Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Error - Strange Universe -1991- (Cassette, Self-Released), US

So I never thought another cassette by Error would surface after stumbling upon their earlier Show Off Your Mutants tape, but I was wrong. Here it is! Error was an electronic music group from the small sea town of Corpus Christi in Texas. On this release it says that the music was made by Geronimo (voice/instruments) and Big Chief (instruments), however it might as well be a solo project, who knows.

Just like Error's previous cassette Strange Universe is an interesting collage of samples, electronics, drum machine patterns and EBM basslines. This album reflects a much more colorful 90's sound than the previous one that leans more towards darker EBM sounds. However Error definitely has a more humorous approach to their music in general which keeps reminding me of Severed Heads. The sound and attitude illustrate that the new dawn of musical styles of the 90's had risen. Unpolished, creative and fun cassette-making in hidden corners of the world during the global rave-olution. The Strange Universe of Error.

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE


Message:
Next month this blog will be 10 years old and there might be some sort of project celebrating that. I will give an update on that once I know more in February. Simultaneously this might be the last year of doing this or maybe I can't let go and will keep going. I don't know. Maybe it's time for other priorities. Probably what is still to come combined with the pace of this blog will be already more than a year of material. Some stuff I kept in the vaults for years. So let's keep it organic and see!

Wednesday, 14 December 2022

Viktimized Karcass - Skinned Alive -1987- (Cassette, Sound Of Pig - SOP 86), US

 

Viktimized Karcass was an experimental underground band from Memphis, Tennessee that was strongly embedded in the cassette culture of the 80's. The band consisted of Chris Phinney (founder of the Harsh Reality cassette label), Michael Thomas Jackson, Richard Martin, Robert Henson and Roger Moneymaker. The music consists of psychedelic jams, electronic experimentation, tape-loops and other improvised sounds. Most of the members were also involved in solo projects and contributed immensely to the shaping of the cassette culture of home-tapers. Viktimized Karcass released many cassettes on a variety of international cassette labels. 

Skinned Alive was released through Sound Of Pig, a pivotal cassette culture label from New York that was created by Al Margolis (aka If, Bwana). There are some far out space rock jams on here. It reminds me a bit of Smersh or Sponge. Wonderful stuff.

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Thursday, 13 October 2022

Regicide Bureau #12 - A Rose Of Beds, In The Cross Of The Sign -1988- (Cassette, Regicide Bureau), US

 

Regicide Bureau was a home-taping project and label from Overland, Saint Louis, Missouri created by Thomas Sutter. By himself and together with other befriended musicians Sutter released numerous cassettes throughout the 80's and 90's. The majority of those cassettes were never for sale and could only be obtained by exchanging cassettes. The Regicide Bureau was an important force and institution within the global home-taping cassette culture which created an autonomous music infrastructure far away from the commercial music industry. Associated acts that included Tom Sutter were a.o. Next Radio, Drive!Hesaid, Regimental Anguish and Berlin Diary (with the Berlin based musician M. Finnkrieg during Sutter's time residing in Berlin).

A Rose Of Beds, In The Cross Of The Sign (nice word scramble) is a bit different than most Regicide Bureau tapes I've heard because it doesn't display the characteristic alchemical sound of electronics, synthesizers, vocals and tape collage. Instead the recording consists of four improvised pieces of electric guitar loops played by Tom Sutter technically assisted by Dave Schuey. The sound is rather minimalistic, lo-fi and hypnotic.

I just found out you can listen and download the latest 2022 release by Regicide Bureau over here on the Nostalgie De La Boue label. Tom Sutter honestly did some remarkable music over the past decades and still goes strong.

Lastly, I think some more uneasy listening and darker stuff is coming to the blog towards the end of the year because that happens to be in the pipeline at the moment. Perhaps it suits the times we are facing.

Get it HERE

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Thursday, 8 September 2022

Seemen - Woozy! -1991- (Cassette, Self-Released), US


 

Originally from Austin, Texas, Seemen is the collaborative effort of Kal Spelletich and some forty odd art drop outs and extreme technology inventors who enjoy building extreme machines and robots that they allow their audience to operate. 

Since the late 80's and 90's Spelletich has been doing performances with Seemen and the notorious Survival Research Laboratories. Through the extremes of technology, the building of giant metal robots, pyrotechnics and other inventive dangerous constructions many incredible installations have graced both festivals and urban wastelands. Simultaneously the musical output connected to that has been an important element. Inevitably the clinging of metal, fire and flames and other robotic mechanisms create sounds, Seemen also made some really special cassettes that were circulating in the home-taping culture.

