what are you listening to 2012

i have been listening to the second xx album for the last two weeks. one of the best things i have listened to in the last two or three years. two problems with it. it is too short. the best song, the second one stops right in the middle of it. why did they do this to me? just when i really get into the groove, it is all over. they must be sadistic or something.

Grizzly Bear, Swans, and Divine Fits.

robert johnson - king of the delta blues singers
skip james - the greatest of the delta blues singers

(make up your mind delta blues reissue dorks!)

blind boy fuller – vol 1. 1935-1936

http://subtropics.org/frozen-music/
http://phonophilia.com/cms/frozen_music_ensemble_24hour_performance

Swans The Seer
while this is both intense and heavy it also seems to be a lot more melodic than you might think of the band as being. That might have more to do with associations with the band up to Children of God though.
Anyway a great studio effort based on a few numbers that have evolved live over the last couple of years and will presumably continue to evolve as they are further played live. I'm not sure what they've done about the female vocals live though. Studio sees the return of Jarboe in a guest role on a number of the tracks plus one offs by Karen O and the couple from Low.
I haven't heard the official live lp the limited edition of which helped fund the recording of this lp but on the strength of what's here that is something I want to remedy.

Leonard Cohen Songs From A Room
The 2nd lp by probably the world's most famous maudlin poet. I've heard this isn't liked as much as the lp either side of it. For me it is one that has several tracks that have buzzed through my head quite regularly for the last couple of decades. Could be cos this is the first lp I picked up by him and was the only one I had for years. But things like You Know Who I Am are still favourite songs of mine.
There is some instrument played on several tracks here that almost lays a layer of acoustic fuzz in its drone. Really like the atmosphere on here anyway.
Also been listening to Songs of Love and Hate but not as much as the above.

CTI ALLstars California Concert
especially Red Clay from the first disc.
For me the best parts of this are when you hear the interplay of the electric/rhythm instruments. Here these are George Benson on guitar in a more gritty style than I've heard him before and thankfully not singing; Ron Carter playing an electric bass, I've seen him described here as pretty anonymous but I'm finding him right in the groove; a young Billy Cobham on drums, I don't think he's really showing much recognisable style or powerhousing the drums but what he's doinfg is effective in tandem with the others here; Johnny Hammond is playing the organ which gave him his name & Airto Moreira is on various percussion. There are also several horn players Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax and Hubert Laws on flute. While Hubbard and Turrentine do both shine in moments here I do definitely think it is the interlocked rhythm section that is most delectable.

6 Organs of Admittance
Very visceral for several early tracks and pretty atmospheric for more downtempo stuff. Think this is pretty classic. First tracks really have me thinking of ballroom psych though I'm not sure if its as return to mythic era as Howlin Rain who at least one of the players here also play with.
It is a Comets On Fire reunion in all but name though Ethan is listed here as rhythm instead of lead. Chasny is quite a guitarist. Though I don't think any of this shimmers as much as when I first saw the 3piece version of the band live in 2006. Want to hear live versions of this set with the same players as on the record.

James Brown Singles Vols 6, 7 & 8
a run that takes one from 69-73 and finds some of JB's hardest funk mixed in with some other stuff. Some of which might be considered misguided but not as much as later on.
Vol 7's first disc is the one with the Collins brothers featured heavily and is pretty essential music, though one could also consider picking up the Funk Power '70 set for several of the same cuts and some stuff that wasn't considered for single release.
I'm also considering getting hold of Vol 9 which is probably about as late as one can safely go with JB, it sees the last great band he had together falling apart under his control and leaving him. But is great dance music.
Some of these sets can be a tad repetitive as various versions of singles are ordered in succession.

CUlt of Dom kellor e.p. vol 3
nice psych stuff that I think I need to hear more of . The band were recently selling all 3 of their e.ps for £10 plus postage to help them fund a European tour, I'm not sure if that's still available.

Frank Zappa Chunga's Revenge
There is some really great instrumental stuff on here a coupl of ok bluesy tracks with great guitar and the beginning of the puerile sex stuff as ex-Turtles Flo & Eddie appear for the first time.
The new remaster does sound pretty good but I don't love all this lp as much as I might. It was apparently where Lester Bangs gave up on him too. I am interested in hearing some of the later music but I do dislike the puerile smut.

Metallica ... and Justice For All
became interested in hearing some of this stuff because I picked up the Mick Wall Enter Night bio in a sale for 99c last week and couldn't put it down for the first while. He isn't really into the lp because of the lack of echo but I kind of like it, hadn't heard it in years not sure how often I'll revisit it.

