'odds n sods' (1997)

BARGAIN BIN CD BUY #4

1.

Q can u pls write a mini write up of kettle whistle by jane's addiction?
A Pitched as an essential document of janes addiction's emotional power when playing live, Kettlewhistle is a hodgepodge of live recordings, demos and new songs. It's probably more of a filler between albums, or a last ditch attempt to pull something together for fear of not being able to reform the original members to create the 'old magic' again. This is also hinted at by the fact the original bassist Eric Avery refused to contribute to the new tracks and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was called in to replace him. Kettlewhistle roughly marks the point I lost interest in both Janes Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Pepper's music. Ritual De la Habitual was probably JAs last relevant album and the Chilis produced nothing worthwhile after Blood Sugar Sex Magic. This was also around time Navarro transformed into a huge comic book rock star douchebag. Really a sad time all round for me in regards to both these bands... The cover art is quite pretty though.
A Thanks! Perfect!
Q really? no mention of the actual music
Q might be really good...

2.

Jane Says worked its way into my head one day and now it always makes me feel sick and sad and happy all at once when I hear it and I can't live without it

3.

'odds n sods'

4.

v0

5.

FLAC here and it's huge

JESUS (1997)

BARGAIN BIN CD BUY #1

Darcy Clay is like a cult nz legend and I didn't know who he was until two weeks ago. I went to a friend's house to watch Gravity Falls and drink Pure Blonde and there was a shitty 90s anthem playlist thing on TV and Clay's Jesus I Was Evil came on and I was like holy shit the lo-fi-ness and retarded bassline this is the best thing and my friends were like you're stupid how have you not heard this his version of Jolene is the best version of Jolene. Jesus I Was Evil is an EP of bizarro musical characters and styles. What About It is like the character from Beck's I Get Lonesome (or actually any song on Mellow Gold) came to life and made a song. Jolene is a pseudo disco genderfuck masterpiece. I don't know what's going on with In the Middle but it has a good feeling and I like it. The title track is obviously the best. The live stuff on the second half of the CD is confusing and really good. Opening for Blur, his English Rose is a self-aware mess and although things sort of come together afterwards, they also totally don't. His raw vocals offer a more physically real angle to the glorious bedroom recordings of the EP. Any distinctions between beauty and retardation and self-awareness and sincerity are all ignored by Clay, and his songs effectively transcend any one feeling or conclusion that the listener might feel/make from them.

Jesus I Was Evil is fun and happy and self-conscious opposition rock and it's so fucking painful that it can and should bring a tear to your eye. RIP.

Came with an 'interactive CD-ROM' I've made into an iso if anyone's interested

A

v0 / flac / buy

Mystical parasites (2013)

DIY psych so good it threatens you to mention its influences so it can ask do you feel better now? and enthralled you say not really and just experience it for what it is. It humanizes itself with an impressionistic breakup narrative whose details are lost in the noise- dynamic and repetitive, spacey yet dark. Through volume and improvisation the songs' feelings are expressed without any need for a literal narration any way. Without words the voice becomes our temperamental guide and protagonist within Pearl Mystic's chaos. It holds our hands through the first two tracks, but we lose it in the formless noise of i smartly sequenced just when it seems like nothing can derail Pearl Mystic's propulsive energy. It comes back defeated in the near-ballad In Our Time, and every time after that it's either seen attempting to fight its way out or just giving up. It's bittersweet when it tells us to say goodbye having found a pulse on What We Talk About, and the closer affirms this- free-form but weightless and blissed out like a grey cloudy sky just cleared.

A-

go / get it

The Muffs - The Muffs (1993)

cover sux like scooby doo meets aqua chilling with jesse bernstein. music rulz like ramones-ish minimalism meets surly relationship stories, something which appeals to me whenever i come across it-- like 'answering machine' as opposed to anything else on 'let it be'

B

here

Piano Magic - Low Birth Weight (1999)

Not just an impressive link between the lush-moody gothiness of the 80s and sharp-moody altiness of the 90s, Low Birth Weight frequently brings to mind both The xx's feely minimalism and Michael Cashmore's chilling pastoral fragility as Nature and Organisation. The title makes me think of sick babies, and the cover creeps me out and makes me happy all at once.

