Twittering Machines

Matmos
a chance to cut is a chance to cure

Remarkably musical danceable funky electronic slurpy squishy and sucking sounds music mostly made up of samples from actual medical procedures. Queasy listening (that’s not mine – I read it somewhere). A 2001 Matmos release. This kind of thing can fall flat – where the gimmick overrides musical interest  – but not here imo. Pretty tricky.

Track list is relatively self-explanatory:

Lipostudio…And So On”
“L.A.S.I.K.”
“Spondee”
“Ur Tchun Tan Tse Qi”
“For Felix (And All the Rats)”
“Memento Mori”
“California Rhinoplasty”

Funny – now when I scavenge through the racks, I have a bunch of recommendations in my head and I don’t always remember how they got there. Matmos turned out to be something JD played for me. So far the neighbor’s dog has remained silent.

Buffy Sainte-Marie
Illuminations

In 1969 Buffy adds a Buchla Box (originally developed for and commisioned by Morton Subotnick for his Silver Apples on the Moon) to her guitar and vocals and fans didn’t dig it — “People were more in love with the Pocahontas-with-a-guitar image,” said Buffy. Well I’m totally diggin this LP. — “poppies” and “adam” could be hits today in between Joanna, Devendra, CocoRosie…Marissa Nadler may as well be her stepdaughter.

can’t imagine where people got that image

One of last year’s discoveries.   Apparently a very desirable folk-psych mega rarity, this reissue (by KS in Spain) has probably been all gobbled up by now but hunt this down.

Not sure if you’d call these modernized traditional songs but it’s doesn’t really matter; straight to the top of my world music chart.  One site referred to her as the Joan Baez of Tehran which I think is a little mean spirited (and makes me feel a bit like a lonely old audiophile).

And all for 200 (1976) rials!

Cool babe, cool shades

2 double LPs from my recent PREX visit. Same size, same price yet the thing that just struck me as I was eyeing which to play was the idea of the experience of playing them couldn’t, it could not be more different. What kind of difference? Not some genre bullshit, more like the difference between going on a trip and running away. Big beautiful time/space meta-fucking difference.

Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner

The best TV show ever. Oh yea, the best ever. If you don’t believe me rent the series, smoke some dope and watch the whole thing through. I dare ya. (I’d love to) And Mr. McGoohan created, wrote and stared in that bad boy. “I’m not a number, I’m a free man!” That’s entertainment and then some.

As life would have it, another famous TV islander, Ricardo Montalbán joined Mr. McGoohan on that other great mysterious island. You say hello, I say goodbye.

Gold and Fizdale
Bowles: A Picnic Cantata / Poulenc: Sonata for Two Pianos

Gold and Fizdale, Bowles and Poulenc. Zoom, zoom, vroom, vroom. Duo-Pianists. The music? Does it matter?
(the Bowles piece is fun and whacky in that ‘modern’ way with text by NY School poet James Schuyler who looks a tad creepy in the back seat and the Poulenc is tasty too)

PREX strikes again but oh so softly at $1.99.

While I’m hardly a fan of the 7″ single, this thing was simply too cool to pass up.

From the inside lid of the box: “The remit was simple: to cover a song from the past that somehow holds personal significance …. RECOVERY is the fruit of that request: a body of covers, tributes and appropriations, each delivered in each artists own style ….”

Highlights include:
Christian Fennesz covering a-ha’s ‘Hunting High and Low’ snd’s having a go at MJ’s ‘Billie Jean’; a rare vocal outing with Richard Chartier & COH revisting Soft Cell’s ‘Bleak is my Favourite Cliche’; the Lavorgna endorsed Zoviet France rendering of Motorhead’s ‘Bomber’ (one of my first records) and Ryoji Ikeda coming from outta nowhere with AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’.

To top it off, this lovely inscription on the inside lid: “RECOVERY is also a tribute to the format of vinyl, long may it reign.” Nice!

Belle and Sebastian
The BBC Sessions

I’m really enjoying this new release of old songs recorded for the BBC between 1996 and 2001. But be warned – these tunes are catchy little ditties and just like years ago with the Smiths, I find myself repeatedly singing inanities. Today’s torture (of my own device since these are not the actual lyrics) seems to be “your sweaty underwear” sung over and over to the tune of “The Stars of Track and Field” (are beautiful people – if you didn’t know). The actual lyric is “your terry underwear” but somehow I’m stuck with sweaty…At least it’s not as bad as ’85 when I was singing “Meat is Murder” while munching on cheeseburgers.

One more warning – I bought this on Amazon and accidentally purchased the CD! One thing I don’t like about Amazon’s interface is you can easily click out of the vinyl section since they put those damn recommendations for CDs on the same page as the vinyl you’re viewing. Don’t they get it? ! ? Arr. I plan to get the vinyl.

