New/Improved PROG/KRAUT/SPACE/PSYCH ROCK Listening Club - New albums every Friday!

from seventh records:

An introduction to the universe according to MAGMA, MYTHES ET LEGENDES highlights the themes composed by Christian VANDER at the beginning of the 1970s. Extracts are found here from KOBAIA, 1001 CENTIGRADES and the three movements of the trilogy THEUSZ HAMTAAHK, including, for the first time, KLAUS KOHMBALAD, the long version of the coda of RIAH SAHILTAAHK. Nicely blended into the music, the speaking voices of Christian and Stella VANDER and Guy KHALIFA link the different titles to give us the keys which enable us to go deeper into this totally original music. Their presence breathes a life and warmth into the record which is diametrically opposed to the insipid succession of disconnected titles so often heard on compilation albums..

yeah, she's a real trip - I remember when I got a record player she brought all her bongwater-stained Moody Blues records - "I want you to have these", kind of oblivious to how many $1 copies of them were floating around. It was a nice gesture! (and I never thought I'd enjoy them but they were really good!)

as for Magma I didn't want to scare her away with 20- or 40-minute songs so I figured this comp would do. I hadn't actually heard it before. It's a little odd.

xp http://seventhrecords.com/MAGMA/REX14/cdmytlegendeuk.html

So is this just going to be a spotify listening club?

lol i thought the grandma was the drummer for a second there and my heart leapt
still cool though!

so someone is going to need to translate these spoken introductions for us. unfortunately I only speak Kobaïan.

I'm listening

http://www.furious.com/perfect/magma.html

Kobaia iss de hundin!

So is this just going to be a spotify listening club?

― emil.y,

If you dont use spotify you can look for the albums in other *ahem* places if you dont own it.

if you want

stoked for this, sign me up for a week

note: mine will probably be some obvious thing everyone who might look at this thread has seen so caveat lector

ok so:

8/30 -- AG
9/06 -- DaM
9/13 -- frogbs
9/20 -- balls

can i get in on this? i have one not totally obscure but still overlooked album in particular that i'd like to share. 9/27?

9/27 -- ZS

looks like we got a good lineup!

i better make sure the one i'm thinking of wasn't featured last time around! that would be embarrasking

dont think it matters. it was what 3 or 4 years ago?

true, and in any case it wasn't mentioned. looking forward to it!

the funk/soul/black acid rock/jazz-funk club will be relaunched monday btw if anyone wants to volunteer for it

I've been excited about and researching Rock In Opposition bands a lot lately, especially stuff like Art Zoyd, Univers Zero and Present; tonight I stumbled upon mention of a documentary called Romantic Warriors II: About Rock In Opposition. I'm amazed I've heard nothing about this before, I had been thinking weeks ago that a film about this would be a great thing and it actually exists! The reviews sound promising and I'm looking forward to getting it.

Then I see the first film is about current mostly American bands with some Mexican, Italian and Japanese thrown in, and I've only heard of 3 of the bands (Cheer Accident, Deluge Grander, Phideaux). From the trailers I'm more sceptical of some of these bands. But I'd like to see it too.

The third film is a concert of current Rock In Opposition bands. Has anyone here been to the RIO concerts?

The site has plenty of trailers and options for buying.
http://www.progdocs.com/Progdocs.com/Home.html

anyway - to talk about this Magma comp - many of these tracks seem to be not taken from the studio versions, so that's definitely a plus!

Klaus Kombalad! I could have used about 4 times the length on that one.

Sign me up!

done!

08/30 -- AG
09/06 -- DaM
09/13 -- frogbs
09/20 -- balls
09/27 -- ZS
10/04 -- dronestreet

I wonder what Mr. Goalie will put up for us to listen to tomorrow.
Note: you can post it Friday *your time* so if it's Friday where you live put 'er up.

http://i.imgur.com/XNsR9Rs.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/141Ss6mGivtZpTMt4eN4Q8
spotify:album:141Ss6mGivtZpTMt4eN4Q8

Review by Rolf Semprebon [-]

