His Name is Alive/Time Stereo S/D

Can be very patchy, but when it's on, it's brilliant.

My favourite is probably Home Is In Your Head - it's the most textural and treads the goth/spacerock border like you'd never think was possible. Stars On ESP is probably my second favourite, because Warren lets his Beach Boys fixation go mad, and it's very 60s girl groupy and poppy.

There is a "greatest hits" compilation thing on 4AD if you're interested in an overview, but I've forgotten its name and it's all the way downstairs.

Does anyone remember Elvis Hitler? That's what I wanna know.

"Universal Frequencies" is one of the very very few exact cribs of 60s music to take as much poignancy from its retroism as it wants.

Stars On ESP is brilliant, as is ESP Summer.

If you are interested in extreme moog noise, check out any of the Mystic Moog Orchestra stuff.

He has also producer a lot of material around here, check out the Go Sonic Records stuff for more.

As for Time Stereo, I think the Electric Bear video is great as well.

I used to go see all the shows that these guys would do at the original Record Collector on 8 mile rd. When I was a young pup that store was run by Davin who runs Time Stereo, When I was about 14 (1991) or so I would go in there and he would always give me a hard time about the records I would buy. I have to give him credit though, I never would have gotten into Throbbing Gristle or Stereolab without him giving me such a hard time. I remember how strange and exotic it all was back then, back when "alternative music" was just about to break.

I ran into him at Stormy Records in Dearborn about this time last year when he finally stopped managing Record Collector(I am 24 now). I brought up how he would always be really mean to me, and how I thought that was so great. He felt kind of bad, but it is one of those memories on Detroit in the 90's that I would not trade for anything. The thing I love about those guys and their music is that they are such utter Detroit characters. They are the kind of people that can only exist in this city, and they made the last 10 years so colorful.

Favorite thing on Time Stereo is the CD of the '60s Indonesian guitar band whose name is presently escaping me. Lovely.

Run of course by Windy and Carl! Woohoo! Everyone go to the store site and make them rich.

I have always thought this and still believe it: if you take "Are You Coming Down This Weekend?" and then after letting it run through once create a monster building techno track of some sort, the vocals then looping and cascading throughout the mix, you'd have an instant classic.

The Steps...that CD cracks me up. That one guitar player - good lord. BEE-DEEP! BEE-DEEP! For the ENTIRE...ALBUM...

Ned wrote: if you take "Are You Coming Down This Weekend?" and then after letting it run through once create a monster building techno track of some sort, the vocals then looping and cascading throughout the mix, you'd have an instant classic.

Although it's not exactly what you're describing, King of Sweet has a pseudo-dance remix of that song that's 10 minutes long (but it goes off on tangents midway through, as HNIA are apt to do).

HNIA have been dropped from 4AD, for better or for worse. I've seen little promotion regarding their latest album, Last Night, despite it being great as usual. Sigh.

Big, big recommendation for HNIA's The Emergency LP on Time Stereo, which has some unbelievably good covers ("Ain't No Lie," "Sunshine on My Shoulders," "When the Lovelight Starts Shining..." by the Supremes). They even cover Unrest's "Imperial," which makes my head spin...one of my very favorite bands covering another of my very favorite bands. There's even a pseudo-reggae version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

Oddly enough, I just listened to that album today -- very enjoyable, Warren and company still have it. I guess it's just Time Stereo on its own now, but that seems to have been his primary focus anyway these past years.

I'll go with Stars On Esp as the best album, but Ft. Lake has had the best success among friends new to the band.

rockin' in the same boat. a friend of mine put it on in the record store (he's a long time fan) and i had no expectations. i love the looks on the customers' faces when the applause goes dintastic.

I'm listening to 'Mouth to Mouth' for the 1st time in more than ten years and I can still not believe how weird it is.

How did I miss their 11 CD release?

Concur with the poster above who preferred the early 4AD stuff. Defever had a lot of promise but I can't help feeling he lost sight of what made him good with the proliferation of styles and identities he chose to play around with. I remember the 4AD week at the ICA at which his performance was shockingly diffident. Also I saw them at some basement club in Islington at which they all came on in Kiss makeup.

Personally have trouble comprehending the notion that HNiA peaked around Home is in Your Head.

it isn't a difficult notion to embrace as it is their best album. is that a controversial opinion? the new record or the newest bit of that 11 cd thing is very nice as well. i have come to reduce my antipathy towards hnia 3.0 still, am i the only one wishes it was still karin oliver and not a clone. of course hiiyh had loads of singers but she sang the hits.

"hits" 8)

the one that keeps sticking in my head is the Stars On ESP. Can't Always Be Loved was the last thing i heard that i liked though.

Detrola is my favorite for having the best pop songs

I remember liking the Gamelan disc from the 10 cd box set because I was studying Gamelans for a college paper around the time I heard that disc. Hardly characteristic of real Gamelan music though

new album anyone? I quite like it. My wife eternally hates this band, every note they have recorded and released, regardless of the singer. I kind of adore all of it, when I remember to listen to it.

Eternal hate, that's pretty extreme!

she pretty extremely hates them. I think it's the sing-songiness of it, and the often flat and not very good girl vocalists. she hasn't heard last night, someday my blues, or when the stars refuse to shine though...she might tolerate those albums since Lovetta was a much better vocalist than anyone else that has even worked with the band, I've now realized. I think those records might be the best ones, honestly, now; I certainly didn't think that at the time.

your dismissal of karin oliver hurts my heart.

she is good, just not as good a vocalist as lovetta, and whoever it was that sang the bulk of stars on esp (erika hoffman?) was really flat.

was karin oliver in velour 100?

