The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders (1968)

http://www.mediafire.com/?koe1rj053pabwi8

From the linear notes:

"There was an article in the LA hippie paper about a confrontation between two local guru types in MacArthur Park. Their followers--by this time, there were tens of thousands of young and not-so-young people following hundreds of self-styled gurs du jour, from Mei Lyman to Charles Manson--were looking for a peace and love-style version of the old west shoutout on Main Street. Both would-be avatars were about thirty. One was swaddled head to toe in robes, diffraction gradings, body paint, beads and peacock feathers. The other one was completely naked, except for an incense-on-a-stick-thingie that he had stuck up his asshole and lit. It had gone out.
The two avatars faced each other, smiling.

'You're beautiful, man,' said one.
'No, man,' said the other. 'You're beautiful.'
'No, I'm not,' came the reply. 'You're beautiful.'
'No, brother. You're the one who's beautiful.'
'I think I'm going to throw up,' said one of the cops.

Doomed as doomed can be."
-Peter Stampfel

Bang on a Can All Stars- Music for Airports

http://www.mediafire.com/?d2vuu97kb8h2m9f

Unless you have lived (quite successfully) under a log for the past several decades, you've gone through a period of really liking Brian Eno's Music for Airports. The story is that while he was hospitalized, he became fascinated with sounds that blended into the environment. That is apparently an amazing idea, though Eric Satie had a very similar idea a good hundred years before...

I digress. So there is a "New Chamber Group" or however they describe themselves, named Bang On a Can All Stars (i won't judge you for judging the name. Yuck.) who likes to cover music by people who will never appreciate their efforts (e.g. Brian Eno and Richard D. James). They turned this extremely discreet music into something sort of dynamic, to be played live by 8 or 9 musicians.

I sound pessimistic, but the actual recording is pretty nice. If you are at all familiar with Eno's original, this is an interesting listen.

(Please, BOACAS: new name, or at least new album art. Yuck.)

Juana Molina- Un Dia

http://www.mediafire.com/?an515logjlf6l2v

The whole "single artist making a huge sound by using a looping pedal" phenomenon is pretty big, made popular by Andrew Bird, Zoe Keating, and Imogene Heap. And they're all pretty good at it in different ways. But one of my favorites is Juana Molina.

Her first two albums often get described as sounding somewhere between soft Brazillian bossa nova and Brian Eno, which is intriguing enough of a description to make me want to listen to a record. But Un Dia, her third, pulls out all the hush and slaps you in the face with weirdness: layers and layers of noises, vocal ticks, instruments, keyboards, and horns. It's just great, dense, weird, and beautiful. And most importantly, it really kicks-- all solid driving beats, so you don't have to sit and sip yerba matte in your yoga wear with your pretentious yuppie friends while you listen to it on your fair-trade hand-woven area rug. It's acid trip approved, crazy kids!

I was able to see Molina live at the Southgate House in Kentucky. She played loops with a live bassist and drummer, and of course, it was incredible. Her live set actually blew this recording out of the water, because I was able to see that all these loops on the CD were happening live-- I wouldn't be surprised if this CD had no overdubs.

I heard through the grapevine that Molina is Argentinian and had a previous career as a comedian?! Even if this is untrue, I love that idea.

The Well-Tempered Synthesizer

http://www.mediafire.com/?x3i5x897d3kgpyg

It must have been exciting to be a music fan in the 1960s, as there was an "anything-goes" mentality with record pressing. I have found records with yodeling, honky-tonk, children's choirs, puppets, and cricket recordings and they all seem to have been released willy-nilly into the atmosphere with no idea of sales, target audience, or financial concern.

One of these funny experiments was made by Wendy Carlos, an accomplished pianist who had an unusual curiosity for the emerging Moog keyboard. Unlike the average wanker, she approached it as a legitimate instrument and made layered recordings of classical compositions, in which she played all of the parts on a differently-styled Moog patch. Surprisingly, they were such a success that she was able to make four different albums.

The Well-Tempered Synthesizer may be one of my favorites since she had honed the process at this point. There is a bit wider range, so that she was branching out from Bach to include Scarlatti, etc. They somehow sound timeless ("classical") and futuristic at once. I can't think of anything happening today that still sounds this fresh.