Within that late 80's and early 90's realm quite some urban area's were not as gentrified as they are today thus able to provide some space for these greater machine endeavours. The art and its surroundings played an important role on each other. Not only because of the artistic nature, but also because the artists would sometimes work on these giant living sculptures and robots for months. Therefore many of the artists started to become part of the surrounding communities and meet people who, in their turn, would help on some of the projects and vice versa. For example during their time in Amsterdam a collective like Survival Research Laboratories helped barricading some squats showing support during their eviction. A performance art group like the Mutoid Waste Company in England started to engage with the free party rave scene. Eventually they even established their own village called Mutonia in Italy. These are just some examples, but there are many more stories. In the new millenium this type of art has moved to festivals because the neo-liberal globalized urban environment leaves less and less space to be engaged with.

Woozy! was a self-released cassette by Seemen from 1991. From the cover:

The Seemen don't want to be your traditional Rock-n-Roll band which follows traditional formats. The idea being to produce something creative and innovative. Traditions are made to be broken and broken they are. There is no reason to repeat history! To repeat yourself when you have mastered something means it's time to move on to something more challenging. The future of music isn't guitar solos and drum machines but the sound of a vacuum cleaner or a child laughing. If music is to progress it needs to go beyond The Format (percussion/rhythm/solo/vocal). The forbearers of THE NEW WILL not be the Euro-X-Dance Beat Generation but the intelligensia who are willing and ABLE to grow beyond what Chuck Berry accomplished 30 years ago.

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Friday, 13 May 2022

Songs From Ward 6 - Self-Titled -198X- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US

 

So I've posted something before that was on the mysterious Slang Tapes label, a US cassette label that was dedicated to strange humorous free-jazz and improvisation. That live improvisation cassette fell a little flat amidst all the home-taping music on this blog, but it was strange enough to share. I actually try to redefine that eternal crescendo of music posts of which one thing should be constantly better than the previous. In all actuality all of this musical output knows its own historical context, in its own place and time. There are different musical styles or approaches but a lot of it shares an underground ontology or a deviancy to whatever the dominant culture has been pushing. That's why it remains important that different types of music are represented on the blog. 

In any case, the previously shared Slang Tape release is very different from this one. That cassette came from Allentown, Pennsylvania, so I assumed that the label was based around that area as well. However there is no real confirmation. Also I don't know which musicians were actually part of the Songs From Ward 6 project.

Songs From Ward 6 is a stunning piece of American avant-garde music. It sort of balances on the minimal music tradition within modern composed music, jazz or other more trained musicianship traditions, but at the same time it's far out in its experimentation while displaying absurdistic lyrics and vocals. It also presents amazing crystal-like cosmic ambient synthesizer manoeuvres with a deep sound, creating different hypnotizing grooves. It eventually even ventures into some self-explored ethnic sounds. Not too far fetched from some of the more unclassifiable acts that were included on the NWW list.

I'm pretty sure that this was made in the early years of the 80's, but it clearly has some ground in the weird 60's or 70's music traditions too. From Silver Apples to Cromagnon and from Care of The Cow to the Los Angeles Free Music Society, the music by Songs From Ward 6 once again emphasizes the endless eclectic creativity and inventiveness of musical output that existed within the fringes of American underground music culture during the second half of the 20th century.

A great piece of lost music! Also any additional information on this would be highly appreciated!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Friday, 4 February 2022

Error - Show Off Your Mutants -1990- (Cassette, Self-Released), US

 

Error was an electronic music group from the small sea town (for American standards) of Corpus Christi in Texas. The group consisted of Geronimo (voice, keyboards, effects and programming), P. Poly (drums, percussion, programming) and Mr. Q-Pons (guitar). I suppose they were a home-taping group, but I don't think they were heavily involved in the more established cassette culture. Also since this cassette was released in 1990 the international cassette culture was ofcourse already different than it had been during the previous decade.

The music by Error is a nice cocktail of rhythmic electronic minimalism and EBM type tracks with lots of cut-ups and samples. Some fragments have religious Christian aspects, some are taken from unknown broadcasts and we even hear William S. Burroughs on one of the tracks. It's quite an interesting mix of tracks with a strange collage-like nature recorded in a peculiar but interesting manner. The production seems to be a bit weird at times, maybe somewhat dated, maybe recorded through some computer (Amiga?) from that time, but it does give a strange depth to the sound.

