Tag Archives: Experimental

Themselves – The No Music Remixes (2003) Vinyl Download

Note the autographed copy.

and now…

Note the most awkward album signing of the 21st century.

 I went to see Themselves at the Southgate House in the winter of 2003 with my brother. At the time I had this little Canon digital camera that took its sweet old time capturing precious moments. So, it could take anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds from the time photographer pressed the clicker to when the shutter snapped.

Anyway, I went up to the merch booth after the show with my brother and struck up a conversation with Dose One. We discussed the show and how I worked with a guy that used to tour with him back in the day. While I was trying to help him remember how he used to rap with a guy I washed Porsches with, a guy named Zebediah, I got the brilliant idea that I should get my freshly purchased albums signed.

I asked Dose if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, to which he replied “hell naw” while whipping out black and silver markers. He signed The No Music original LP with a little black Sharpie drawing on the front. It was really quite adorable. For The Remixes he pulled out the sparkle silver job. I thought, “Yo Boy, you better get this histowic moment on record or your crew will NOT believe it. Word is bond!”

I handed Junior the janky little digi, struck the thumbs-up pose and copped a triumphant smile. Dose did his best to look excited and we froze the pose. And then everything hit slow mo. We both could see the little infrared autofocus light on the front blinking, so we just sat there waiting for the flash. And waited. And waited. I had totally forgotten about the totally unreliable snap. It was the longest 10 seconds of my life.

Suddently, Dose One grabbed my erect thumb and shook it. He grabbed that little dude and went down to Funky Town. What you see in the picture is the immediate aftermath of that member molestation. This wiggle ushered in a total loss of cool…and the moment I decided I’d never get an autograph ever again. 

Click here to download The No Music at 320 kbps

Tracklist

A1   Terror Fabulous 4:03  
  The No Music Of Hospitals.
A2   Hat Set For Butler 2:42  
    Remix [Demix] – Themselves
A3   Mouthful 4:12  
    Keyboards, Bass, Guitar – Jerome Opena
  Remix – Controller 7 , Matth
B1   Good People Check 5:03  
    Remix – Hrvatski
B2   Poison Pit 3:15  
    Remix – Why?
B3   Livetrap 2:51  
    Remix – Hood
  The No Music Of Mother’s Milk And Going Deaf.
C1   Only Child Explosion 2:56  
    Remix – Alias (3)
C2   Dr.Moonorgun Please 3:20  
    Remix – Grapedope*
C3   Darkskydemo 4:18  
    Remix – Fog
D1   You Devil You 4:26  
    Remix – Odd Nosdam
D2   Out In The Open 5:35  
    Remix – Notwist, The
D3   Hat In The Wind 7:13  
    Remix – Electric Birds

Butthole Surfers – Hairway to Steven (1988) VINYL DOWNLOAD

Keeping up with the trend of strange albums I present Hairway to Steven. This album sat in the unplayed pile for more than 5 years until today. Its memory just evoked visions of teeth gnashing with hacked up smoker’s phlegm smooshed into long, oily hair. I just couldn’t handle the flashbacks of 1 West.

However, the listen today made me once again realize that tastes can change for the better because this album is fantastic. It’s best used to neutralize the awful yelping of your neighbor’s dog. Once this bad boy began spinning amidst the open windows and supple Kentucky spring breeze the mutt dog (cute but far too boisterous) adjacent to my house stopped his usual abused dog soapbox spiel and took listen to the horribly brilliant sounds of the Butthole. I can only imagine what strange ultrasonic transmissions he received.

The following album notes were handwritten on the album sleeve when I got it. They’re from some long-lost disc jockey affiliated with either WYCC (Google brings up a Chicago PBS station…I highly doubt this disc spent a tenure at the dignified digs of Public Broadcasting) or WMSR in Oxford, OH. I thought his or her insight into the disc were the real icing on the butt cake. If anyone knows what the abbreviations mean before each track description please enlighten the audience.

Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), no song titles have been supplied. Instead there are kinda rude drawings for each tune. We’ll just think of them as song #1, #2, etc.

