Knife's After-School Special

2006-05-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

Goddamn it has been a long time since I posted anything. I will surely update in the next day or two.

Mr. T can do no wrong.

2006-03-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

The T stands for TUNA! T loves tuna!
Watch these videos

Treat Your Mother Right
The original!

Styling
Everyone has to wear clothes. If you don't, you'll get arrested. WTF?

TV Funhouse skit

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

2006-03-14T16:02:00.000-08:00

When I first listened to this album and decided to post it, it was actually pretty timely. But trying to upload the files frustrated me and I sort of forgot about it for a while. Anyway, now I'm posting on it and everybody and their brother has already written a review for the record. Read one of those if you're intersted.

clicke yon linkes and thou wilst downloadeth thine ballads
tracks 1-6
tracks 7-12

Here are some other songs I came across. I don't really know where they're from and they don't totally sound like Liars, but Angus's voice is unmistakable. See what's up with them.

We Got Cold, Coughed and Forgot Things
You Know I Hate Stupid Phones
Every Two Hours With a Ducks Fan

I'd love to post the b-side to "It Fit When I Was a Kid," but I'll have to coerce Marty into recording it for me, which will probably take months...

Next stop: Disturbing Images!

2006-02-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

Brak!

Oh God!

Help!

ET PR0N!

Doom & Grimm & Ghost

2006-02-21T23:41:00.000-08:00

Our favorite London-born rhymer, Metal Face Doom, teams up with Manhattan DJ/lyricist, Metal Fingers Grimm, in this double LP released in 2000. It features remixes of some of Doom's early work and exclusive tracks for the duo. The second (bonus, maybe; I don't own the original release so I don't know) LP is all instrumental versions of the first. Test out your own rhymin skills, or something.

MF Doom & MF Grimm -- Instrumental tracks

It's also reported that sometime later this year, Doom will release a record produced by and co-starring Ghostface Killa. I've found some 25 songs that are supposedly on the release, but with no way to judge or organize them, I'll just have to wait until I can find out what's canon and what's not.

Two remixes are of a song I've been looking for for a while. I saw the video for the original "My Favorite Ladies" on a Special Herbs disc. My Favorite Ladies (Adn Cryptic remix) and Helpless Fool (produced by RZA)

Some other cool, assorted songs:

Change the Beat (Kanye West remix)

Verbal Intercourse

Cobra Clutch

I Hear Voices, pt. 3

Hip hop from the sub-underground

2006-02-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam, each of whom have numerous solo releases as well as belong to the rap collective, Anticon formed in the late nineties under the moniker cLOUDDEAD. The trio proceeded to rock my face off. Their ambient/psychedelic beats could easily be produced by Brian Eno or Boards of Canada. The wordy, introspective lyrics often seem to follow lines of free association. I've got the self-titled debut album and the subsequent Ten for your listening pleasure.

cLOUDDEAD tracks 1-6
cLOUDDEAD tracks 7-12
favorite songs: Apt. A, pt. 1; I promise never to get paint on my glasses again, pt. 2; Jimmybreeze, pt. 1

Ten complete
favorite songs: Pop Song; Velvet Ant; Rifle Eyes

Now I must go to work. Let me know what you think, those of you who download.

Some stuff that was requested

2006-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

I told MES I'd get the Au Pairs album for him, but when I burned it I didn't realize there were some bonus tracks I hadn't found yet. So, here they are man. I've been listening to this album quite a bit since your post. It' s pretty cool. Kind of like B-52's meet Gang of Four or Fire Party.

track 15: It's Obvious (single version)
track 16: Inconvenience (12" version)
track 18: Headache for Michelle (remix)

Erin resorted to harassing me, when I didn't post the self-titled album by Black Mountain.

Black Mountain: tracks 1-4
Black Mountain: tracks 5-8

She also expressed her discontent when I only offered one teaser track (Post Plethoric Rhetoric) from Wilderness, so here's the whole thing, babe.

Wilderness: tracks 1-5
Wilderness: tracks 6-10

Incidentally, Wilderness and Black Mountain were both featured in Pitchfork's "Best New Music." Drop Erin a line and ask her what Pitchfork is.

"A rat is the consistent houseguest" - Emily Dickinson

2006-02-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Matmos. This recording really benefits music everywhere.
I'll just let you read what's written in the liner notes.

"A street rat was breaking into our apartment, eating our food and chewing holes in our clothes, skittering across our kitchen in the dark, scuttling inside our walls late at night. Since we already had a pet rat, the prospect of trying to kill one rat while feeding anouther struck us as intolerable hypocrisy, so we bought a non-lethal 'have-a-heart' trap. After several days of luring the invader closer and closer towards and then inside the trap with peanuts, we captured her. The first track is an unedited recording of the rat protesting its incarceration. The second track is our response, in which the timing and duration of the rat screams from the first track have been preserved. The following morning we took the rat to a wealthy suburban neighborhood and set it free."
Weird.

download
track 1: Rat
track 2: Rat Relocation

I got yer top ten right here!