Ginger Baker & Salt live Frankfurt 72
interesting set cos this is the band the members of Blo! passed through before they became Blo!. They had been together for years in various guises including the Afrocollection who can be seen playing with him here in Nigeria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YKBUbzQjNg&feature=share
Sound is pretty decent for the time while not being anywhere near studio. Nice psychy-african stuff with plenty of Berkley Jones's guitar on it.

plenty of other stuff which will no doubt come back to me later.
Still hours of surprises on my walkman, today including Lotte lenya, various Echo & the Bunnymen, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis(just after I was thinking about him for another reason too), Vertical Slit, Gun Club, Cramps etc

Reading
Mr Tambourine Man the John Einarson bio of gene Clark who while being a great performer and writer was destroyed by the pressures of fame and a combination of drugs and alcohol.
It was great while reading this to find out that Roadmaster the lp from sessions aborted thanks to sly stone's contributions to the studio bill & only released at the time in a flat sounding mix on a Dutch branch of a U.S. label has finally been released by Sundazed from the original studio tapes.

The Air Conditioned Nightmare by Henry Miller
Miller having just returned from years in Europe takes a cross the U.S. roadtrip making notes that lead to this book. It';s taken me way too long to read this, I like Miller.

Watching
Crank
Looks like somebody saw the film Speed and thought oh yes, I can make that more adult themed by removing the bus and substituting a human body for the vehicle that can't slow down. Also instead of having him take speed we'll substitute another drug.
Very B but still pretty watchable. Just ridiculous fopr a couple of minor details like if somebody really was running around L.A. in a hospital gown with their ass hanging out surely they'd get stopped way before they stole a police motorbike and especially after they crash it into a sidewalk cafe table and still manage to get away with it again.
I mean I do like my Bmovies to make some concession to reality.

The Bourne Legacy
side events from the time of the last real Bourne film, wondering if this might have been better as a standalone not attaching itself to that franchise.
I enjoyed it as a pretty visceral runaround thriller.
Couldn't place female lead for ages while remembering her face. But thought she was a new actress not somebody who had been in the first couple of Mummy films etc. Thought she was younger than that i this for some reason.

Stevo

Baker Gurvitz Army- Elysian Encounter
I liked this record, it's a pretty good 1975 bluesy rock with some psychedelic and dreamy synths and really groovy drums. I found out about this one after watching a 1971 documentary on Netflix called Ginger Baker in Africa, which is worth searching out both for the awesome clips of Baker playing with musicians in Nigeria and live Fela on tape but I also dug the druggy early 70s part following Baker in his drive across Africa. Anyway...I went to read up to see what all Baker had did after being in Africa and found about this band I had never heard of before.

Casey Burge. One of the best songwriters out there right now.

http://overlandshark.bandcamp.com/album/triumph

Dependent And Happyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

James Brown Singles Vols 6, 7 & 8

agree these are the best, 9 & 10 are good cherry picking actually more better songs on 10 imo

i worked my way thru the whole JB Singles series last summer while reading The One. good god! hit me etc

http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=7532

Bruce Langhorne - Idaho Transfer (original soundtrack)

Cooool!
I was just listening to Nothing People's 2011 record "Tastes Like Metal" that I guess I must have missed. It's good!
New Sic Alps. Best one yet for sure.

yeahh, there is some nice stuff on that idaho transfer sdtk. movie is kind of horrible but interesting. someone just put out langhorne's hired hand sdtk on vinyl for the first time i guess. that thing is the best.
i've been listening to this george cromarty solo Grassroots Guitar LP a bunch, somewhere in between Takoma and Windham Hill (who he later recorded an album for).

Lubomyr Melnyk - Wave-Lox

- can't say I know much about his work, but in the most recent dusted 'Listed' feature, Pete Swanson (RIP Yellow Swans) said:

The fastest piano player in the world who’s got an affinity for the sustain pedal. Wave-Lox is a composition of Melnyk’s for two pianos that consists of what is essentially an hour-long piano wash. The music is simultaneously frenetic and pastoral. The notes are played so quickly that the piece can seem totally static, but if you listen closely, you hear themes weaving in and out of each other. The composition can be listened to on several different levels and is only constructed from piano notes.

that's right, it can be listened to on several different levels! level up! but for real, it's jived nicely with the kind of stuff i've been listening and reading to recently (john cage, morton feldman and earle browne, pretty much), although i can't really say Wave-Lox really has an aleatoric or indeterminate style of composition or performance.

i'm not sure this has ever been officially "released". it appears that Bandura records released a CD-R of a 1985 performance at some point, and it's easily googled if others want to listen.

btw i haven't really dived into most of the other 9 things that Swanson listed in the feature, but dude appears to have very interesting taste in music (relatively obscure stuff (to me, at least), but not obscure-for-obscure's sake)

also continuing to slowly explore the 10 records in Brian Eno's Obscure catalog, though i'm having trouble moving beyond Harold Budd's Pavilion of Dreams (i don't WANT to move on!). on the other side of the musical universe, the new chris cohen - former deerhoof/cass mccombs/ariel pink guitarist - is really growing on me. i imagine it would be perfect for drinking sangria on the porch and reading, if i had a porch, knew how to make sangria and knew how to read.

i had a room full of chimpanzees type my last two posts, and this one. they are doing a great job and certainly deserve lots of extra treats and vacation time!!

