Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep

The great grandaddy of all horrorcore rap, Gravediggaz' 6 Feet Deep fused the skewed, dusty funk of Wu-Tang onto Addams Family organ and a lyrical prediliction for horror theatrics, although in contrast to what followed, many of the songs are tongue-in-cheek, goofy, and digressive.  Containing two members of hip-hop veterans Stetsasonic and RZA from the newly-famous Wu-Tang Clan, plus the late Poetic, they initially formed after being screwed by Tommy Boy records in various ways.  What at first was a one-off spleen venting became a movement in underground hip-hop, with a legion of horror obsessed freaks taking to the 808 and mirroring the rise of underground death metal in the early and mid-nineties.  I've made a little game lately of comparing landmark albums in the respective genres; let's call this one Mental Funeral.

Bang Your Head

Roky Erickson - The Evil One

Counting down to my 500th post and perusing the archives lately has brought to light some glaring oversights, albums I haven't posted yet that form the backbone of my musical taste.  Many of these (this one included) have remained un-posted because I listen to them so much that I can't imagine life without them.

The first one that came to mind was The Evil One, the most well known and arguably the best album by Roky Erickson.  I have posted many Roky albums here before and casually assumed that anyone perusing my little Swamp would at least have a passing familiarity with the man.  A huge percentage of albums on here are directly influenced by him, and many others have a spiritual kinship in their themes of paranormal phenomena, struggles with madness, and weird gibberish.

Lyrically, Roky draws from vintage horror movies and urban legends as much as he uses early rock n' roll's predilection for mantra-like refrains and cribbed blues motifs.  Musically, it's basically Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley squeezed through a proto-punk meat grinder.  Creedence Clearwater Revival's Stu Cook played bass on and produced much of this album, lending a layer of cosmic hillbilly mystique to a record already doomed to obscurity.

Of course now Roky is known as an essential part of any rock fan's collection and he continues to produce new material, against all odds, but this is the pinnacle.

I Walked With a Zombie

Fishing with John

This is the soundtrack to the cult television show "Fishing with John," starring John Lurie.  Taking the loose framework of a PBS nature show and twisting it into a hilarious beatnik riff on culture shock, cryptozoology, manliness, booze, frenetic dancing, and the nature of sport, the six extant episodes stand as one of the weirdest TV experiments ever.  With guests like Tom Waits, Willem Defoe, Dennis Hopper, and Jim Jarmusch, and wild expressionist music by Lurie's many amorphous jazz combos, it's settling nicely right now with the mixture of whiskey and cough syrup fueling your helpless narrator's feverish battle with Mother Nature herself, also nicely reflecting the over-arching theme of the show.  Perhaps tomorrow will find me more lucid, or perhaps floating face down in an icy bog somewhere.

Ahhhhhh.....

Germ Free Adolescents

X-Ray Spex's neon dystopia of plastic airtight repression was flash-frozen in time on Germ Free Adolescents.  Notable right off the bat are the squealing, in-and-out of tune saxophone and the distinct wail of singer Poly Styrene. Poly's obsession with consumerism, disposable culture, and the air-conditioned nightmare informs her lyrics, but her soulful voice and sharp sense of humor keep it cheerfully surreal.  The band released one more album after this, but it was underwhelming and overshadowed by Styrene's growing mental illness, UFO sightings, and adoption of Hare Krishna.  Sadly, she died earlier this year after recording a fairly promising handful of new songs.  Still, this album stands as tribute to her Orwellian love and pessimism for the human race.  

I wanna be insta-matic

I wanna be a frozen pea

Colour Haze - Tempel

Sweet Merciful Crap!  What a week.  Posting may be sporadic until the first of the month, wee ones, as your old Uncle Abdul is doing double duty outside the Swamp - burning the brazier at both ends.  All that will fit inside my enfeebled ears tonight is this soothing mystical album from Germany's premier desert rock band, Colour Haze.  Inspired by the power trios of yore and the powerful unnameable forces of the space-time continuum, the cosmic yawn filtered through flange and fuzz, they coax the listener into an out-of-body voyage through the four elements of matter and the various states of consciousness. 

Ozean

Bruce Dickinson - Chemical Wedding

Here's an esoteric gem from Bruce Dickinson's uneven solo career, a mixture of prophetic and allegorical material based on the writing and painting of William Blake, and Rosicrurianism's secret rites and alchemical preoccupation.  On top of being a world class fencer, aviator, novelist, and heavy metal singer, Mr. Dickinson is a serious student of the occult, and he explains the album in depth here far better than I could.  Many of the lyrics are cryptic and abstract, though, allowing one to come to one's own understanding and relationship with the album.  Musically, it's pretty straightforward and solid Maidenism (Adrian Smith is the primary guitar player) aside from a few excellent cameos from Swamp veteran Arthur Brown and the occasional modern screamy vocal accent.  The patient disciple will discover multiple layers of meaning and depth, and the casual headbanger will find a bunch of kick-ass heavy metal.  