2006-02-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

I've spent all night reading David Thorpe articles and it has kind of instilled me with a sense of apathy. I know not to take him seriously, and I don't; he's just a humor columnist, after all. But the good doctor's irrefutable logic has made me come to the realization that it's totally pointless to honor/slight/reprimand a certain artist/genre/style or whatever. So fuck it. From now on, I only listen to Wilderness.

9 & 8

2006-01-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

#9 the Chemical Brothers - Surrender

download tracks 1-6 tracks 7-11

MICHEL GONDRY DIRECTS THE VIDEO FOR LET FOREVER BE AND IT ROX! I'll admit it; a majority of the reason I love this record so much is that I was stoned out of my mind when I first put it on the ol' headphones. Opening with the technopop "Music: Response" (a tune any fan can identify within an instant), the Chemical Brothers somehow make you aware that you're in for some usually embarrasing, obtuse break-beat dancing of your own design. My design includes the Faux Record Scratch, the Eyes-Closed Minimalist Head Bop, a great deal of footwork, and sometimes I'll throw in the White Male Doing Pop n Locks (just to mix it up). You flow into "Under the Influence" and "Out of Control" without missing so much as a beat, before the album decides to slow down a bit. My favorite track, "The Sunshine Underground," deserves a review of it's own, but I won't get into it now. Suffice it to say I included the track on a mix CD of songs that feel like one of those ride simulating machines that rocks back and forth, making you think you're on a Mars mining operation or a roller coaster or some shit. Surrender may even have the perfect closing to any album I've heard. The incredibly mellow, yet empowering (go figure) house track "Dream On" leaves me feeling like none of my problems really deserve any attention. That they're just trivialities in an endlessly chaotic world.

#8 Les Savy Fav - Inches
download tracks 1-9 tracks 10-18

I don't know what I can say about this album. It's totally captivating. And I mean totally as in "all-encompassingly," not "omg it was liek, TOE-tally captivateing! [sic]" So, yeah... Inches is actually a collection of nine singles released over the course of nearly a decade, providing the listener with a look at LSF's career. The premier chunk of six to eight songs is what will hook you fans of math rock and raucousy post punk. What is it about "tell them that I'm a liquid/tell them it's been a gas/tell them I'm frozen solid/just behind the looking glass" that isn't so outwardly amusing, but reaches down into your core, touches that infinitesimal little nerve ending and never leaves you? I don't know, but that's the kind of ability LSF has. Let's not forget the out-of-the-blue "Reformat (Dramatic Reading)." A throwback to old radio shows like the Shadow, it's as I said before; totally captivating. This tale of Naval captain Jack Vernez sacrificing his crew's safety in order to bring their submarine to surface introduces the tracks only instrumentation (that I can tell) around 4:40. You can feel an emotional crescendo for about a minute, until it reaches the chilling "I MISS YOU" point, patented by my man Brian McMahon. Afterwhich you're let down abruptly with "cut away" and static. I find this fucking terrifying. The album doesn't end there, but if you're listening to it from beginning to end, you may as well turn off your player. It's like you've just had a terror-gasm and you just need to sit there, wide-eyed, silent, for a month or so until all the hairs on your body begin to lay back down.

Oh! You people should also know the truth.

The List Begins

2006-01-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

It took a few days and a few revisions to come up with what I wanted. I had two questions to ask myself to decide what made the list and what didn't:
1. What albums are going to stay with me for a long time?
2. Which albums can set my mood upon listening, rather than require a mood to begin listening?
Anyway, I think I've got a pretty good idea of how this is going to turn out, so I'll just get on with it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
1. the Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
download complete

2. Broken Social Scene - Feel Good Lost
download tracks 1-6 tracks 7-12

3. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
download disc 1 disc 2

#10 the Skygreen Leopards - One Thousand Bird Ceremony
download complete

Kelley from indigo had this psychedelic-folk-meets-hypnotic-pop album waiting for me one day after I'd told him how much I'd liked Espers and Ghost. Californians Glenn Donaldson (of many other side projects associated with his label) and Donovan Quinn produce some straightforward melodies coupled with what I'm going to call "nature ambient-" field recordings and simulated sounds of birds chirping, cave walls echoing, etc. The somber, hypnotic vocal harmonies absolutely make this album. I love listening to the way certain lines are sung, like "childrens' voices bring me back from/the dead land neck-deep in the black sand/can you understand the serpents that crawl 'round the heart/good man" from Tambourine, Play it Slow. My only complaint with this recording is that 39 minutes isn't nearly enough ethereal folk-pop for me. Maybe for you. Not for me.