SIDE ONE:

Song #1: MT/MAJOR SHIFT, SOUNDS LIKE  A NEW SONG/VERY QUICK FADE

Kinda typical surfers, lots of drums & wigged-out guitars w/ occasional mutated voice. Barnyard noises are included in the second, more sedate half of the song.

Song #2: MUT/COLD

considerably more “normal” dark psychedelia

Song #3: MT/Fade

“I saw an x-ray of a girl passing gas.”

and why not?

Side 2

Song #4 (live): MT/FADE on clapping

about smoking, love & hate

Song #5: MUT/FLN

Song #6: MUT/FLN

rockabilly about Julio Iglesia (I think)

Song #7: MT/FLN

like song #1

Song #8: MUT/COLD

like song #1 and #7 only shorter and faster

The Butthole surfers are from Texas and are very weird. See them live if you can.

 

Click here to download Hairway To Steven at 320 kbps from vinyl

Walter Carlos – By Request (1975) Vinyl Download

The album cover was altered to say Wendy after Carlos underwent sex reassignment surgery. Note that cartoon Carlos is still male.

There are a lot of tasty fun facts about Walter Carlos. First off, he was the she that composed the Clockwork Orange soundtrack. The second is that Walter, later Wendy, is the only Father and Mother of Electronic Music. However, the most mysterious tid bit that stuck out in the hard-hitting Wikipedia article about Carlos was two curious words: Faraday Cage.

"Scientist" in a tiny, tiny Faraday Cage.

Scientific pursuits for the benefit of mankind.

A Faraday Cage is a special room that’s typically used to protect electronic devices such as industrial computer equipment from outside sources of electronic interence like lightning strikes or power surges. The Faraday Cage comes in handy for NASA when maintaining Tom Hanks’ neuronet processor during his bi-annual checkup. And, as the previous photo illustrates, it’s critical for protecting fedora-donning dumb dumbs from homemade tesla coils.

 As any audiophile will tell you, the foundation of solid sound is clean electricity. Improper grounding and interference from appliances sucking your Jiggawatts can really throw a monkeybone into gears of the best-planned stereo system.

One of my apartments in Clifton during my college days had ungrounded outlets. This really played havoc on my home theater’s subwoofer by causing the most terrible buzzthumping. The only remedy was continually lassoing the connective cable around my apartment until it meshed with the friendly electromagnetic frequency of the day. Or something like that.

Getty Images just spit in your mom's hair. Pictured is Walter pre-op.

On her website Carlos’ explains how her NYC neighbor’s mood lighting would mess with her home studio recordings:

Oh, yes, those are the remote controls for the various tape machines that you see on the far left, and just above, on the meter housing for the console, is a pair of Phase Linear Autocorrelators. These were a pretty decent single ended noise reduction devices that we had to use during the late 70′s due to power buzzes that came from the light dimmers in the brownstone next door (not amusing). I’d nearly forgotten about that nightmare, since (as I just mentioned) the console is now immune to such things, and the new studio, in being a genuine Faraday Cage (conductive walls, ceiling and floor, tied to common ground) is truly free from essentially all external signal contaminants.  

Carlos' Frankensteinian Sound Cruncher

Just imagine Wendy flipping her shit as she went through countless wires trying to figure out which one was the harbinger of the dreaded analog buzz. However, she couldn’t freak out too hard because violent convulsions might, ahem, rip out the stiches that kept her womanhood roaring.

So basically Carlos was and is a mad scientist. She still toils her hours away by torturing electronic equipment into screaming the desired tone in her gigantic, eletronically-inert box. But we shouldn’t fear her for, as you will see after listening to By Request, the ends justify the end. And that’s always what’s most important…right?