All in all some nice electronic music that reminds me of bands like The Genetic Terrorists (T.G.T.) or Severed Heads. I have no idea whether Error released more music or whether they were known for any live appearance.

Show off your mutants and get it HERE!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive 

Saturday, 26 December 2020

Various Artists - There Is No God And He Is Your Creator -1987- (Cassette, GGE Records), US


Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Year to all Friends and Followers of the blog!
 
To end this year with I reckoned that we needed something with an adagium that covers both these end of the year holidays as well as the situation we have found ourselves in throughout this year. There Is No God And He Is Your Creator (a title as oxymoronic as the title of this blog) was another fine cornerstone compilation of the international home-taping circuit created by GGE Records, a cassette label that was based in Kent, Ohio. The people behind the label also played in the band Ice Cream Blisters
 
There Is No God And He Is Your Creator compiles quite some known acts from the era like the Belgian experimental synth groups Bene Gesserit and Human Flesh created by Alain Neffe. It also contains a Merzbow track and a track by A.D. Aker known as a Dutch musician who was one of the founders of experimental music collective De Fabriek. The US tape-music legends Big City Orchestra provide a fine humoristic cover of Throbbing Gristle's Subhuman. Aside from those bands there's a lot of obscure American home-taping stuff on here ranging from lo-fi pop to strange collaged rhythms. Quite a nice bunch of tracks all together.
 
Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive
 
Get it HERE
 
 
Lots of things have happened the past year in terms of the discovery of unknown material and it has been rewarding and beautiful to have been in contact with many musicians and to have even been collaborating with some great labels that provide todays reissue jewels. I'd like to thank you all for the opportunities you gave me and the enthusiasm you share about music.

Archaic Inventions is a blog that still remains part of the underground with a loyalty towards the larger blogosphere in the way I discovered that space more than a decade ago. I'm not sure yet whether this blog will last longer than the next year, but only time, energy and life decisions will tell. Again. Much love to all readers, spreaders of the word or occasional bypassers here. Stay safe in this mad world and keep fighting all the corruptive powers that are surrounding us. Oh and listen to some nice music!
 
See you with some good stuff from the past in 2021!
 
- Bence AI

Saturday, 21 November 2020

Ex Cathedra - Caedimus Noctu -198X- (Cassette, Regicide Bureau Tapes), US

Ex Cathedra was a home-taping project from Overland, Saint Louis, Missouri created by Thomas Sutter. As founder of the Regicide Bureau (both a music project and a label) Sutter released numerous cassettes throughout the 80's and 90's. He was also in the projects Next Radio and Drive!Hesaid and collaborated on various occassions with Berlin based musician M. Finnkrieg.

On this third cassette by Ex Cathedra we hear two side-long pieces of electronic experimentation, surrealistic collage, layered noises and other strange phenomena. It presents a mind-scrambling sonic experience and cocktail of weird sounds revealing the pure spirit of home-taping experimentation. No music standards or external music industry interferences play a part. If anything Ex Cathedra loops mainstream media and existing music back into the trip turning and twisting around the roles of power and influences. Those expressions can be serious, but often also contain some humour and fun elements. In the second piece there is a nice fragment of Kraftwerk's Pocket Calculator to be heard for example.

Another home-taping cassette that contains nice mind-bending electronic surrealist music that frees music-as-a-formula from its confined existence.

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Friday, 2 October 2020

Inutile & Murilee Arraiac - Oscillating Knife System -198X- (Cassette, Inutile Tapes), US

   

Murilee Arraiac was an industrial, noise and home-taping project from Irvine, Orange County, California that existed between 1987 and 1991. The band was formed by Martin Murilee and a loose group of individuals that would record at a student trailer park called Irvine Meadows West that was partially squatted during the '70s as a more inclusive and freeform community that a.o. countered the expensive and constraining official student housing facilities next door. Murilee Arraiac recorded their music at one of the trailers that they used as their studio. From their website:

Murilee Arraiac consisted of any musician we could drag into our studio at luxurious Trailer B7, located in the Irvine Meadows West RV Park beneath the white sky of Irvine, California. All songs were recorded on Tascam 244 or Tascam Porta 01 cassette 4-tracks (except those recorded live at KUCI or via microcassette recorder at gigs). Drums provided by 55-gallon oil drums and tire irons, Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard, and a Roland 707 drum machine. The key to our special sound was the combo of a police scanner and a shortwave radio, played through various modified distortion boxes.