Cottonwoodhill is one of the trippiest records ever made, capturing the intensity of the peak LSD experience far more successfully than any Timothy Leary recording, and even today, when many such documents from that era can sound silly and dated, Brainticket's fascinating debut still holds hallucinogenic potency. The record has only two proper songs, "Black Sand" and "Places of Light," with a side and a half of the album taken up by the three-part "Brainticket." "Black Sand" opens the disc with a driving funk beat and powerful organ and guitar interplay, adding in vocals distorted beyond coherency. "Places of Light" begins in a slightly lighter vein as a flute leads the proceedings, a looser jazzier piece that throws in some of Dawn Muir's odd spoken word vocals. Before one realizes what has happened, the piece has faded out and there is suddenly a crashing sound, car horns, and engines starting up. "Brainticket" is a bizarre roller coaster ride through weird sound effects and electronics, an endless organ riff, and Muir's acid-rush ramblings from hushed whisper to urgent screams, as any coherency she had earlier becomes lost to mind-expanding visions. Rather than the laid-back mellow groove of some psychedelic music from this era, Cottonwoodhill has a hyper energy in the frenetic organ riff and Muir's voice, like an acid trip out of control, while at times the various sound effects take over completely.

Oh man I love this album! Excellent choice.

yup, this is a good one and it's been a while.

can you put me down for a week, viceroy?

you got it!

09/06 -- DaM
09/13 -- frogbs
09/20 -- balls
09/30 -- ZS
10/06 -- dronestreet
10/13 -- Alan N

forget some of those earlier dates I was looking at my calendar wrong.

thanks!

How do I get in on this?

I have a recommendation or two which some might like.

Also, how far can we stretch the definition of prog/kraut/space/psych rock? Because I have some which throw in some folk in there, as well.

just request a week, it'll be late next month so you have plenty of time to decide on an album. Then on Friday, post the name of it, with a picture possibly a little blurb about it if you can find it. If you don't use spotify that's ok, we can post the spotify link. If the full album is up on youtube you can post the link to that.

As far as stretching the definition... I am very flexible, straight up "folk" probably doesn't fit but if it's 'out there' with sound effects/long complicated passages/prominent synthesizer passages then I think it fits just fine.

Do you want a go?

Anyway though, to talk about the album this week -- man I love how the vocalist shouts stuff out in this kind of scared/tense way, and says contradictory stuff, like "Stop! No! YES!! Of course not, of course you can..." etc, like she's responding to stuff during a really heavy acid trip or something. It's kinda creepy but totally awesome.

Dawn Muir. She rules.

Coming soon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtwJSAEh7Uc

Sorry to crash in. Just sharing. Please carry on as you were :)

nice choice AG, need to listen to that more. I would like a week please!

This is one of the few real psychedelic freak out albums that actually wound up being as insane as the description makes it sound. I wonder how much of Muir's ranting and raving was scripted, it's just so totally ridiculous and almost terrifying, like you'd think after the recording she went straight to the hospital (or the loony bin!)

Can't say I could listen to this often (that groove does kick some ass though), but it's definitely a singularity

I listen to it a lot actually.

Uh, sacrilege I know, but the vocals are what put me off this otherwise very fine recording!

i like the nurse with wound cover with jim foetus on vocals.

Braintickets please!

Cottonwoodhill = so f'in rad!

Thanks for reminding me about Brainticket

Oh, Muir's ranting/raving is totally scripted to me

Yeah, it's all a bit Home Counties am dram, though tbf, the Radio 4 continuity announcer accent doesn't help.

The material that most of the players on taht lp cut as Toad is pretty great too. I'm not sure if I've heard any of the other Brainticket stuff, have heard it was more spacerocky though I think. So neither party actually makes music exactly similar to that elsewhere. Quite a good combination on there though.

Well Brainticket is really just Joel Vandroogenbroeck (sp?) and whoever else he's playing with at the time

In a Yes documentary, some members gave the impression that the Union material was some of their best work ever before the producer (in their opinions) completely ruined it. I think for that reason, recently a collection of live Union songs came out and I think I'd maybe rather getting that before the supposedly ruined studio version.

there's some good stuff on that album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDHftJzkk74

I have the title track of "The Ladder" and yes it is fantastic, like maybe one of my favorite ten Yes tunes ever. I've heard the rest of the album wasn't as good. Though I do like that keyboard player in the live stuff I've heard; apparently he got sacked for hitting on a security guard. Too bad because he was definitely one of the best they'd had (outside of Wakeman and Moraz I guess).

Lately I've been voyaging out into the later Yes. Drama is underrated as everyone says. 90125 is way too slick and corporate for my tastes; though it has some better individual tracks, for my money Big Generator is a little better. I have the AWBH album; despite the tracklisting I don't think it's a "return to prog" at all, it's rather lightweight and a lot of talented players are nearly inaudible (or, like Bruford, not really playing to their strengths). I think it's a little similar to the "Emerson, Lake, and Powell" album. May have to give it another shot but I don't think you're missing a whole lot.