Bizarro 4AD HNIA >>>> Blues & Funk HNIA

except for Detrola, which is its own thing entirely

Home is in Your Head still rules.

it does.

wtf is 'in every ford' about and does it make anyone else uncomfortable?

"Sick" is sick.

CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH
(weedle weedle weedle)
CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH
(weedle weedle weedle)
SWOOPING GUITAR SOLO!

i can't claim to understand proggy metal, can someone tell me what Patterns of Light is doing well or poorly? it's just outside what i normally do. i mean, the vocals don't seem to be a fit for this, for example. i sorta get it, but i'm not sure i really know what these songs are pointing at. the tandems are ...? are they meant to be scary? i need a docent.

OMG Black Wings lol

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

Oh man their cover of This World Is Not My Home on the Stars on ESP record is one of my very favorite songs.

Look up the 85-89 collection on youtube, it is so fucking cool.

I like tons of their shit from several styles, but i lost track after detrola and this is like a soundblast from an fm station after hours of my early childhood, in some ways.

the bandcamp blurbage notes vocal stylings are similar to Free Design, and i was "YES. that's exactly the 3rd component of this set i was missing that goes along with the progginess and proto metal stuff!" it's so obvious, but my brain couldnt bridge across to what it was. this album is good weird.

i have a ton of residual teenage love for Ft Lake. It's all over the place but the arrangements/production are/is fabulous

Stars on ESP too

Weird. Don't think I'd noticed Kozelek's involvement on Stars on ESP until this week (though his name is clearly on the cover).

I always assumed that Kozelek’s involvement on Stars on ESP is limited to co-writing "Across the Street". If he and Warren jammed on more, it just never made it to the album.

Three albums of unreleased early Defever/HNIA are coming out - here's the first ("All the Mirrors in the House") to be released in June:
https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-mirrors-in-the-house-early-recordings-1979-1986
https://bleep.com/release/129581-his-name-is-alive-all-the-mirrors-in-the-house-home-recordings-1979-1986

^ Ordered! Curiously excited about this.

That 86-89 thing that is out there is so cool and loco, i’m tempted by this.

When I met Warren Defever and got a chance to talk to him for a while, I was surprised that he actually studied modern composition for a brief time before dropping out. But when I have thought about his earliest instrumental works – and now this sample of new early Defever – I feel we are lucky he dropped out. If he had made a career in contemporary-classic circles, he might have just ended up as yet another forgettable post-minimalist composer among many. Working in the pop world let him instead take that post-minimalist experimentation and create albums like *Livonia* and *Home is in Your Head* that sound like no one else.

There is now a review of "All the Mirrors in the House" on The Quietus. The author raises the possibility that these ambient tracks do not actually date from Defever’s youth, but rather that back story is just another one of the lies and fabrications that Defever is notorious for.

What are his other lies?

Here is a list of some of them up to 1999. There have been a fair few since. Warren Defever is not a bad man, he just likes having some fun with interviewers and publicity.

Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth is still an incredibly beautiful record and if you'd never heard it and someone told you it came out this year you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJFZplt-0nw

yeah it's really good. frankly most of the albums are good if not great. Blues got a raw deal at the time, so much backlash from 4ad fans that was frankly racist in nature. I saw Warn and Lovetta play a duo show in SF and the crowd was fucking terrible.

i don't understand how that album happened just like i don't really understand most of his stuff, but i appreciate the hell out smbwcte, the combo is remarkable.

All through 2000–2001 it was claimed that the release of Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth was delayed because the designers hadn’t finished the artwork. Then, a few years later it was revealed that 4AD was actually sitting on the release of the record because they didn’t know how to market it. I can’t help but feel that they weren’t trying too hard. Upon the album’s release I was surprised at how no advertising was being done in R&B and soul media – 4AD just couldn’t go beyond the indie music circles it was used to – and so is it any surprised that it was a flop sales-wise?

That said, Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth is at the bottom of my HNIA album rankings. Warren praised Lovetta for never singing a song the same way twice, but I see that as a flaw in technique, not a plus. But even within Lovetta-era His Name Is Alive, I found the Time Stereo release When the Stars Refuse to Shine a lot more moving.

Interview with Warren: https://therecoup.com/2019/08/07/beauty-only-lingers-a-conversation-with-warren-defever/

"I vaguely remembered having six or seven new age or ambient recordings that never really got released so I got Shelley from Tyvek to do the transfers for me. I really can’t listen to much of that stuff, like the tapes of me adding harmonica to Bob Dylan songs that didn’t have harmonica when I was 12 or all the U2 covers. She did a great job and didn’t judge me too harshly. We’re still friends."

The new tape is coming out September 19, "6teen Ok": https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/album/6teen-ok

The postage (shipping from the U.K. to the U.S.A. in my case) is almost the cost of the tape unfortunately. Total price via PayPal is just under $20, FYI, but since it's Bandcamp, you'll also get high quality downloads.

Also, the whole album won't be available as digital downloads unless you buy the tape: "PLEASE NOTE DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS THE FULL RELEASE IS ONLY AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE - IF YOU PURCHASE THE DIGITAL VERSION YOU ARE ONLY PURCHASING THE 3 PREVIEW EDITS"