The strange name of the band is explained by Murilee Martin in an article I happened to stumble on: Wishing to emulate bands like Negativland and Psychic TV, and under the influence of the Cut-Up Technique, the name of the crypto-nihilo-surrealo band I put together in my early 20s was generated by drawing random syllables out of a hat, thus: Murilee Arraiac.

Oscillating Knife System is a great cassette that comprises a.o. of heavily distorted radio signals with spoken word buffoonery, lo-fi electrorock, different interfering noises and lots of electronics. It's another highly obscure project belonging to the West-Coast experimental music tradition. In a way it reminds me of the pioneering noise making collective Los Angeles Free Music Society, albeit driven by individual creativity and experimentation. Actually some very cool sounds at times.

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Friday, 14 August 2020

Haverslizurd - Self-Titled -1989- (Cassette, Carrier Communications), US


In this particular case I'm not entirely sure whether Haverslizurd is the name of the band or the title of the album, but in any case we can rectify that in a later stage (check the cover). Apparently this was an obscure American band from the late 80's that hailed from Richmond, Virginia. Probably Carrier Communications was their own cassette label, but I can't find any information on it.

The music consists of some darker improvised lo-fi industrial rock that is sometimes accompanied by drum computer patterns and saxophone sounds. Actually also not too far away from dark ambient soundscapes at times. It has this swampy American industrial rock sound which reminds me a.o. of the (cassette) material by the US band Pain Teens, but also of the great industrial sound of Factrix from San Francisco. In more recent history a band like Destruction Unit also comes to mind.

No other info for now!

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive 

Get it HERE

Friday, 19 June 2020

Eulipian - Heetseeker aka Eulipian#3: Leisure Fear -198X- (One-Sided Cassette, Self-Released), US


Here's another highly obscure cassette release from the American underground. Out of a mixture of lagging electronics, dark vocals, minimal synth experimentation and flashy guitarwork arises the world of Eulipian. By the end of the cassette we learn that the name Eulipian was taken from a Rahsaan Roland Kirk suite called Theme For The Eulipions. In any case, the music of Eulipian definitely belongs to that American underground feeling of the 80's where the nightlife soundtrack consists of a cocktail of no-wave, disco, punk, Detroit techno, industrial experimentation,funk etc.

Somewhere in that underground we meet Eulipian who slowly turns us into Eulipians with an intimate and hypnotic mix of tracks that comprises of fatalistic underground punky-junkie beatnik mumbling over dark and sleazy synthesized dream-realms with lots of weird electronics, experiments and collaged sounds. It all grows into each other and the entire cassette can be seen as one long trip. The Eulipian one man project kind of resembles Foetus, but is musically closer to an American home-taper like John Lafia.

I have no idea whether the title of this is Heetseeker or Leisure Fear, but let's use them both. I also don't know who was behind the Eulipian moniker or to which part of America this belongs. I left the one-sided cassette unindexed as I felt that the continuity of the music was intentional.

It would be nice to know if more Eulipian music exists. Mysterious, strange and atmospheric. Probably also the good stuff when listening under the influence.

Get it HERE

Wednesday, 6 May 2020

Lehr, Latzgo, Bauer, Hassay, Whitman Quintet - Donny's Hot For... -1983- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US


Here we have an obscure cassette by an American free-jazz and improvisation quintet comprised of pianist Donald Lehr, saxophone players Gary Hassay and Todd Whitman, Tom Latzgo on horns and electric guitar and Tom Bauer on bass. Apparently the outfit came from Allentown, Pennsylvania: the same city where these live recordings were done in 1982 and 1983.

Donny's Hot For... consists of some nice spontaneous live recordings of improvised jazz sessions that took place within intimate settings in Allentown. Surely these musicians played more often with each other. Their free-improvisation sound contains theatrical elements and humor instead of a deep and serious avant-garde attitude.

For the rest I can't find much information on the different musicians included here, except for Gary Hassay, who seems to have collaborated quite often with the Japanese impro percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani during the 90's. The label of this tape Slang Tapes is a mystery to me, but seems to have been closely connected to the musicians as we can hear a jolly interview with them at the end of the first side of the tape showing their light-hearted approach to this release.

