Max Goldt - L'Église Des Crocodiles

Label : Gagarin Records - GR2024

Year : 1983 (2011 RE)

Country : Germany

Format : LP

Ramblings that go in and out of chipmunk speak, with some strange minimal backing for good measure. Real kitchen sink of an instrumentation which breathes some organic air for a field sometimes so lacking in it.

A favorite DIY artist of mine.

 

Here

Folks On Fire - Under A Hairy Sun

Label : Self-Released

Year : 1985

Country : US

Format : LP

Goofy, artsy punk from Louisville. Not the most experimental affair, but worth it for a listen that can be compared to blog darlings Proof of Utah.

Here

Iceplants - Done By The Iceplants

Label : Small Tools Tradition - B Town 01

Year : 1986

Country : US

Format : LP

I have unearthed a holy grail. Well, bought one at least. This group has been on my mind for quite a while after hearing their Happytime At The Wow Club shortplayer first posted on the legendary Mutant Sounds blog. On my mind, but out of reach (financially). Specifically this "long"player. I was just about ready to take a road trip down to DC to have a listen to the Library of Congress' copy before deciding to just bite the bullet and let the collectors win just this once.

Taking a chance with it, I'd say it was worth it. The seller was a treat to deal with, too! Anyway, to the music. Its sound is caught between the drunken piano cabarets of the aforementioned Wow Club and the industrial postpunk of their other rarity which I posted some time ago. The bite is certainly there, lyrics wise. Anti-Soviet ballads are not something often to be found in the exp. underground of the time, sort of continuing on the theme of atypical political lieds after "Hanoi Jane"... Among other topics, like nuclear destruction and short ditties about roadkill.

Read em or weep, maybe both at the same time.

Aside from all that "musical" stuff, there's a letter left from the band leader (I assume) to the former owner of the record. 

Always seems kind of weird, I won't say voyeuristic, to have these in your collection. Maybe it's just me. It's still cool though, in terms of extra goodies that you may find in a random given record. It could be worse, could be whatever came with the first edition of TG's D.o.A.

 

Here

Reportaż - Reportaż / Muzika

Label : Tonpress - SX-T 129

Year : 1988

Country : Poland

Format : LP

Back from the dead, to give you some stuff to listen to. 

Maybe, if you want.

Two to make up for my absence with excellent, excellent RIO from Poland. An avant-bordello soundtrack, even. You might have heard these releases somewhere else on the internet but you might just like my rips better.

Here

Label : ADN - 25

Country : Italy

Year : 1987

Format : C60

Here

Cool And The Clones - Wrong Time Of Month

Label : Ejaz - 2001

Year : 1985

Country : US

Format : LP

Here

Freed from the clutches of whoever, and free they are. Improvisational jazz interpolated with electronic treatments and experiments. Everything laid bare on the taped on insert. Live shenanigans. what more does an obscuro-avant fan need? Succinctness is key, the music itself paints an expressionist picture that I could only complete with filler text. Enjoy! 

Max Goldt - Ende Juli, Anfang August

Label : Hidden Records - Bulb No. 7

Year : 1994

Country : Germany

Format : LP

I was going to try and fit this in the month of October before it dozed off into that annual frenzy of orange and black, but working this platform on mobile is a bigger nightmare than any decoration one could place in their lawn. So, I'll compose this in the month of pent up sexual aggression. At least, that's what the internet has christened the month as.

I do believe this is my first time giving this artist a spotlight outside of the stray mention in a blurb concerning someone else. Though I may not always understand it, there is an enthralling nature to Goldt's music. The way the spoken and half-sung passages interact with the dissonant synth backing makes for a strangely intimate affair, like a hologram coming up from the grooves. Like the cover might suggest, an uneasy sort of chill relaxation.