Wendy Carlos: The Original Rebuilt Tranny

Wendy Carlos: The Original Rebuilt Tranny

Click here to download By Request at 320 kbps

Tracklist

A1   Three Dances From “Nutcracker Suite” 5:20  
A2   Dialogues For Piano And 2 Loudspeakers 4:00  
A3   Episodes For Piano And Electronic Sound 5:50  
A4   Geodesic Dance (Electronic Etude) 3:21  
A5   Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 In F Major 5:50  
B1   “Little” Fugue In G Minor 3:44  
B2   What’s New, Pussycat? 2:05  
B3   Eleanor Rigby 2:06  
B4   Wedding March 1:12  
B5   Pompous Circumstances 12:00

 

L. Ron Hubbard – Space Jazz: Battlefield Earth (The Soundtrack of the Book!) 1982 VINYL DOWNLOAD

*download album below*

Ok, so this is the most important piece music of the 20th century. Yes, you read that correctly. In 1982 L. Ron Hubbard introduced Space Jazz, the first ever soundtrack to a book (not just any book…Battlefield Earth!!!) and forever altered the creative path of human history. Many historians credit this album with slaying the incredible high-hat breathing Disco Dragon. Others blame it for laying the Yoshi egg that hatched Lady Gaga. However, there’s much more to this story than hilarious musings…

Exhibit A!

(from the album gatefold)

SPACE JAZZ is a completely new musical sound destined to be hailed as the music of the future. The many and varied forms of music are an integral part of the cultural heritage of Earth.

Now, the sound of the future has been established by L. RON HUBBARD, author of the blockbuster science fiction novel Battlefield Earth.

The concept of a soundtrack is something one normally associates with motion pictures. Now for the first time ever–a soundtrack for a book–Battlefield Earth–”Space Jazz.” Think of the “Star Wars” Sagas, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” mix in the triumph of “Rocky I,” “Rocky II” and Rocky III” and you have captured the exuberance, style and glory of “Battlefield Earth”–The Evening Sun, Baltimore MD.

Consider the magnitude of the challenge Hubbard set himself. Conventional musical instruments and even huge symphony orchestras have their limitations. He turned to the technology of the future–computers.

Recent breakthroughs in computer musical instruments offered the needed versatility to match his new musical concepts.

Today, a computer is able to reproduce any natural sound. It can record a single note of a musical instrument and from that reproduce the rest of the instrument.

But better yet, it can take any sound and turn this into a rhythm. A coyote can sing the blues. A horse can tap dance. Liquid can splash out a Strauss waltz. Laser beams can hum a lullaby. You name it and you can get it

Yes, L. Ron Hubbard took the most technologically advanced musical instrument of the time, the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument, and used it to recreate the sonic feast of a horse tapdancing! Thank your stars L. Ron Hubbard was one of the first people to get his hands on the $25,000 Fairlight CMI and thus create this epic masterpiece. What follows is just a small sampling of L. Ron Hubbards musical pioneering.

Exhibit B!

Be sure to carefully absorb the rich tonal haunches in this track. The playful neighs of the heroic horse Windsplitter, created through the Fairlight CMI’s digital processor, stir feelings of hope within the listener that, yes, man, beast and machine can coexist peacefully in a world free of Psychlos.

Exhibit C!

L. Ron Hubbard used his Hubbard Electrometer to test if tomatoes felt emotional pain. Seriously, check out this UK Telegraph article.

Ok, so I took a long time to trying to figure out exactly what this album was all about. I looked for hidden answers about Scientology in the ridiculous anti-stereo narration. I then looked for some sort of psychic pattern in the horribly repetitive and shrill synthesized filler “music”. Finally, I sought solace in the suspiciously mundane track titles:

1. Golden Era of Sci Fi

2. Funeral For A Planet

3. March of The Psychlos

4. Teri, The Security Director

5. Jonnie

6. Windsplitter

7. The Mining Song

8. The Drone

9. Mankind Unites

10. Alien Visitors Attack

11. The Banker

12. Declaration of Peace

13. Earth, My Beautiful Home

But I didn’t experience even a single mysterious revelation from on high.

So I listened again. And again. And again. And upon my umpteenth listen, just as Space Jazz began evoke memories of my endless hours spent playing Oregon Trail 2, the answer blasted itself all over my face: L. Ron Hubbard was the greatest practical joker of all time.

