Tokyo Kid Brothers - Saiyuki - The Moon Is East, The Sun Is West -1972- (LP, Dutch Private Pressing), Japan

After this first record I posted a while ago, here is the second Dutch private pressing of this freaky Japanese acid drenched, political activist theatre outfit. Actually the recording for this album, which came out one year later after Story Of Eight Dogs, was made during a performance in London, but was only released in The Netherlands in limited quantities. More information about Tokyo Kid Brothers in the previous post.

The music consists again of some real communal psychedelic jams combined with cheerful songs and a lot of humor. Through this stance the Tokyo Kid Brothers are also able to express their criticism on certain things in society. Unfortunately, unlike their early Japanese releases, most songs are cut off quite early which doesn't allow them to get into real long jams, but it's nevertheless really enjoyable. You really get a sense of a community feeling during the play, because they always interact with the audience. Also during the first couple of songs a baby is crying throughout the recording.

Some of the highlights on the album consist, among others, of Motorbike in which they mix a song in Japanese with yelling "Motorbike". In another song called Jumping Song, one of the Japanese girls is "looking for the monkeys" and tells people they look like a monkey in a very playful manner. The most psychedelic jam is Goeika. Other songs are about Mao, socialism or have hippie titles like Budist Trip. Ofcourse part of the NWW-List.

"You look like a monkey!"

 Get it HERE

Ton de Leeuw - Litany Of Our Time / Clair Obscur -1986- (LP, Composers' Voice), Netherlands

Ton de Leeuw (1926 - 1996) was a Dutch composer who had studied ethnomusicology under Dutch composer Jaap Kunst (known for his studies of traditional Indonesian music in the aftermath of Dutch colonialism). De Leeuw is considered one of the most renowned modern composers of the twentieth century from Holland. He also studied in Paris under Olivier Messiaen and mystical Gurdjieff pianist Thomas de Hartmann. De Leeuw pioneered as one of the first Dutch composers to experiment with electronic sounds. This record came out for the occasion of De Leeuw's sixtieth birthday.

It contains two pieces, the first one Litany of Our Time (1969-70) is a modern composed collage of sounds and words spoken in Dutch and English. It's an interesting diverse piece sung in a sometimes very Rock In Opposition-like way. Reminding me of Sally Potter´s or Maggie Nichols' voice. The lyrics are quite cynical. From the liner notes:

"Litany is unusual among my oeuvre in that it was inspired directly by a personal experience. The subject matter of the eight tableaux chiefly derives from the 4 november 1969 issue of "The Times", purchased on that day at London Heathrow Airport to while away the time prior to departure. The backdrop against which the different scenario's unfold then, is this: the airport, a crossroads of communication, yet a place where people pass each other by like so many disembodied entities. Offsetting this we have the newspaper: the immediate source of information from the outside world and mouthpiece of reports whose reality the consciousness can scarcely grasp. 

This quality of dislocation has its counterpart in the structure of the piece. Images loom towards us, fragmented as though through a mist; texts often indistinguishably blurred; music voicing the existential isolation of modern man and the mumblings of his litany. These evocations should not, however, be interpreted in the light of an artistically slated form of reportage, a dramatisation of reality or a piece of social criticism. What "Litany" records is not so much particular events in themselves but the manner in which our minds absorb them; minds divorced from a capacity for true fellowship with the outside world and a meaningful communication with fellow humanity at large. The instrumental component is not designed for background effect, but represents a voice in its own right."

The second piece is an electronic one which title refers to a characteristic of the work of Dutch painter Rembrandt.

Get it HERE

Donated by Kim 

Formatory Apparatus - Archive (2014, Polytechnic Youth)

Sorry for the hiatus on this blog, I have been very busy lately, but I still have new posts coming up soon so keep looking out for them. Furthermore I'd like to announce the release of my first ever record that comes out tomorrow 1st of october on Polytechnic Youth. This first archive album is supposed to be a warm up for the real release later on Deep Distance, sublabel of The Great Pop Supplement. Please check out these labels if you want to discover some contemporary off the radar bands that are absolutely amazing.

Formatory Apparatus - Archive consists of jamssessions and early bedroom experiments I did between 2011 and 2013 more or less (can't exactly remember). It has a fully analog minimal synth, electronic-kraut motorik style sound fueled by teenage angst and was previously recorded on a bunch of cassettes. No computers or midi-control was used in the making of the songs.

The "Archive" vinyl will be strictly limited to a 100 copies so grab it while you can over at Polytechnic Youth.

LAST COPIES AVAILABLE HERE:

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/150097-formatory-apparatus-archive- 

-SOLD OUT-

Thanks for staying tuned in to the blog!

Bence

https://soundcloud.com/the-formatory-apparatus

Angel Rada - Solar Concert For Bhagavan -1985- (LP, Uraniun Records), Venezuela

Angel Rada is a mythical Venezuelan master of electronics. He is one of the only people from his country to create electronic music since the seventies. He even played in some of the best psychedelic groups from the sixties in Venezuela like (The) Gas Light (great name for a Venezuelan group). As a sonology student he went to study in Germany where he got acquainted with the Kosmische Krautrock legends from that time like Ash Ra and Klaus Schulze. Shortly after he produced the legendary first album Upadesa (please listen to that masterpiece).

This was Angel Rada's third album and as the title tells us it's a concert for Bhagavan. This is very much overlooked and put in the realms of New Age electronical music. The cover doesn't uncover the musical beauty that is hidden on this vinyl. Sure it could be viewed as an early example of New Age music but it totally exceeds that genre. What's present here is a tropical electronic masterpiece.