This is the river of space 

This is the river of time

Salem Mass - Witch Burning

Greetings, toad people!  Returning from a rock n' roll sabbatical, I bring you this lump of red-hot occult proto-metal from Idaho's Salem Mass.  Released in 1971, this strange hybrid of the Manson Family vibe of Coven or Black Widow with the groovy psychedelic thud of Captain Beyond.  Soulful, over-the-top vocals and the trippy organ percolate over a surprisingly funky foundation of rubberlegged bass and cowbell-happy drums.  This is another in the long line of occult rock that gave birth to today's crop of mystic longhair bands dancing naked in a circle, praising the dark forces of the universe.  

You're just a dream.

Deceased - Supernatural Addiction

Alas, wee ones,  I must away forthwith for a day or two!  Focus your minds together on this, my favorite album by Virginia's unkillable death/thrash misanthropes, Deceased.  Supernatural Addiction is perhaps my favorite among their peerless discography (although one can't go wrong with any of their various albums).  Loosely themed around various notably works of short horror, from the glorious "The Doll With the Hideous Spirit" from Richard Matheson's famous "Prey," and its bloodthirsty Zuni Fetish Doll, to "Dark Chilling Heartbeat" based on Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."  Each song is a gem on its own, but taken as a whole they add up to a Tales From The Crypt-style anthology of horrid tales of revenge an comeuppance. 

The music?  Ah, yes.  This isn't the most brutal Deceased record by a long shot, but the ambitious texture and range are breathtaking, unfolding from the crusher opening of "The Premontion" into a complex mix of not only death and thrash but hints of psych, punk, doom, and weirder territories.  Even the longest songs are perpetually forward-moving and fat-free, anchored by the excellent and instantly recognizable vocals of drummer King Fowley.  Deceased is one of those bands like Slough Feg or Primordial, seemingly content to stake out their own plot of metal soil and crank out album after album of quality music, impervious to trends and inertia.

Will we ever open our minds to greet a world beyond?

Year of the Goat - Lucem Ferre

There's a ton of this occult doom rock floating around these days, so much so that's it difficult to parse out the primo stuff out of legions of clones.  I have discovered this EP by Year of the Goat (from Sweden, of course), and it's quickly one of my most-spun over the last few months.  Fans of Pentagram, Graveyard, Witchcraft, The Devil's Blood, and Noctum will find much to enjoy here: tales of hedonism and regret, crushing fuzz riffs, flaxen hair blowing in the northern winds, and even a cover of Sam Gopal's "Dark Lord."  Hopefully they will release a full length before the darkness swallows them.

She pours cataclysm from her golden cup.

Demon Fuzz - Afreaka!

Demon Fuzz is another one of those bands whose freaky, forward-looking sounds were far enough ahead of their time that they achieved little success and remain obscure outside of crate-digging DJs continually in search of more esoteric and obscure grooves.  While ostensibly being a funk band, Demon Fuzz combines jazzy, menacing dissonance with prog and psych tendencies and a soulful backbone that keeps even the strangest moments grounded.  The opening instrumental, "Past Present and Future," opens with a muted guitar figure that could've been lifted from a Fugazi record twenty years in the future, shortly followed by the sly insinuation of horns and a martial rhythm that unfolds into full-on brass band swagger and then dissolves into a Fun House-era Stooges freakout.  The vocals don't arrive until track two, the spidery "Disillusioned," but aptly named crooner Smokey Adams expresses righteous anger over a bed of organ, harmonica, and buzzing trumpet.  There's a few more killer originals and covers of the mandatory "I Put a Spell on You" and a song from the British Invasion combo Electric Flag, rounded out with another expressionistic instrumental capper.  Truly freaky.

Mercy (variation 1)

Fearless Vampire Killers - Target

Another knock-off band on the turntable tonight - this time it's the Japanese Bad Brains, Fearless Vampire Killers. Not quite up to the standard of their inspiration, especially in the vocal department, this is nonetheless a raging buzzsaw of hyperactive punk fast enough to sand the zits off your face.
All you offend to my eyes

Satyricon - Volcano

Satyricon is another one of those wildly divisive bands that seems to split people into two camps with very few occupying a middle ground. If you think black metal should all look and sound like Mayhem in 1994 forever and ever, you've probably despised everything Satyricon's released since, well, 1996. If you're more of a mind that black metal is framework with which to build and expand upon at will (or strip bare, or burn to the ground), there's a chance you'll still hate it. I, for one, quite like the paring down of several essential elements into a distilled liqueur of venom and spite. While not quite squarely in the Motörhead/crusty mountain troll mode of recent Darkthrone or Carpathian Forest, 2002's vicious Volcano is still a groovy, forward-marching war machine, flattening poseurs and internet kvlt police in its horrible wake.
Fuel For Hatred

Nightmare!