Loren Connors
The Moon Last Night

2-part “Guitar Suite” on single-sided yellow translucent 45RPM vinyl (Mmm) . Loren Connors strokes plucks and picks his Strat for some drippy echoed moody beautiful atmosphere conjuring up an indistinct yet compelling place. My only complaint is I want MORE. Recorded in Connors’ Brooklyn apartment winter 2008. Cover painting by Connors as is the Haiku on blank side 2: two sistes / play together / in moonlight. Limited to 500 copies.

Jimi Hendrix
First Rays of the New Rising Sun

When Jimi died in 1970, he left a boat load of material – studio and live un-released recordings. He also left notebooks with some scattered details about his next LP(s). Cry of Love was the  first posthumously released LP of studio recordings and Noel Redding and Eddie Cramer complained they couldn’t release the album in its entirety due to a mess of contractual restrictions. When the Hendrix family regained control over Jimi’s stuff in 1997 this double LP was one initial outcome. It contains all of Cry of Love along with tracks from Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.

I’ve always found Cry of Love ultimately sad. There’s a melancholy hanging over most of the songs so dense it makes listening claustrophobic. Hendrix was spending a lot of subterranean time in his new Electric Lady studio trying to get a new sound out of his head and he never finished. There’s very little of that Hendrix abandon and outright joy in the music.

This collection puts some air back into those last recordings, some needed room in addition to Cry of Love while pointing in a direction that leaves me wondering what if. Even though I love this record, I can only listen to it once in a blue moon.

Thanks to JH for giving me the heads up yesterday on the Milford Graves interview on WKCR FM. From 1:00 to 6:00 I only caught about the last hour but it was great. I forgot how wonderfully crazy Milford is showing more excitement and enthusiasm than most teenagers. Bra-fucking-vo! And it’s the first time I heard about the live jam session with Milford, John Zorn, Marc Ribot and Lou Reed!!! I hope they archive this puppy soon.

In the mean time, you can pick up this very rare LP from  Milford and Don Pullen from ’66 with a hand-painted cover on eBay right now. Starting bid? Only $1,000…

Fun fact (attn: Stephen): Milford started his career as a timbales player:

“I really wanted to play timbales. Around here, a lot of the project crowd was into Latin. One time, I was about 18, I saw Tito Puente and I said, ‘Hey Tito, I want to take some timbales lessons from you’ . . . So he said, just come early to the show and stand by my timbales and watch — that’s your lesson.’ He wasn’t being funny. That was a great lesson. Watching. Observing. . . . Later on, I had this friend, he moved from Cuba. I just loved being in his house, soaking up that Cuban vibe. We had this little drum band together. His father was a respected drummer, but I didn’t know how respected until once I was seeing Tito and there’s my friend’s father, up on the stage. Tito sees him and steps aside, gives him his sticks. I mean, man: Tito bowed to the guy.

After that I really wanted my friend’s father to notice me. I was living on the fourth floor of the project and his father used to walk past my house at 5 o’clock on his way home from work. So I set up my timbales and kept the window open wide, man! I’d be playing so timbales, tearing them up, and peeking through the curtain at the same time. I wanted him to stop and look up and see me, man! I wanted him to critique me. But he never did. Then one day, I’m kicking, playing hard, man . . . And my friend’s father stops . . . looks around. Then he looks up. He sees me and he grunts, like, ‘Good Cuban stuff!’ Man, that was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me playing the drums.”

It’s my own fault – reading too much causing expectations to overflow before the first needle drop. Deerhunter’s Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. and The Crystal Stilts debut Alight of Night are suffering on my turntable from over hype’d over-stimuli. It’s not that I don’t like either, it’s almost like I don’t have the patience to really listen – expecting instead to be grabbed by the collar and jerked into wowdome headfirst.

Like I said, it’s my own fault. You think I’d know better. But I do know in a few months I’ll spin both with fresher ears.

Hala Strana
Heave the Gambrel Roof

Steven R. Smith is the man behind Hala Strana whose main focus is his personal exploration of Eastern European folk music. Instruments include hurdy gurdy, spike fiddle, gourd guitar, bowed baritone psaltery, bouzouki, xaphoon, electric guitar, organ, cello, and harmonium. And that’s just what Smith plays some of which he made. Loren Chasse joins in on track 1. This is Eastern European folk music distilled through Smith’s sensibilities for a decidedly rich and potent minimalist mash.

The weird part is the first pressing is sold out so I ordered the second pressing direct from Music Fellowship admittedly somewhat disappointed since the first included the silk screened hand cut and sanded wood cover and 8 page chapbook by Smith (with felt insert to protect the LP. Smith’s influence for this lavishness was none other than Zoviet France). Anyway, the weird part is they sent me the first pressing, #134/250 burned into the backside. Excellent.

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