwater saws. The drums leave us and amp tones distort like a trip down a conveyor belt. The final track is an array of lost signals against a constantly swinging rusty gate.

-johnny darko

Oakland DJ & Producer AmpLive (of Zion-I) illegally sampled and remixed Radiohead’s In Rainbows album, but managed to get it released as a free download after a tangle with Warner/Chappell. This bootleg features lyrical persuasions by rappers Del the Funky Homosapien, MC Zumbi, (Zion-I) Chali2na, (Jurassic 5) Too $hort, and Codany Holiday (SF R&B/rapper). Obscure and underground, but not deep enough to swim in, AmpLive’s mashup provides puddles of old school bay area hip-hip stars to jump in. Song #5 All I Need is the most innovative interpretation to the original song; a dub-remix with live horns and a solid reggae beat. Track #3 Nudez (would be more appropriately named as the chorus: Don’t Lose Your Head) is Too $hort & MC Zumbi together, featuring a beat like 2Pac’s Keep Your Head Up, Too $horts standard vocabulary (freaks, hustle, & lil’ homie), and lyrics giving a good introspective into Oakland’s street mentality full of hustlers & hoes, flashy rims & gang warfare. The album is endorsed by Radiohead and you can leagally download all the tracks and the album artwork for free on the 1776 Label website.

Funky first series of instrumental beats by newly signed artist James Pants. This set follows the success of his single Ka$H, which came out in Aug. ’07. In a style similar to Madlib, or Peanut Butter Wolf this Spokane, WA artist hits on everything from electro to soul. Many lo-fi moments with lonely hand claps, finger snaps, early hip hop sampling & retro keyboards from the very start of the album. Dreamscape sounds as Pants mans the drums, & keys. Most of the album programmed on the JP-8000 (crudely drawn on the cover of the album along with fake sticker marks and pressed record stains on the back of the jacket) with mixing and scratching layered in by James as well. Some jams are like slowed down B Boy music with ancient sounding vocals “yeah” and “come on”. At the end of side one, there’s even a tribal beat track with sleigh bells and some oscillated vox.

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.

Self-released CDR by Providence Rhode Island’s Raphael Lyon, aka Mudboy, is neurotic noiseter with releases on lables (Foxy) Digitalis & Not Not Fun. Mudboy sports custom bent instruments, self-built hybrid electric organ/digital keyboard (called the Mudboy Mini), & even composed/performed on a Wurlitzer for a free live ’05 performance at the PPAC in Rhode Island. This release is the second volume of Mudboy BEATS (series II) feat. DJ Jassy Jexx, and mashes up heavy industrial drone with Freakcore loops, drips and cuts. Two long tracks 20-minute tracks and 2 shorter 4-minute ones dissect heavy hitting bass, hip-hop & obscure sound clips, to construct homeless shelters for lost Burning Man’ers experimental minds.

-johnny darko

Four Songs & Ten Inches of the infinite underworld. Seattle is back on the map thanks to warm and fuzzy analog snail-tempo electro tripsperimental drone. Halloween is everyday for members Slicing, and Grandpa whose work never forgets to include a steady beat beneath the psychedelic layers of effects-laden guitars, feedback and illiterate ramblings. And that covers only the first two tracks on the A side. The B-side follows no rules, nor beat and is noisy like an autistic brain seizure. Think of any Japanese B horror movie, layer all their soundtracks and you’ll soon be opening up for slicing G. Dental drills, blister filled embolisms, and botched abortions as a giant mecha-warrior defends his title as world leader against the forces of wind, earth, fire, water and heart.

-johnny darko

Drum Machine Mayhem meets electric avant virtuoso guitar. Solo release by NYC’s Mick Barr of Orthrelm, The Flying Luttenbachers (formerly) & Crom-tech (duo with Hella drummer Zach Hill). takes the butt-rock out of metal guitar and births instrumental madness. I challenge any listener to discern time signature in any track. Nine songs (3,4,5,8,9,10,15) are purely guitar as this Fullforce Composer Series release by TZADIK seeks Guitar Hero status among hipsters and D&D fans alike. Produced by John Zorn, expect to be thoroughly impressed and confounded by the speed and compositional creativity evoked through the hands of a reincarnated Chopin or Beethoven.

-johnny darko

Two (female) artistically intoxicated folk heroes out of Santa Cruz, CA forcibly mate piano/organ tones with a battered accordion and to produce a tone-deaf clarinet baby. Coulda been the American soundtrack to Amelie. Mismatched lyrics that don’t make sense, are spoken over each other and sung by both Silvie Margot Deutsch (piano) and Zoe Ruth Cusmus Latta (accordion). Songs are sweet and sincere, as erratic as an unrehearsed kids choir with track #2 Little being the ultimate display of their witty sound. I hate to say the term cutsie, but sometimes in many tracks, that’s the only way to describe Belly Boat’s take on Raccoons, love and Agnus Dei.

-johnny darko