Here

Die Welttraumforscher - Werkstatt Wasserstadt

Label : Das Moniflabel - PP040 / Ebus Music - EM056

Country : Switzerland

Year : 1999

Format : LP

To preface this I would like to make a few announcements: Die Welttraumforscher has a new album out on the very intriguing label New York Haunted, it's very nice and I recommend the purchase for all who may have been exposed to him from my blog. Still some copies left of the tape, of which I ordered, so try and go for that if you're into the physical paraphernalia. Cheap, too

The other announcement (...before I once again repeat myself about this wonderful artist for nth time) is that I have been in the process of re-ripping a bunch of records and cassettes previously found on here. I have (marginally) better equipment and instead of doing it from the jack of an old stereo I have come to my senses and started ripping directly from the output. Armed with a Scarlett 2i2 and iZotope, better days are sure to come. If you have slsk, you should have direct access to the FLAC rips (sometimes in 24 bit). I say this because I'm undecided if I should reupload all these one-by-one given the space constraints on Drive and Mega, even considering the efficiency of the opus file format. We will see, new rips will of course still be featured here.

This particular LP is a bit different than the previous ones found here. From my observation, this one is less "song" orientated and more ambient, like the Loon side-project. The singing is there, but the vox feel as if they will melt and meld into the surrealist backing track any second, and they will. Another peculiarity among his peculiar discography is the B-side, a side-long suite. I was tempted to try and split the tracks as they may but without notation I couldn't possibly bother. And why should I? It works perfect as a singular organism of a track.

Here

The above image is my best attempt at manually stitching together the scan of one side of the record sleeve. For understandable reasons, the program was unable to finish the job. This is because each "slice" was simply a mirror image. Although it's not a perfect match, I tried my best.

Foreign World - Trying To Escape

Label : Foreign Records - F.R.001

Country : Canada

Year : 1984

Format : LP

Escapism, or at least an attempt. Less an excursion into a fictional world and more of a desperate following of uncertain paths out of it. Case in point:

A far cry from what I was given in elementary school. Anyway,

onto the music.

That's what has brought us together today.

I've been at this for so long, and I've never really stopped to think about my methods. No, not those methods. "Ripping" yes, but for plastic platters. I have taken a concerted effort of observing other intrepid givers in the community, be they on trackers or on their own blog, and what equipment they use. It seems obvious to me that my rips have been of a fairly lower quality, with noticeable hums, outdated tech, unnecessary parts of a chain, etc... This one isn't so bad given the "slightly warped" as described nature of the record and my lack of a Gritty Doctor 500 or whatever. I'll be lookin' at tomorrow (Welfare) 

Oh yeah, this is some interesting stuff. A sort of ambient electro-folk improvised. A friend pointed out that it reminded him of number stations broadcasts, an eerie unsettler. I like to think some of the vinyl scraping gives it a character all on its own.

here

Five Or Six - A Thriving And Happy Land

Label : Frizz Bee - Frizzbee 2

Country : Netherlands

Year : 1982

Format : LP

Like Durutti Column, except in place of pastoral melancholy there exists an aggressive undercurrent of urban spiral. Like a hellish construction site, but also a bit heavenly. I'm surprised these guys haven't gotten the full-on Cherry Red reissue treatment, having just a Greatest Hits (hm) CD to their name. That's all well and good in this thriving and happy land but it's missing some key tracks. Some of the implied tracks appear here, and on the early retrospective "Cántame Esa Canción Que Dice, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" that today still sit on their respective plastic platters. Five or six years from now, maybe.

Here

King Frog - Silver Gelatin

Label : Oblique - Oblique-001

Country : US

Year : 1997

Format : LP

"Suburban Gamelan", a phrase stuck to this particular project that then stuck into my head for awhile. An interesting concept, and I think it befits this just a little bit. The visuals and some of the sounds come to mind as a bleak cityscape.

I went out of my own usual way for this one--I heard a rip of this LP a year or so ago after being interested in the King after first reading about it in Blastitude. The 128kbps rip found on slsk was serviceable and I ended up really liking the sound, so I went and bought a copy to get a more "definitive" sound. I guess.

The whole album has a sound that I can cling to. A sort of unholy cacophony of almost early 20th century clamor. I liken some aspects to some choice 80s tracks from Band of Holy Joy and ZGA's excellent "Gloom". The art book that comes with is also a great companion piece in its sort of amateur expressionism. Also some of the tracks sound like Casio demos, which is quite charming.

Here

 

 

(Man, formatting on this site is annoying)