- the chimpanzees

Aquarius Records carried most of Melnyk's self-released CDRs when they came out a few years ago, Unseen Worlds reissued his first album around the same time: http://www.unseenworlds.net/uw02/ -- 'Wave-Lox' & 'KMH' are the two I have. Sort of the mid-point between Charlemagne Palestine's 'Strumming Music' and the slow harmonic movement of Steve Reich circa 'Music For 18 Musicians' but a lot looser, more impressionistic and freewheeling. There are moments where the tonality turns into things that you'd almost take for mistakes but then he commits to them.

Roedelius & Story - untitled 4th album
Laurie Spiegel - Unseen Worlds
Date Palms - Of Psalms
Darwin's Bitch - Ore
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
John Cage - Cage Shock vol 1

& I loved Pete's list, especially for the Catherine Ribeiro shoutout. That guy has always had solid taste in music.

MP this is kind of a weird thing to ask but do you have any sort of list or post that describes the music you're into? i've noticed that over the past few months whenever i do ilx searches for the new stuff i'm listening to, you've already weighed in a few years ago!

mike watt - hyphenated man

pretty amazing, crazy prospector vocals remain a hurdle but this band he has now is great

(most minutemenny thing he's done since the minutemen)

Today
Wanderlea - Vamos que eu já vou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D3lpgwmqPc

Con Estilo Colombiano - Volumes 1&2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKHsMXRba_U

Los Angeles Azules 22 Exitos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmQ2bHU9pd8

Wiz Khalifa - Rolling Papers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmP7TYtDVUU

xpost

compliments aren't weird! but there's no master list, just too many posts to ILM.

checking out the things I hadn't heard on Pete's list... kinda can't believe I had never even heard of Regis. This is like everything I liked about Jeff Mills 'Waveform Tranmissions Vol. 1' but sustained for an entire career: http://www.amazon.com/Regis-Complete-Works-1994-1996/dp/B007EMGCWW/ref=sr_shvl_album_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1349725470&sr=301-2

dang, you guys ever listen to medio mutante? gf introduced me to them last night, obtaining many gf bonus points

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0MnjvJA3w

Messiaen: Complete Organ Works/Hans-Ola Ericsson

like going to mass on sunday morning still feeling a little high or whatever from saturday night

These Immortal Souls 1988-03-19 'Scream' Park Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles
great live set by the band that the Howard Brothers line up of C&CS minus Harvey & Bonney went onto after they left that band. They added RSH's girlfriend Genevieve McGucken to the line-up too.
It's in roughly the same area as their line-up of C&CS though I think the overt delta blues thing is gone, there is still a similar darkness and pretty similar sound. & Lots of luscious RSH opaque lyricism and distortion. RSH singing through his nose too.

A.R. Kane complete singles disc 1
dreampop in excelsis.
I'm not seeing Russell on the cd sleeve though. Not sure what of their stuff he was on, thought it was all the pre-lp e.p material.
Anyway great to finally have this material, never having had it at the time. & closest to getting it being the Americana cd which duplicated a lot of stuff from the lps.
Even disc 2 of this is worth getting since the lps haven't been remastered in so long. that disc tarts with Pop so is largely available on the lps. This goes up to 2 e.ps from '94 so 3rd lp era, which isn't as rewarding as the earlier stuff.

Frank Zappa Waka/Jawaka
Loving Big Swifty in its uncoiling instrumentalism.
Need to get Grand Wazoo but hearing dodgy stuff about a large amount of unplayable discs. Has this been corrected yet? & did it lap over into the European release of the same cd?

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats Blood Lust
pretty glammy early 70-s hardrock with some surprising influences. There's a track on here that seems to be based on the riff from The Byrds' Why. Concept lp about the biography of a serial killer with really toetapping sensibility.
I caught one of the last copies of the earlier cd version, have now read that Rise Above are going to put it out on cd after a myriad of different coloured vinyl versions have successively sold out.

