Yamaguchi Goro- A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky (1967)

Original cover. Fussy, but still stunning.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9wdvz4j30ng6zit

Remember the 1960s, when people would release records just because they were interesting?

Japan's designated Living National Treasure, Yamaguchi Goro, played the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) on a series of lps throughout his life, though this one was picked up by the massively exotic Nonesuch Records Explorer Series in the 1960s. It's one of the few LPs to have been rereleased on cd in the early 2000s.

If you've ever wondered what a solo bamboo flute sounds like, you don't have to imagine too much. It sounds empty, plaintive, sad, lonesome, faraway, and fragile. And lovely.

New artwork. Actually matches the music better.

This is a perfect album to play while you're doing something seemingly unrelated. For instance, i love to listen to it while gardening. It makes picking tomatoes seem so fleeting and sad. Totally recommended.

Alice Coltrane- A Monastic Trio (1968)

http://www.mediafire.com/?ywr1c5gv4r4236r

I know nothing about Jazz. Nothing. Really, honestly, nothing.

It's tough to write about jazz, inquire about jazz, and sometimes listen to jazz. It's just hard to do. I understand it to be a vast universe that exists inside a little box. Most people--like myself--don't really venture to open that box, instead happy to stay inside their little land of pop/experimental/choral/opera or whatever music.

I found out about Alice Coltraine through MC Schmidt and Drew Daniels from Matmos, who played one of her cassettes for me on the way to Salvadorean food. I didn't look her up for many years, but recognized it off the bat.

What to say--she leads a jazz group both on piano and harp. She plays with precision, as Nina Simone can, but ventures off into strange and beautiful territory. She became very interested in meditation, and her latter albums (i am told) veer off into this territory even more.

L0W- Come on (2O11) / The Internet Police Strike

The administrators at Cosmonaut Farm had their first official Cease and Desist order from Blogger. Apparently, it came straight from a larger record label which used to be known as a small record company (whose name rhymes with Subb P0pp). This record label used to be "indie" but now apparently likes to bully blogs like this one.

Fine. Sorry to say that anyone looking for L0w's C'M0n (2011) will have to look elsewhere. Or, just get it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?z3xo3qq4iky3jv0

In the future, i'm afraid that i will have to consider brand new main label cds differently, or just omit them entirely. I'm more inclined to do the latter and let others take the hit. It's not a giant deal, but at the end of the day, i don't want to have to deal with some tight-assed record execs who can't deal with the fact that the internet is basically Napster version 5.0, and that file sharing will only become MORE pervasive.

L(y)kke Li- W(o)unded Rhymes

http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

*Note: Hooray! My second file removed due to copyright infringement! I'm on a roll! Notice the creative misspelling. Thanks, record execs-- keeping us all safe from pirates.

I hate it when I agree with Pitchfork.

I can't stand their ideal of "Let's-record-it-on-a-Fischer-Price-tape-Deck-and-add-a-photo-of-me-with-bad-sunglasses-with-Photoshop-lens-flare-effect" because it's so dumb that it's ironically cool. And that being hip is unhip, and that makes it cool.

And yet, crap: I love L(y)kke Li, the snaggle-toothed sorta shy Swedish pop singer. W(o)unded Rhymes doesn't feel as vulnerable as Youth Novels did, but i'll take it as a great follow up.

Wounded Rhymes is both simultaneously confident and vulnerable. I don't know how someone can make dance music that feels so confessional. When i think of popular American dance music, it seems to fall into one of two categories: either "You broke my heart and now i'm gonna dance" or "My man is so awesome and now i'm gonna dance".

By contrast, this is sort of a dance album that David Lynch would produce. And for that reason, i really love it. Don't believe me? Watch her music video for "Get Some" and tell me that you don't somehow feel totally creeped out, and perhaps a little smidge turned on. Mostly, though, just REALLY creeped out.

Also, she played on the Jimmy Fallon show in a ridiculous outfit with the most amazing tambourine display I've seen in years.

Big Star- Sister Lovers (1974) {CF Edit}

http://www.mediafire.com/?tm12klsl5gzcpmo

There was an American band in the late 60s and early 70s who made quite a name for themselves by playing rock and roll. Their records were good, but they never quite reached the critical mass that The Byrds, The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones did.

By the time their third album was coming around, they had signed to Stax Records, which was falling apart and going bankrupt. The band was splitting up, and the singer Alex Chilton was having his own personal issues to deal with. He did what every musician should do, which is deal with his stuff openly and on tape.

Sister Lovers (so-named because he and the drummer were dating two sisters; this cd is also known as "Third") was Big Star's third record, though many consider it Chilton's solo outing, recorded with session musicians, the band's drummer, and an ambitious producer who wanted to carry the session through to fruition.

Sister Lovers is a bizarre collection of songs that ping-pong between sheer bliss, caustic sarcasm, utter detachment, total loneliness, and tongue-in-cheek. In a way, it was indie rock way ahead of it's time, and Sister Lovers nails the sonic experiments, loose arrangements, and sheer coolness that a lot of homemade rockers tried to sound like. Even in 2011, it sounds like it was recorded last month, which says a lot!

A lot of crazy-huge bands (R.E.M., Yo la Tengo) refer to as one of the most influential of all time.

I could go off on how I like each song, but everyone in the world has beat me to it. So there.

Rykodisc finally released the "official" version of Third/Sister Lovers, including bonus tracks, in 1994 or so with a setlist picked by Chilton. I have to say that i liked and didn't like it. For one thing, it's very hard to cobble any kind of cohesion together out of the songs, that make Pet Sound's diversity sound relatively tame. For another, it is 17 songs long, which is far too many, in my opinion. It also includes a handful of cover songs that range from campy to utterly atrocious.

So-called purists will get all huffy, but i made my own tracklist that has a more natural listening arc to it, and i also made my own album art (since the reissue is pretty fugly). To me, it's the strongest tracks put in an order that a skeptic would really appreciate.


(A little aside: This is Chilton's year, as people are performing Third live all over the place. This poster was from North Caroline, i believe, but a superstar cast was doing this in New York City also. Flattering or self-serving?)

Damien Jurado- Saint Bartlett

http://www.mediafire.com/?detxkj8swulzk17

When people think of Damien Jurado, they probably think of a sensitive northwestern singer/songwriter who likes to play lots of acoustic guitar and have women sing with him. I, for one, have thought that his last few cds just seemed like a blurring of one continuous album that never really stuck out to me. That's probably not a fair assessment.

Saint Bartlett, which was produced by Richard Swift, really caught me off guard. It's a very solid record: the songs are catchy, haunting, and distinctive. But the thing that really sealed it for me are the great idiosyncratic percussion and doo-wop sensibilities. It's still a Damien Jurado record, but it sounds like one that would be playing in the background of an episode of Twin Peaks.

His songs always seem confessional, but they're often from the point of view of others. This record was apparently made while several friends were going through divorces, in hospitals, etc. The different points of view make it "read" like a collection of stories by Ray Bradbury.

It's a really affective record. I have some days when I pull in to work on my bike and all i can think of is the endless loop that he sings on the first song: "Trying to fix my mind, trying to fix my mind." This has been one of my favorite records of the past year.