The music is based upon analog synthesizers and even energetic drum computers. It sounds like Sun Ra jamming along on one of the more cosmic songs of NDW legends Stratis/39 Eyes while the studio engineer was Innovative Communications' Clara Mondshine all set in the Caribbean. But ofcourse, Angel Rada is one of a kind and doesn't sound like any other artist. He has found a way to blend the Venezuelan feeling into beautiful pieces of electronic music in which a lot of emotions are invoked. The first two tracks are combined into a cosmic piece in which cosmic melodies suddenly start to interact with an analog drumbeat elevating the song into cosmic dance music. The song Pegasus (Night Flight Over Tokyo) is an example of pure emotion through cold analog machines.In the third song called I Ching the poem I King by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges is recited in Spanish over cosmic synthesizer music accompanied by a vocoder. This is an overlooked South American masterpiece.

¡Señor Rada! ¡Usted es grande! ¡Muchisimas Gracias!

Highly Recommended

HERE

Various Artists - Magyar Elektronikus Zene - Hungarian Electronic Music -1979- (LP, Hungaroton), Hungary

This is one of Hungary's greatest compilations of electronic avant-garde music together with this one which I will post later if it's not around somewhere. There are five Hungarian composers of electronic music present here: Zoltán Pongracz, Péter Eötvös, Iván Patachich and a combined piece by Máté Victor and Péter Winkler. A great piece on here is "Mese", meaning fairy tale, in which the sentence Egyszer volt, hol nem volt, meaning Once upon a time - the classic opening line of a fairy tale - is being processed looped and cut-up.

As you can guess electronic music from behind the iron curtain is quite an obscure thing. Nevertheless, many composers from the countries of the ex-eastern bloc had the possibility to travel to the west so they could study with people like Karlheinz Stockhausen or others. Usually these things were considered legitimate in the name of science, academy or high art. Also almost every big city in Eastern Europe had an experimental radio or television station studio in which they experimented with sound. From Warsaw to Bratislava to Beograd they all had their own kind of Radiophonic Workshop. Loads of cool Hungarian modern composed avant-garde stuff here.

This record has been uploaded to youtube, but has less than a hundred views and my copy happened to be in slightly better condition. This blog may lose a bit of its orthodoxy just to be able to keep on going with new material. Sometimes it might be available somewhere, but as a worse rip or practically not to be found. I will post some of these recordings by doing my own rips and I will shed my own light on those releases.

Get it HERE

Misha Mengelberg - Pech Onderweg -1978- (LP, BVHaast 016), Netherlands

Misha Mengelberg is a Ukranian born renowned Dutch pianist, composer and Fluxus artist. He is one of the key figures in  Dutch improvisation music and free-jazz. He founded the ICP (Instant Composers Pool) Orchestra together with Dutch jazz musicians Willem Breuker and Han Bennink. Mengelberg has played with all of the important impro musicians of the world like Steve Lacy, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and many more. He has been featured on hundreds of recordings.

Pech Onderweg, Trouble on The Road (actually trouble on the way) is a solo album of Mengelberg which came out on Willem Breuker's BVHaast label. This label became one of the key labels for Dutch jazz and impro music during the seventies and eighties. This is a very nice solo endeavour showing his improvisational skills and absurd humor in the titles of the songs.The ICP and BVHaast legacy might uncover the very essense of the good side to being Dutch. You can watch the ICP video below to get an idea. And Misha Mengelberg is starring in it.

Get Pech Onderweg HERE

New Blog: Archaic Conventions

Hello everyone ! ! !

I started this blog thinking of putting together something focusing on the best forgotten underground experimental, avant-garde music etc. in existence inspired by all the other great blogs. Though I also liked to share different types of things. It's hard for me to constantly find new material for this blog, but I love to  share things. I really enjoy putting effort in all posts so I want to share much more. Now I have finally created the ultimate counterpart to this blog: Archaic Conventions.

This blog is dedicated to oddities and rarities I find through travelling (or staying at home). I'm always on the lookout for records of a special nature. Everything that for some reason doesn’t fit in Archaic Inventions will be presented there. Ofcourse as an obsessive record collector something is fundamentally wrong with you and you look for all types of special and weird releases. Through these mental difficiencies I started to collect medical records, animal sounds, advertisement music and more.

On Archaic Conventions I will post all kinds of records. Sometimes because of their high cultural value, sometimes deviancy or because of a what the fuck this cannot exist factor. Expect a collage of releases ranging from Latin American music made in Eastern Europe, advertisements, Exotica to Jazz, Folk, Nueva Canción, wacked out Easy Listening, political oddities, medical records and beyond. Some things will  actually be very good musically, other recordings will be utterly weird or cheesy. Some things can’t even be considered music. The new blog is a combination between great music I need to rescue from the past not suitable for this blog and a historical perspective on vinyl as a medium for sound. There will be no consistency of styles. I aim for one big unusual mosaic of releases from all over the world and just like this blog: none of the material is to be found on the internet and it's out of print for a long time.

The most remarkable songs or recordings of the new blog will also be posted on the Archaic Inventions Youtube Channel so that channel will change its consistency of material, becoming a channel for all kinds of things which shouldn't bother you too much. It might work better anyway by enhancing its versatility.

As for this blog: everything will continue as you're used to. New posts will be up shortly and I just have to hope I won't run out of things. Though I don't mind the slow pace.

Check out the new blog HERE!

Bence - Archaic Inventions