Tame Impala from Chicago last May
nice live set, didn't check who was in the band. I know that Tame Impala is basically one guy doing the writing and recording, does he always go out with the same band when he plays live?
Anyway loving that lysergic melodicism. Must get the 2nd lp, preferably in the Rough Trade version, had forgotten until last night that I'd got Innerspeaker with its Rough Trade exclusive mini lp accompaniment.

guess no one on ilx likes metz, judging by no one mentioning them (did a quick search just now) but they kinda rule! "Sad Pricks" is crazy good, RIYL The Men's "Think"

Enzo Minarelli, Fame [Pogus, 2012]
dude does all sorts of stuff with his voice; me like

Prefab Sprout, Let's Change The World With Music

Leslie Winer & C, the 2012 comp.
was about bloody time too someone put it out!

Leslie Winer & C, the 2012 comp.
was about bloody time too someone put it out!

huh ?
is this a revisit to her C/snake album, or new stuff ?
i have the original snake album on cd .. but not heard in a long long time ..
time to dig in the archives.

Golden Void! Very Sabbath-y but fresh, new, exciting!

(xpost)
the Leslie Winer & C comp has tracks recorded in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010. nineteen tracks all in all.

gonna be spending a LOT of time with the new B. O'Cult box that i just got yesterday. only listened to the two rarities discs so far and they flippin' rock. packaging is alright i guess but i've never liked those cardboard sleeves with the disc crammed in v. much

The Pin Group reissue. a lot.

Just ordered the Golden Void record along with the new Eternal Tapestry last night, can't wait to get them.

Z S, I like the Metz record quite a bit, but it took some time to register with me.

yeah the eternal tapestry is killer too. a lot of good new music these days! also listening to this social studies band www.socialstudies-music.com. and daniel bachman! amazing record. and i'm still trying to get my head around this new john cale record.

tyler, it was actually your reviews of both those records that nudged me towards ordering them last night! i've already been into Eternal Tapestry, but your write-up for Golden Void made me toss that into my cart as well.

oh nice! hope you like the golden void.

Allen Toussaint, Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky: The Hit Songs & Productions 1957-1978
Scott Walker, Drift

gonna need to pick that Toussaint up

is it just one disc? dude needs like a 10-CD box set.

that particular collexion is 2cd's. but you're prolly right, tylerw:)

bob dylan - tempest: quite surpised how great that album is. i didn't get into any dylan album after "time out of mind" and that is already 15 years ago, i can't believe it. wasn't he just about to kick the bucket at the time?

joni mitchell - don juan's reckless daughter
gabi delgado - mistress (not what I was expecting -- one of the more commercial & ornate conny plank productions, but still weird and great)
regis 1997-1998
pierre henry - le voyage
richard & linda thompson - first light (hadn't heard this before --the glossy production kind of works more than I thought it would, and the good songs on it are great)
ilhan mimaroglu - coucou bazaar
moebius & ashley
british library - beautiful bird songs from around the world
david monacchi - eco-acoustic compositions
twig harper & rubber-o-cement

buffy sainte-marie - illuminations
harold budd - lovely thunder
jon hassell - earthquake island
leila josefowicz, esa-pekka salonen conducting finnish radio symphony orchestra - salonen: out of nowhere violin concertro - nyx
henry flynt - you are my everlovin'/celestial power
high tide - sea shanties
jessica bailiff - at the down-turned jagged rim of the sky
brainticket - celestial ocean
tim buckley - blue afternoon

stuff from 2012:

matthew friedberger - matricidal sons of bitches (instrumental "soundtrack" to a nonexistent movie; pleasant but not very compositionally varied)
cate le bon - cyrk
the fresh & onlys - long slow dance
darren hayman - lido (instrumental concept album from the former hefner singer, about britain's open-air swimming pools)
roomful of teeth - s/t (a cappella octet who recorded "quizassa," a commissioned work by merrill garbus of tune-yards)

berlioz - romeo et julliet/messiaen - l'ascension (cambreling, sw german rso) [initially listened for the messiaen but the berlioz is stunning]
ives - string quartets 1 & 2 (lydian sq) [1 is pleasant, tuneful; 2 is more typically heterogeneous ives]
tournemire - syms 2 & 4 (almeida/moscow so) [kind of brucknerian but not as focused or wrenching, still quite unusual music]
susumu yokota - sakura [electronic poll got me interested in this, very nice]
bvdub - the art of dying alone [makes me feel less keenly that there aren't more GAS albums]

this is kicking my ass these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gljj_6eAtLA

(anna meredith - nautilus)

i bought these yesterday and am catching up on listening now:

p. brötzmann group - fuck de boere (from atavistic's unheard music series -- a live version of "machine gun" from '68 and a 36-minute 1970 concert from frankfurt)

alan licht & loren mazzacane connors - mercury (good review here)