The Top Ten Of All Top Tenz

2006-01-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

Over the next couple of weeks or however long it takes, I'm going to be posting my top ten favorite albums. This is going to be an endeavor for me, because I've never done one of these and taken it seriously. I've always kind of accepted that my musical tastes are pretty fluid, but I'm giving this list a lot of consideration to make it as definitive as possible.

Zig Zag Zen

2006-01-16T19:09:00.000-08:00

Bill Holt - Dreamies (download)
An album in two parts, Dreamies reportedly picks up at the end of the Beatles' Revolution #9. Interchanging between atmospheric soundscapes and chaotic sound samples, such as popcorn popping, crickets, JFK and NASA speeches, Dreamies has three identifiable songs at its core. Sunday Morning Song and the User combine to make Program Ten, while Program Eleven departs eerily with Going for a Ride. More crap from this drugged-out genius can be found at dreamies.com, including a Styx cover of I am the Walrus. (?)

Nouvelle Vague: tracks 1-7 tracks 8-13
Awesome! New wave produced by two Frenchies and vocalised by French and Brazilian singers who were unfamiliar with the style of the original versions! The album's set at a pretty slow, lounge-y pace compared to how I've heard them before; almost like elevator music. But good.

01. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
02. Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode
03. In a Manner of Speaking - Tuxedomoon (!)
04. Guns of Brixton - the Clash (!)
05. (This is Not a) Love Song - Public Image Ltd. (!)
06. Too Drunk to Fuck - the Dead Kennedys
07. Marian - the Sisters of Mercy
08. Making Plans for Nigel - XTC
09. A Forest - the Cure
10. I Melt With You - Modern English (!)
11. Teenage Kicks - the Undertones
12. Psyche - Killing Joke
13. Friday Night, Saturday Morning - the Specials (!)

More free shit!

2006-01-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

Blood on the Wall - Awesomer

01. Stoner Jam
02. Reunite on Ice (!)
03. Heat from the Day
04. I'd Like to Take You Out Tonight
05. You Are a Mess
06. Keep Your Eyes
07. Gone
08. Mary Susan (!)
09. Hey Hey
10. Can You Hear Me?
11. Right to Lite Tonight
12. Get the Fuck Off My Cloud (!)
13. Dead Edge of Town
14. Going to Heaven

Autolux - Future Perfect
01. Turnstile Blues
02. Angry Candy
03. Subzero Fun
04. Sugarless (!)
05. Blanket (!)
06. Great Days for the Passenger Element
07. Robots in the Garden (!)
08. Here Comes Everybody (!)
09. Asleep at the Trigger
10. Plantlife
11. A Capital Kind of Strain

Enjoy.
(!) means "you're a fool for not listening to this"

Dadbot - This is a Robocracy!

2006-01-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is a crazy fun pop band from Columbia. I love them, because they gave me everything I wanted but couldn't get from the Unicorns. Favorite songs: Free Cake, Little Buddy, Mondo, Donny Dragon.

download: tracks 1-8 tracks 9-15

01. Amie on the Sea
02. Free Cake
03. Judicial Wolf
04. Little Buddy
05. Fail the Test
06. You Can't Have It
07. Poison Junior
08. Haircut
09. Blood 'n Bones
10. The Kids
11. Gtarforce
12. Prizemaker
13. Mondo
14. Goodbye, Jonesy
15. Donny Dragon

SUPER EXTRA BONUS SONG The Rapture - Dumb Waiters

Part III - The Last of the Rap, I Promise... for a while...

2006-01-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

Sage Francis has been getting a lot of well-deserved critical acclaim recently, for his confident, intelligent, insightful lyrics. His allmusic picture also looks a lot like Dave Attell. Whether or not that's anything, I don't know. But that's not the point. Listen to it! Tracks of note: Crack Pipes, Personal Journalist, Eviction Notice.

Personal Journals

This is mainly for my sole blog viewer/listener. King Geedorah, aka MF Doom, aka Vik Vaughn, released this album mid 2003. It's based on the exploits of monsters from Toho's Godzilla universe, all of whom are led by monster zero himself, King Geedorah. A lot of the tracks are heavy with samples from said movies ("Monster Zero" is nothing but). And I've heard complaints that shoddy mixing made it hard to catch a lot of the lyrics, but I never had a problem with it. Fast Lane, Krazy World, and One Smart Nigger are definitely worth checking out.

Take Me to Your Leader

These next few are Jamal Gray songs and collaborations. I highly recommend them all. The mentions of Seinfeld and Boris Yeltsin in C.I.A. always crack me up on the inside. Contact was my first exposure to any rapping that I liked. That track as well as the one with RZA are just cool ideas for songs themselves. Do You Remember is one of those songs that I'll always consider a favorite, but I somehow overlook it or forget it frequently, so I'm glad it was dredged out of my memory for this post.