His absurdly bogus biography, his hackneyed bibliography, his intensely whacko yet ridiculously profitable Scientology cult had all been part of the greatest monkeyshine ever unleashed on mankind. The man was a hybrid of Andy Kaufman’s unflinching, rabble-rousing comedy with  Joseph Smith’s pied-piper espièglerie–now that’s saying something.

The aural assault Space Jazz makes complete sense when you view L. Ron’s life in that light. You could even say this composition was the punchline to a lifetime of pocket-emptying tomfoolery.

So, Xenu bless you, L. Ron Hubbard…you hilarious fucking bastard.

Click to download SPACE JAZZ to the futuristic 320 kbps

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Yeasayer – Odd Blood (2010) Vinyl Download

*vinyl download below*

If you take a look behind Mr. Triangular Turban, the one right there leaking digital flesh, you’ll notice the background resembles a Magic Eye poster. You remember, Magic Eye, the artwork you saw at mall kiosks during the 90′s. The first time you saw those curious technicolored splatters you didn’t really know what to make of them. The Kiosk Master sensed your bewilderment and explained, “Um they’re a hidden 3D picture, kind of. You sort of have to look through them or past them…or something. I think that one’s a dolphin jumping over a desert island. I think.” So you tried to stare through them. You also crossed your eyes, wiggled them, gouged them repeatedly because of your inability to see the hidden dolphin and his high-flying acrobatics.

Pleasures of the deep.

Then, just as you were about to kick the Kiosk Master in the nuts, the sea mammal and his sick air came into view. Oh, the beauty you beheld. Yes, it was just the outline of the dolphin and it wasn’t really the actual color of a dolphin and it gave you a terrible headache but it was AWESOME. It was like stepping into a whole ‘nother dimension where simply-shaped environments prevail  and taste accounts for nothing: A dimension called The Tri-County Mall Foodcourt. With this freeing feeling about your person you confidently worked down the gallery lineup. Pyramids at Giza, Statue of Liberty, Bald Eagle over Star-Spangled Banner, Confused Pug Puppy in Easter basket….each one outdoing its predecessor. It left you with terrifying anticipation. You thought, “If we’re making Magic Eyes now in ’93 there’s no telling what 3D beast we will unleash come 2k.”

Pleasures of the deepest.

… Well, 2000 only brought retinal tears and activated gag reflexes within the stereogram universe. Sorry.

*Side Note: This album reminds me of The Moody Blues trapped in a Magic Eye poster with Four Loko Caffeinated Malt Alcohol-drinking narwhals as their transportation through a green lightning sea. I’m gonna grab a bottle of Old Grand Dad Bonded and jump in head first.

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>>Click to download ODD BLOOD<<

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DJ Shadow – Endtroducing (1996) Vinyl download

 

*download below* 

This is the album that shepherded me into the rolling knolls of Vinyl Hunters Valley. This is because it causes the most mysterious synaptic firings within my squishy grey matter. Makes my temples swell with a pleasing uneasiness. Causes mysterious pockets within my loins to quake and flutter. 

It's my HEAD, Schwartz, it's MY HEAD!

OK, so basically I have no idea what it does to me but I’m certain it transmits some sort of ultrasonic frequency that says, “GO ON EBAY AND BUY A TURNTABLE RIGHT NOW. NOT LATER, NOW. TURN OFF COPS, YOU’VE SEEN THIS EPISODE, GUY, BUY ONE NOW.” So I did and never looked back. 

Despite the fact that I love, love, love this album I’ve been avoiding reviewing it here because it’s difficult to capture the essence with letters. Most stereoponies love to saddle the “Trip Hop” label onto this album but that does it no justice whatsoever. That term conjures the visions of hippies listening to hip hop, smoking a big J and spouting, “whoa man this rap groove is, like, so trippy. It’s totally gnarring my buzz, man.” While this album will most likely multiply and sassify marijuana-induced intoxication it’s so unfair to tie it to pot culture. Endtroducing would never, EVER get caught dead in patchwork corduroy pants. 