B-

stream / -

Dolly Mixture - Demonstration Tapes (1983)

Twee pop is either the greatest or the worst depending on what twee pop you're hearing. Dolly Mixture make me wonder why I don't listen to twee pop every day

A



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Acetone - I Guess I Would (1995)

My new favourite downers' covers EP. With Cindy I thought I had them all figured out- casually fucked up like Neil Young but without the frantic transcendence, noise rockers without the ideological guts, Chilton's passionate indifference without the need to fully debase their own songs, Low's icy detachment but still warm and fuzzy, or whatever, and so on, and looking at that I think Wilco but they're not Wilco and they're nothing like Wilco on Cindy, but on I Guess I Would they sorta are 'cause you get the above and country but it's not, too, I don't know where I'm going, I just love it, I really do, from the lucid proto-late-era-Earth instrumental opener to the scuzzy 11 minute closer, I just really love it all

A

here

Acetone - Cindy (1993)

Rocks so casually you can hardly handle it- Come On features disembodied vocals and low-singing reminiscent of Low, and the guitars wind and whine but they're bloated and live sounding, heavy and interesting because dude played softly and carelessly a little bit close to his amp rather than working anything experimental into his technique or tunings. That loose garage aesthetic you get from downers like Neil Young blasting your ears away 'cause they don't wanna bend down and lose some distortion, and hey, they'll rock in the process any way, or that youthful spontaneity which encourages them to steal from Isaac Hayes' Walk on By or the fucking Grease soundtrack

A-

here

Band of Susans - The Word and the Flesh (1991)

The kind of shoegaze which retains a punk rock-ish level of angularity in spite of the haze, and, interestingly, Shields' groundbreaking movement into complete abstraction the same year and within the same vague field (shoegazing?), what to do but make a superficial link to Rhys Chatham, they cover him on the last track, and to New York City rather than Dublin, noise rockers rather than feely abstractioners, Sonic Youth rather than Slowdive, thought rather than pure feeling, and so on, or whatever, a rare case of that trite yet inevitable comparison actually bringing out the record's best features

A-

here
non-ghetto fidelity version 1 / 2

Jon Auer - Songs From the Year of Our Demise (2006)

Downer Posies meets Elliot Smith-ish singer-songwriter fragility- pulls some of the power from his pop, compromising with a focus on introspection

B

vbr

(2001)

Something pleasant about an older, more fulfilled Frank Black chilling and writing straightforward but still spontaneous and weird alt country with a real tight band

A-

v0

The Posies - Frosting on the Beater (1993)

The band who famously or infamously joined Alex Chilton to sloppily/sexily/alt-ily redo Big Star songs more frequently associated with pop trapped in an airtight faux-nostalgia than being open to sloppiness, sexiness, and modern day alternative rock. I got a kick from the outcome of this precious bubble bursting and noise and addiction and genuine affections spilling forth so wondered what those who assisted Chilton sounded like without Chilton. It's what you'd expect but with more attention paid to getting the power pop vocals perfect- this one's Big Star, this one's Sunny Day Real Estate, and this one's Foo Fighters. That sloppy, sexy, alt-y mix of perfect pop and noisy guitars

A-

here

(2002)

I mean, c'mon

A+

here

(1997)

Because a week after seeing them live I still can't shake this angsty disposition and while being brought up on OK Computer immunised me to the circle-jerk impact of its supposed ground-breaking-ness, alas, it sounds to me like alternative rock should and not much more than that, there's definitely something special about it and while part of that might be its conceptual greatness- disgust at the modern world, the belief that the worldwide victory of a capitalist rhetoric means we won't be seeing any grand dystopian futures but rather we're already living one- lyrical fragments of introspection, sci-fi paranoia, advertising, suicide, the triumph of technology, and so on, it's the individual moments which both drive these points home and make the record more than just a cliched pick for greatest album ever- the wacky guitars on Paranoid Android sounding like a surrealist road-trip to hell, the numerous indecipherable moans, and most of all the scream at the end of Climbing Up the Walls, which, yeah this'll sound cheesy 'cause it is, becomes the post-modern The Scream as the aforementioned lyrical fragments build and bombard the narrator's head exactly as paranoia, ads, technologies bombard the heads of his listeners, a swirling mess of guilt, history (the climax being a guitar-pop rendition of Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima), alienation, over-saturation of information, motorways, millionaires, aliens, robots, in short the post-modern condition, so that what could be left but a scream through the narrator and through nature and through the listener resulting in a secret ending where the whirlwind passes and the solution is suicide (No Surprises (god they're depressing)), but then secretly it's just takin' it easy (so don't go do that). Because its concept requires it be so dense and messy, everybody has their own little set of special moments found within the chaos, and maybe that's why it seems so immortal

A+

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Silkworm - Firewater (1996)

Deconstructed indie rock, punk rock, slacker rock, sure, pieced together but still unhinged, invariably- drier, more angular, their secret lies in their ability to convince you it's all sloppy when really it's direction, even purpose.  Maybe it's because their drug of choice isn't weed (Pavement, Dino jr) but beer (...), dudes sound like they've got some real low-life topics and issues going down- desperation rather than apathy, hangovers rather than wordplay. At its worst it's Pavement without the fun (weed), and at its best it's a down-to-earth Slint meets guitar heroics (beer). Fuckin rocks m8

A-

v0 (fixd)

Singles (1986)

Killing an Arab's hipster indifference followed by ~16 tracks about how much he feels. Yeah, it's silly, Smith's a cool guy less Meursault than sentimental new wave half-handsome ladies man and if he's a stranger he thinks you're an outsider too and he'll sing about yours and his feelings with some of the best hooks and deepest moods of the 80s and for all they stand for (Faith and Pornography) it's where they just aren't like that that a compilation such as this works. I wouldn't even call it a document like people seem to do because a) that's bullshit and b) it takes away from how well Staring at the Sea flows through 7 years of the band's material

A+

here

Ecstasy at the Uffington White Horse

I mean, if it's good enough for Mandy...