KRS-One/Last Emperor/Zach de la Rocha - C.I.A. (Criminals in Action)
Last Emperor/RZA - He Lives
AK1200 ft. Last Emperor - Contact
Last Emperor - Do You Remember?
Last Emperor - Hustler's Theme

Tomorrow (or whenever) I'm going to change the pace on these songs a bit.

Who came up with this idea anyway?

2006-01-05T00:20:00.000-08:00

Thanks to MES for letting me know about this little "gem." Apparently James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy recorded a demo for Britney Spears, but Britney's label thought it was too hip or some shit. What the hell is too hip for Britney Spears supposed to mean? Oh, well. Not really important. I'm just posting this for notoriety's sake.

DOWNLOADZ0RRRR!

Part 2 of Things for Your Ears

2005-12-29T03:01:00.000-08:00

The previous hip-hop post was intended to have a follow-up, but I guess I got somewhat distracted for several days. Here's the rest of it...

I love this guy. Del from Gorillaz and several other side projects released a concept album about space-aged rapper dilemmas. Best songs from Deltron 3030: Memory Loss, 3030, Madness, Virus

Deltron 3030: tracks 1-10 tracks 11-21

Some (tolerable, finally!) christian rap from Deep Space 5, who there are actually nine of... You must hear the title track if you are the least bit skeptical or even if you're the hardest, most ardent anti-christian.

The Night We Called it a Day: tracks 1-8 tracks 9-15

Yeah, I'm going to have to make a part three, because I can't sit here and wait forever for these damn files to upload.

grunng

2005-12-22T01:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I saved part of my post earlier and now I can't recover it, so I don't think I'm going to duplicate it right now, because it's late.

Wow... was that a sentence?

This is Opus, a reflective, instrumental hip-hop duo with groove and hard-house elements. RIYL DJ Shadow, RJD2, Massive Attack. From the album "Breathing Lessons."

Track 01 - Fanum's Organs ft. Big B
Track 06 - Whirlwind/Guardian
Track 08 - Isis ft. Lord 360

Just for the hell of it, why don't I include another Lord 360 track?

Aggravated Arteries (Patience Wanes) from "Six Shades of the Same Color" compilation.

I think I'll end it tonight with Saul Williams. His self-titled (and only, as far as I know) release is easily one of my favorite albums. Such a statement I think can be summed up in one excerpt from Telegram,"we will be confiscating weed supplies/ and replacing them with magic mushrooms/ in hopes of helping niggers see beyond/ their realities/ give my regards to Brooklyn" I discovered him thanks to MTVU when they played List of Demands all the time. I think I'm the only one who was interested, unfortunately.

Track 01 - Talk to Strangers
Track o2 - Grippo
Track 03 - Telegram
Track 04 - Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare) ft. Zach de la Rocha
Track 05 - List of Demands (Reparations)

This is my psychedelic factory

2005-12-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

The prefix "psych-" is an invaluable one when trying to sound like a pretentious music snob (i.e.: "I only listen to Japanese psych-folk," or "My favorite band is Breathing the Air of Odin's Sacrifice. They're droney, sludge-metal with hints of psych-pop and minimalist psych-electro.") I mostly listen to a playlist of a lot of "psych-" albums that I don't know how in the world I came across, but couldn't stand to be without. Blanketship is always there for me when I'm not feeling Boards of Canada, but also not quite feeling Autechre. Espers and the Skygreen Leopards are like some ate-up singer-songwriters, possibly from an alternate universe. All of it is great. So mellow when it needs to be and totally blissed, psychedelic jamming when it ain't. Anyway, what I'm offering here is a CD-length sample of said playlist.

Tracks are as follows:
1. OOIOO - I'm a Song
2. Shalabi Effect - We'll Never Make it Out of Here Alive
3. Blanketship - Ourcade
4. The Skygreen Leopards - Tambourine, Play it Slow
5. Espers - Byss & Abyss
6. OOIOO - Grow Sound Tree
7. Syd Barrett - Wouldn't You Miss Me (Dark Globe)
8. The Skygreen Leopards - Parallel Shadows
9. Ghost - Escaped and Lost Down in Medina
10. Blanketship - Humidity Drift
11. OOIOO - Emeraldragonfly
12. Espers - Travel Mountains
13. Six Organs of Admittance - School of the Flower

In about a week or so, I should be getting the new Leopards EP, "the Jehovah Surrender," in the mail, so I'm pretty excited about that. I wish I could've put some more of them on this CD. More of everything, actually; that way it would seem like the Espers tracks weren't just thrown in randomly. All the other tracks I think are mixed fairly well...

Edit: Okay, that file was too big so the last track is available separately. And I suggest downloading it, because it's amazing.