Our youth are under attack.

Other bucking vinylbroncos like to describe  the album by mentioning Endtroducing’s ingredients: hip hop, jazz, psychedelia, movie dialogue, television show trialogue, percussion samples etc. However none of these phonocowboys can ever really capture this wild one.  True, you get a flavor of each along the winding train ride through British Columbia that is Endtroducing but it’s so much more than bits and pieces. It’s like describing your favorite pizza to a friend and saying, “Yeah man I had this awesome food today it was, like, a bit of tomato, flour, a touch of salt and some, like, I think cheese.” Those ingredients are all fine and good but separately they wouldn’t do an Adriatico’s Bearcat Pizza justice just like calling this album a fusion of genres is a crime. The sum is much greater than the parts. 

I think, maybe, this album is like watching the most beautiful little bubble you ever saw. You can watch it dance on the wings of an invisible wind but as soon as you try to capture the damn thing in your hands it’s gone. You’ve taken your dirty little paws and ruined such a magical, delicate thing. You should be ashamed of yourself. We were all having such a wonderful time watching that little orb. Next time chill out, stop trying to bottle it up and just behold its angelic splendor while the gettin’s good. 

"From listening to records I just knew what to do...mainly I taught myself. And you know I did pretty well...there were a few mistakes that I have just recently cleared up. I'd just like to continue to be able to express myself as best as I can. I feel like I have a lot of work to do still. I'm a student of the drums and I'm also a teacher of the drums too. And I would like to be able to continue to let what is inside of me, which comes from all of the music that I hear, I'd like for that to come out, and it's like it's not really me...the music's coming through me."

What’s truly incredible about Endtroducing is how it was composed. You have to remember that this was created in 1996 and if anyone even had a laptop it could maybe hold a gigabyte of files, if you were lucky and rich. In addition, music manipulation software like AudioMulch or Adobe Audition hadn’t been invented yet. So, Shadow had to use an Akai MPC-60 music sampler/beat machine to cut, splice, and melt his tracks together. If you then take into consideration exactly how much trial and error of listening to thousands of big vinyl discs it took to find the necessary sounds for the album it becomes evident that either a miracle was performed in the making of Endtroducing or Shadow’s some sort of DJ genius. I prefer to believe the latter, especially after taking watching the following video. 

 

So if you haven’t heard this album, regardless of what music you’re into, you need to get in the boat and get your float on. If you’re a fan you can always use a higher quality rip. And, if you really want to get deep, pick up the vinyl and take a voyage into the continental divide…of your mind!!!! 

Click here to download Endtroducing

Chicago Underground Duo – In Praise of Shadows (2006) vinyl

*download below*

I picked up this record solely because of the ridiculous lineup of instruments. Rob Mazurek uses the following: cornet, organ, celeste, piano, prepared piano, harpsichord, noise box, moogerfooger analog delay and ring modulator. The second half of the duo, Chad Taylor, plays drums, cymbals, mbira, gongs, percussion, vibraphone and prepared vibraphone. I had a look a couple of those up to make sure they weren’t trying to pull a fast one.

I wish my last name was Moogerfooger

Pouring such a complex array of sounds into an album increases the chance that said album will play with the musicality of a clothes dryer simultaneously fluffing a can of pea soup, a toddler and a string of Christmas lights. Chicago Underground Duo luckily avoids this trap and uses each instrument in perfect proportion. What they were able to achieve with such a well-stocked toolbox is seven uniquely alive tracks. Each has its own personality–it shakes your hand differently, tips differently and prepares its hash browns differently. You always want them to get cheese on that shit so you can steal a few bites but they never do, which really pisses you off but you turn the other cheek because they’re just so cool. That and they have a bitchin’ Cadillac they let you borrow while they’re on business trips.

Vibraphone: The rich man's xylophone.

Vibraphone: The rich man's xylophone.