Woah! Seriously though, English Settlement is great. I first started getting into XTC when I was into Scott Walker 'cause I was real into the idea of the pop star going weird, and heard Andy Partridge (singer, guitarist of XTC) didn't exactly go batshit but got sophisticated or something (Talk Talk?) but shit's crazy, he was always good/artistic (Talk Talk!) and then was all appreciative of the art of growing as an artist within pop rather than going avant-tard or quoting Camus. Nah sorry Scott you're still cool. But that Andy Partridge! New waver staying new wave but just getting better is my jam. English Settlement shows how insanely well he understands rhythm and acoustic guitar while retaining the poppiest of pop sensibilities. Hear that, Anco? I'm onto you! I'd call it their best 'cause I'm listening as I type and MAN that acoustic sound rulz and MAN those downer tracks at the end of Skylarking really fuck things up, but I'm not sure. Always the same, always better.

A

here

Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground (1984)

fuckin hell in only a year gordon gano went and lost it (or found it), doesn't matter which 'cause hallowed ground is dark (and hell is hot) and mysterious, whether the insanity on display is collective or his own- that is whether christfag or schizo his appalachian freak punk gives me the damn creeps. on the best song (never tell) he says fuck elia kazan and convinces the listener not to snitch, on the second (country death song) you think he's too nihilistic to be devout but he'll make you second-guess that on the third (jesus walking on the water). still creeps me out

A

here

These Immortal Souls - I'm Never Gonna Die Again (1992)

Although aimless deconstructed blues seems like a good place for junkies to hang out and growl and shock, I'm Never Gonna Die Again is the sound of Howard picking up those pieces and moving forward with them, which is at once more listenable/enjoyable than you'd expect and also more hellish. It's an aggressive, uncomfortable vision of junkie/existential hell that for whatever reason never threatens to fully simulate the experience for the listener. Whether this is a good thing as it gives us the space to fully assess/enjoy Howard's songs, or a bad thing as we never get to join him (that whole empathy thing), is entirely up to the individual.

B+

here
stream

B-Sides & Rarities (2005)

• The acoustic Deanna gets to the No carpet on the floor/and the winding cloth holds many moths/around your ku klux furniture/I cum a deaths-head in your frock part before going into the gospel Oh Happy Day showing where he got the idea for the song and while not exactly ending on a positive note unless ejaculating ominous moths is a good thing, at least there's no murderous rampage! Oh happy day!
• Roy Orbison's Running Scared is one of the best songs ever. Nick Cave's version is SO b-side/rare.
• I always like Cave doing Black Betty
• I like when Mick Harvey gets credited with guitars and Blixa with feedback guitars
• Another x song?! Weeping songs, ship songs, now TRAIN songs. Straightforwardly sentimental, train as a metaphor for escape or missed opportunities universalizes his narrative
• Someone bought me The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young for my birthday a few years ago and I still think it's a special record and Cave's Helpless and Pixies' Winterlong are pretty heartbreaking as is. Helpless is on here, not Winterlong 'cause that'd be weird
• (I'll Love You) Till the End of the World from Wim Wenders' 'ultimate' road movie Until The End Of The World sounds like Tom Waits set to ridic Nature&Organisation cornballishness
• Leonard Cohen done noise-Elvis is always fun compared to 80s Cohen groan-core originals
• The What A Wonderful World duet with Shane MacGowan is the sole justification for this b-sides & rarities collection. Fuck your dorky collector impulses!
• Straight after that is a cover of Rainy Night in Soho from The Pogues' Poguetry in Motion. I prefer MacGowan's haggard original. Weird 'cause I usually dig MacGowan more as a poet and Cave more as a singer!
• 3 O'Malley's Bars
• Where the Wild Roses Grow with Blixa instead of Kylie!
• 3 Discs!
• I was lying about collector impulses and What A Wonderful World being the only reason to get this. The video is much more fun
• 
  
• Hmmmmm
• How to assess something like this
• Are the versions on here better or worse than the ones we already have?
• What are we meant to do with three discs worth of b-sides and rarities?
• Collect them, I guess
• Dork
• B-
• try 1 / 2 / 3
• buy