Just checked out the track listing for Union Live. Only ONE track from the studio album! Screw that then.
I wonder if a remix/remaster is possible because the band really did hate the way it sounded.

Any solo or Yes related stuff anyone wants to recommend? I'm quite fond of some Jon & Vangelis. Friends Of Mr Cairo has some really good stuff, the title track has some quite distracting movie star impressions and I can imagine some people finding it too cheesy but I think it is kind of unique. I still need 2 more albums of that pair.

Kind of tempted to buy the 12 Yes albums I don't have and a few solo albums in one go. But if I do that I'll be tempted to do that with several other bands I've neglected.

you ever hear the Refugee album? its way more an offshoot of The Nice than Yes, but it's definitely one of my favorite one-offs

refugee is pretty good. so is mainhorse. patrick moraz is cosmic. peter banks' post-yes band, flash, isn't bad, either. never could get into tony kaye's badger, though

http://thequietus.com/articles/14936-henry-cow-unrest-review

Thanks for the article.

I saw this Chris Cutler interview a while ago...
http://www.mitkadem.co.il/RIO_interview.html
"Personally, I have to say that I never had much time for King Crimson. I disliked their first album and, apart from a track here and there, didn't find much I cared for on later albums either. To make things harder, they were contemporaries of Henry Cow and we were often pointlessly compared with them (especially Fred Frith who got foolishly compared/confused with Robert Fripp). But we never saw the connection really; they were working in a much narrower musical field than we were. And when they began to make big statements about their originality for improvising (around Jaimie Muir/Larks Tongues time) we found that frankly rather pathetic. But that was their way - after all Fripp claimed to have invented 'frippertronics', which is either a mark of ignorance on his part or outrageous arrogance, since every guitarist 'invented' that obvious procedure"

I never knew what Frippertronics meant.

I have to say again how fantastic the first three tracks of Chris Squire's Fish Out Of Water are. Really love them.

ram, have you listened to much john zorn?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpDNNKQP-Rs

I wouldn't say that every guitarist was using tape delay by the mid-70s but, yeah, I also find it a bit ridiculous that Fripp basically used reel-to-reel tape delay and named it after himself. Frippertronics obv = some of my favourite music ever though.

cutler makes some fair points. on the other hand, henry cow never, to the best of my knowledge, opened for black oak arkansas, so i'd take what he has to say on the topic with a grain of salt.

Thanks for the Zorn clip, one of many artists who have been on the shopping list for years but I haven't got around to yet.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hPbJWEaiL.jpg

North Sea Radio Orchestra - s/t

http://open.spotify.com/album/6eu8FXY7tCL7u4O1cVOUxg

standout track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX2rUUcs0G4

This album overwhelms me. It's enormous, sprawling and unutterably ambitious without once going above speaking volume. No fuzz, no sonic gymnastics - but in its pastoral/neoclassical psychpop it locates something I can't get anywhere else. There are no original lyrics - all non-instrumental tracks are adaptations of English poetry. The melodies are spry and astounding, as you'd expect from a band firmly located in the post-Cardiacs fallout. However good the ensemble musicianship (mostly classical, with acoustic guitars and synths) is, the composition is the main draw (along with the voice of singer Sharon Fortnam, whose husband Craig is the principal songwriter). The whole thing is like Kenneth Grahame trying to remember his childhood in a slightly overgrown rose garden as dappled sunlight catches a butterfly's wing. It's airy, sublime and complete. Its arc is leisurely but yearning; one feels one can make a home within its folds - cling to these truths before all is obliterated. It's a London album, in fact - written in and about the capital, as the Fortnams discovered something in the city that more than resembled the most idyllic and untainted wilds of bucolia - a synthesis, indeed, that works more convincingly the longer the album progresses - the longer the dream elaborates.

Anyway, none of you (well, barely any of you) have heard them and they're astonishing, so I post them here in the hope someone latches on.

anyone want to get this doggie going again?

listen to that NSRO album, it's one of the best things ever

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=6139812&boardid=77&threadid=81522

(For Michael B)

Lol sorry nm

awww i thought this had been revived to start over again

Lmao no...my bad, folks

Shall we?

yes

The youtube algorithm came through with this French band Meule, two drummers + guitarist/modular dude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnvJVKw7xCc

I too latched on to that North Sea Radio Orchestra album.