Here's a moody little slice of cinematic horror jazz from Creed Taylor and his orchestra, simultaneously oozing hepcat cool and slithery menace. The third of three collaborations with film composer Kenny Hopkins, these albums are not connected to specific films but based on short horror stories and classic monster archetypes. Anticipating much strange fringe music of the next fifty years, the mix of creaky sound effects with abstract tone poems and lounge rhythm, along with occasional muffled voices, creates a delightfully eerie atmosphere that must've been a riot at cocktail parties and secretive black masses alike.
Red Eyed Rats

Roky Erickson - More Power to You

Another semi-legitimate Roky release from the fan club here, with some stuff you can't find anywhere else and also the absolute best version of "Cold Night for Alligators" I've ever heard. Also included is some prime Roky-gibberish and general silliness, just for good measure.
I Love the Blind Man

Live From the Depths of Hell

Happy Birthday King Diamond

Noctum - The Seance

There must be something in the water over in Sweden. Noctum, following in the footsteps of countrymen Graveyard and Witchcraft, present us with a rock-solid slab of groovy doom on this debut LP from last year. Not quite as eclectic or psychedelic as the former and not as Roky-influenced as the latter, Noctum instead relies on old-fashioned mystical mumbo jumbo and swaggering heaviness to make an impression. Come take my hand...
Den Onda Trollpackan

Pharaoh - The Longest Night

Can't think of anything clever or funny to post today, due to the crushing weight of summer frying my feeble brain, so enjoy this killer LP by Pharaoh, which ought to appeal to those Slough Feg/Manilla Road/Ironsword/heavy metal fans among you. You know who you are.
Ouch

Paul Cary - Ghost of a Man

Hm, I believe this is a free album so despite its recent vintage I shan't feel too bad about sharing it. Paul Cary, former frontman of punk band The Horrors (the good one, not the shitty British band), recorded this cobwebby, creaking album onto tape in the middle of a big echoey room, raw and honest. Blending blues, rockabilly, Tom Waits-ish clanking, lo-fi garage rock, and haunting country sounds into one dark, pungent stew, Ghost of a Man has been on constant rotation here in the Swamp lately. The mix of misanthropy and humor on these songs is perhaps their finest feature. Best line: “If it wasn’t for the devil, the Bible would be so boring.” Order vinyl and get a free download here or get it from Uncle Abdul here.

Wooden Stake - Vampire Plague Exorcism

Wooden Stake plays a hybrid death-doom style that should please fans of Hooded Menace and Acid Witch and also fans of the recent crop of female-fronted spooky doom such as Jex Thoth and The Devil's Blood. Hailing from Texas by way of New York, this duo grinds out some alternately beautiful and horrifying music, equally derived from Black Sabbath, Mythic, and sixties occult rock like Coven or Black Widow, all sheathed in the somewhat goofy vampire shtick. This is their first EP, which, while not quite up to par with the startling LP Dungeon Prayers & Tombyard Serenades which was recently released, still contains some chilling, primitive ritual doom for a dark and stormy night such as this.
Stalking in the Shadowlands

Back From the Grave vol. 2

Well then, seeing as how lately the weird psych records get about ten times as many downloads as the heavy metal records that usually end up as seat-fillers here in the Swamp, I can only assume that they must be striking a chord with a greater percentage of my darling Swamplings. Far be it for me to deny the silent whims of my little ones, so let's get this one right on out there. I posted the first record in this crucial Crypt Records series some time ago, but I must admit this one might be my favorite.

Less explicitly horror-themed than the first volume, the songs on this one tend to skew more towards drug-induced paranoia and general social rebellion than the previous entry; still, there is nonetheless a wide variety of ugly, anti-establishment punk sentiment to abrade up against delicate sensibilities. Highlights include motorcycle anthem "Willie the Wild One," the similarly free-wheeling "Wild-Man," and "City of People," a genuine immortal classic full of teenage sneer and delirious hate. This is not to diminish the other twenty-something tracks: there's plenty of soured love, bad trips, and 'Nam-era cynicism to go around, too.
What in the World