In the middle of all the post-punk, wave and home-taping cassettes I've been posting to the blog, here's a moment of unknown jazz improvisation from the US, surely finding its way to some interested listeners on that particular side of the musical spectrum.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE / Mirror



PS.
So what are we doing with Zippyshare? Is half of the world still not able to get the files? I started mirroring some links on Sharezynga, is that working? Is there a better free alternative? Feel free to say something about file-hosting or share ideas to help out.

Friday, 10 April 2020

Ice Cream Blisters - + / Or -1987- (Cassette, GGE Records), US


Here's another cassette by Ice Cream Blisters, a band from Kent, Ohio that was formed by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta with the involvement of friends. These same people also created their cassette label GGE Records that played an important role in the American home-taping circuit, releasing own and other US home-taping acts as well as collaborations with foreign home-tapers. As far as I know Ice Cream Blisters released about five tapes. I posted their When Nature Fails, Art Steps In cassette from 1986 last year on the blog.

+ / Or is a much more experimental release by the group containing lengthy synthesizer adventures, guitar manipulation, wind and brass instrument improvisation and fine field recordings. Along the way topics like Second World War and Christmas are touched on with a genuine love for absurdism. It's another great example of the free spirited American home-taping scene that had an uncompromising drive to create music. It also represents the distinct American music tradition based on the expression of the weird and the wacky. The approach and sound of Ice Cream Blisters keeps reminding me of Blacklight Braille, but ofcourse there are plenty of other strange American bands from that like-minded realm that existed during the 80's (and actually well before that), specially in the deeper abyss of the home-taping universe.

Maybe more Ice Cream Blisters will surface in the future. At least here's another one!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Sunday, 22 March 2020

Buckle Mutants - Time Walk -199X- (Single-Sided Tape, Self-Released), US


Here's a tape I know nothing about. Apparently Buckle Mutants were a band from New Castle, Pennsylvania that consisted of C.B. Book, Savdyabitamitalo and Squiz McFiz, but something tells me that this was mainly a one-man project. From what I can make up from the cover it was sent as some sort of demo to Ducktooth Tapes of which I've never heard either.

In any case it's a DIY product of home recordings and probably not many of these tapes were made. The music of Buckle Mutants is based on experimental guitar noises that are colliding with some deranged metal tunes all non-carefully packaged with a punk attitude. Probably it's a product of the 90's, but no year is stated on the cover. Anyhow, here are some more tunes from the far out fringes of American indie music that thrived on a damaged sound production and DIY expression without compromise. Maybe someone knows more about this project.

Some different tunes than usual. In some unusual times. Buckle up mutants! I will post more frequently the coming weeks.

Get it HERE

Monday, 17 June 2019

Ice Cream Blisters - When Nature Fails, Art Steps In -1986- (Tape, GGE Records), US


Here we have another nice tape from the American cassette-culture network of the 80's by Ice Cream Blisters. A band that came from Kent, Ohio that was founded by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta and friends, they also did the home-taping label GGE in Kent. Ice Cream Blisters made a couple more tapes and were for example also featured on the Exart compilation Music From The White House: U.S.A.. Their music is quite an eclectic mix-up of many different musical genres and styles like most of the weird American bands from that time.

When Nature Fails, Art Steps In definitely fits a no future mentality having a nice punk style and attitude combined with some deranged new wave sounds and pure sound experiments. It reminds me of other American bands like The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Blacklight Braille or Strange Fruit Abiku, ofcourse Pere Ubu that also hails from Ohio and probably also many other US bands I am overlooking now one can find in the Mutant Sounds archive. Nevertheless, Ice Cream Blisters has a signature of its own and the lengthy tape has many different musical highlights. From the demented violin infused Vivaldi to the nice lo-fi pop track Drive It Down.

I guess that the punk attitude of Ice Cream Blisters makes sense in the light of US (art-)punk in the North-Eastern and Mid-West states of the US that already had their own special punk-history since the 60's (think The Stooges and the Detroit scene etc). By the way, you can hear that a lot of effort was put in this release. Strange how they have remained so unknown, even after all the music that the blogs have been reviving for the last decade. Maybe some more of their music will surface with the time. It's really good! And not on Discogs.

"Don't be a cardboard celebrity that people pose next to. Don't live in fear of something you don't know really exists, think your own thoughts, they are worth more." 