I’d try to quantify or qualify how the dainty pluck of the mbira, or thumb piano, was really a step forward in Taylor’s artistic development but I’m not going to do that. The reason is that this is one of those albums that has the opportunity to mean completely different things to each listener. Each song has a distinct theme but this theme doesn’t box in the listener’s train of thought.This doesn’t mean they aren’t engaging; it just means that they enable you to unleash your inner most thoughts and ride them high in the friendly sky. It’s the magic carpet you can hop on while you’re soaking up the calming effects of a scented candle or smashing a  fat  ass  blunt.

Mbira: Traditional African instrument. So dainty.

Finally, I feel that it must be noted that John McEntire’s engineering on this album is fantastic. Every instrument is perfectly defined and represented with full voting privileges. I’ve never been one to buy a record based on who was working the knobs behind the scenes but I’m going to make an exception this time. He took an album that could have been good and made it great.

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Click here to download In Praise of Shadows to MP3 from vinyl

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Harpsichord: Black keys make everything cooler.

Harpsichord: Just look at those badass black keys.

Tomita – Pictures at an Exhibition (1975) vinyl

*download below*

Here’s two video previews of lighter songs with the full album for download below.  Take a moment to check the vids out (they’re only about a minute apiece.) The longer songs get pretty far out with the composition and effects Tomita uses.  I really can’t get enough of early Moog electronic music…especially pieces with a quirky Japanese twist.

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Click here to download Pictures at an Exhibition from vinyl

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Tracklist

A1   Promenade 1:30  
A2   The Gnome 3:12  
A3   Promenade 1:02  
A4   The Old Castle 5:18  
A5   Promenade 0:34  
A6   Tuileries 0:55  
A7   Bydlo 3:17  
A8   Promenade 1:00  
A9   Ballet Of The Chicks In Their Shells 1:05  
B1   The Two Jews 3:04  
B2   Limoges/ Catacombs 3:56  
B3   Cum Mortuis In Lingua Mortua 2:06  
B4   Baba Yaga (Hut On Fowls’ Legs) 3:50  
B5   Great Gate Of Kiev 6:14

Japancakes – Down The Elements (2000) vinyl

*download below*

super boss ambient/instrumental/spacefloat/musical slip slide.  great for sleepy times, thinky times, or nakey times.  ride the snake.

Track List

A1 – Version 1 (6:08)

A2 – A.W. Sonic (11:06)

B1 – Sputnik (2:55)

B2 – Down The Elements (16:52)

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Vinyl Rip Here

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Music From The 21st Century (1980) Vinyl Download

  

*download below*  

Oh, what creamy dreams 80s electronicos conjured within their oily brainfolds with this Sass-terpiece.  In 1980 the nation was still starstruck with NASA, disco was mysteriously topping the charts, and ex-peanut farmer Jimmy Carter fought  the Cold War by boycotting the Summer Olympics in Moscow.  What a glorious time to be alive and fear atomic annihilation. They weren’t even worried about the terrible 42nd law of binary nothingness! 

 This album gives a glimpse of what monster-truck-sized-synthesizer operators envisioned 20 years in the future. Jesus, were they wrong. So dreadfully wrong. 

Moog Synthesizer

Telephone Switchboard

The tracks on this record are very “Star Trek” (post Kirk and pre-Jean-Luc, you dig) with songs like “On The Throne of Saturn” and “Inside The Black Hole”.  It also features the song “Karavan”, which debuted the previously undiscovered letter K in its title.  As a whole the album perfectly captures the decade’s hope of men living on the moon and women cooking for men on the moon.  

Little did they know that electronica would some day devolve into this:  

  

God damn now my whole body hurts. Luckily I have a little medicine stowed away here.  Ingest before it’s too late.  

Click here for the 320 kbps antidote!  

Track List  

1. Richard Burmer – Intro  

2. Tangerine Dream – Tangram  

3. Alex Cima – Primera  

4.Steve Roach – Karavan  

5. Don Preston – On The Throne Of Saturn  

6. Neil Norman – Dance of the Hyenas  

7. Alex Cima – Lithium  

8. Michael Garrison – Escape  

9. Bruce Curtois – Inside The Black Hole