This tape was kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE

Tuesday, 12 March 2019

Mother Zosima - The Greatest Story Ever Sold -1990's- (Tape, Self-Released), US


Mother Zosima (the radical nun) was a feminist avant-folk project created by Kirsten Anderberg based on performances at Seattle (night-)clubs between 1983 and 2001. She took her name from the character Father Zosima who is one of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov (1879) of Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. In the story Father Zosima is some sort of guru as well as an ideal image of an orthodox Christian saint living in a monastry. He preaches for compassion and peace, basically as a reflection of Christ. During the course of the story Father Zosima dies and his holiness is called into question by the rest of the monastry because his body starts to decompose very rapidly leaving behind a terrible smell. This decomposing process is being looked upon as a sign of God prooving that Zosima was nothing but a mortal soul.

I suppose by inverting this character into Mother Zosima not only is Anderberg opposing Dostoevsky's approach of putting the man at a literary centerpoint - The "Brothers" Karamazov - as feminist critique, she is also shaping her own mirrored performative image as a radical nun that is preaching her own ideals. By choosing the title The Greatest Story Ever Sold she shows her cleverness of creating this image but also the self-irony she puts into her personification since Zosima is being looked upon as a mortal soul. And that's why this is some incredible music criticizing the American society. It is not at all stagnated into this contemporary gender and identity poltics debate we deal with nowadays, but it shows how cleverness, self-consciousness, lots of humor and appropriating commercial culture can actually serve the cause of the actual message.

The music by Mother Zosima is straight radical feminism, criticism of politics, criticism of commercial culture, criticism of weird American morals and Christianity etc. but it doesn't directly attack its enemy. It's an approach of empowering the woman, not obeying to conformism and preaches for self-empowerment while dissecting the different corrupted aspects of American society with humor and with a lot of skill. It reminds me of the feminist beat poets of the sixties like Diane Di Prima as well as some other female protest-song vocalists from the revolutionary hippie times in the States. It musically also comes close to Care of The Cow and their singer Christine Baczewska's solo work and even of certain songs by Annette Peacock

The songs by Mother Zosima are still so extremely relevant today. It's like nothing has ever changed. Specially when we look at this madness with Trump and the current state of the United States. To me it's really important to see how Mother Zosima's music is not some cult music stuff from the glory days of hippie hights, but music from a much later era carrying these important messages whilst not yet fallen victim to today's infinite cynical and polarised political views. We can learn from this creativity today and understand how political hyper-reality doesn't help us further by fighting it's xenophobic symptoms, but to put forward a message in a very clever package without being distracted nor doing concessions to constant exterior confirmation. This is what empowerment looks like. This is what is so deadly important about Feminism. I hope that Archaic Inventions can sometimes show the link from the past to today and provide possibilites and/or show the potentials of emancipatory power.

The Seattle scene of the 90's - aside from the birth of Grunge (an albino, a mosquito..) and stuff - was probably very very interesting and consisted of a creative diversity that was able to birth all of this legendary musical output. But yep, what a time we live in now! But we won't let our guard down. No worries. Enjoy Mother Zosima! (btw I wasn't too sure about the year of the release).

Get it HERE

Sunday, 25 November 2018

Down With People - Same -1990- (LP, Circularphile Records/Nadirean Extensions), US


Down With People was an experimental art rock outfit from Rochester, New York that consisted of Jan Cermak (voice, clarinet percussion), Jack Schaefer (guitar), Zeppi (Bass), John Grieco (drums), Brad Watson (violin), Dan Schelley (bassoon), Steve Peck (trombone) and Carl German (organ).

DWP is a classic example of absurd art rock groups from the US reminding me of dozens of bands, from The Jaunties to Care of The Cow to Blacklight Braille etc! Its existence at the beginning of the 90's makes that the band is portraying a hybrid sound in-between the weird art damaged rock from the 70's and 80's and a more indie sound that would become dominant in the 90's. There are various songs with strange lyrics, deconstructed rock moments and lots of improvisation. I guess the band is a good example of the transition of musical decades, holding on to a DIY ethic with their crazy artwork and experimental approach as well as a healthy dose of absurdism and critique of society in a proto-indie or grunge manifestation.

The bass player Zeppi also did an experimental album in 1988 on the same label Nadirean Extensions. It was posted on the great, now inactive, music blog Continuo ages ago.

Get it HERE