various artists - Mojo Presents: ok_Computer

Here's the deal, sports fans: I dug through a few boxes in storage last weekend and found a cache of previously unopened Mojo giveaways. So it's going to Mojo Mondays for a while going forward. You're just going to have to...enjoy it?

It's still a free country...sort of.

Anyway, why "ok_Computer"? I was in a local second-hand media store over the weekend, and they had a bunch of copies of the Arthur Russell biography that came out last year. Now that I see what it's retailing for elsewhere, I'm rather compelled to run back and purchase one this week. But Mrs. Mummy clocked me eyeballing the cover and asked me what the deal was. So I told her I was trying to track down more Arthur Russell-related music recently, on account of a couple of his tracks had come up on comps I'd ripped in the past month or so. This is one of those comps. And now I share it with you.

Like all good Mojo comps, this has a solid mix of artists I'm familiar with (Human League, Gary Numan, Tangerine Dream) and folks I've never really encountered in the past (Xela, Severed Heads). But it's all pretty decent, covering subgenres that I typically don't delve into. The common thread is the synthesized sound, which I can dig, because I love artificiality. As for what this all has to do with the third Radiohead LP, I do not know. I lost the issue and kept the CD.

Discogs

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various artists - Dune (Original Soundtrack Recording)

My therapist's jaw dropped. "You haven't seen 'Dune: Part Two' yet?" All I could say was "nope". I have a great illogical fondness for David Lynch's 1984 dream piece. I like Denis Villenueve and Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet and Hans Zimmer, but I LOVE Lynch and Sean Young and Kyle McLachlan and fuckin' Toto. TOE-TOE, yo! The Porcaro boys play the tunes for intergalactic subterfuge!

Everything about the soundtrack, including the Eno/Eno/Lanois "Prophecy Theme", is feverish and bombastic. I have a difficult time imagining the film with a more conventional soundtrack. Just as much as John Williams' original trilogy scores and James Horner's score for "Aliens", this is a go-to for me for those head down, focus in moments at work. I can't consider giving room to something that might replace it in my brain. Not to mention that the film score/yacht rock Venn diagram has very little overlap, and I think we should appreciate the rare places that the overlap exists.

So here's a Tuesday bonus. Do something heroic or triumphant today. Remember: he who controls the spice, controls the universe!

Discogs

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various artists - The Man Machine: Mojo Presents The Electronic Revolution

It's a jolly good giveaway, this comp. Chock full of synthesized sounds ranging from the ambient to the caustic. There's even something that was written to be played whilst you run with your iPod attached to your bicep. Thanks, Nike.

Looking back at 2009, I wouldn't have given this a second thought. OMD and the Orb were artists I just skipped over on my way from Oasis to Oxes. I fucked with LCD Soundsystem, but most of those dudes had been in punk bands in the 90s, so they couldn't be all bad, could they? Sometime around then, Kraftwerk did some dates in NYC, and a dude offered me a ticket and a ride. I shrugged.

Now? Now this is all I really want to listen to. I want to fall into a K-hole with Tangerine Dream as the soundtrack. I'll buy all the Ultravox vinyl I find abandoned at a thrift store. I'm going to track down all those Flying Lotus productions, using the Discogs production tab as my lodestone. This is the future, circa 2009. Filled you with hope back then, dinnit?

Discogs

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various artists - Stones Throw And Leaving Records Present: Dual Form

A tip from me to you, my dear reader: If'n you have an animal you mind, and you are planning on making a move to a new locale, I would highly recommend either sending your beloved dog/cat/parakeet off to a spa, or queuing up something mellow to soothe the savage beast.

So it was that I ended up putting this on while the missus and I packed away/threw away eight years' accumulated detritus. Madam Mummy wanted to know how I landed on this. I told her, "I trust Stones Throw, and it had Julia Holter on it." Then she asked me how I knew Julia Holter. My response was that I probably discovered her when I confused her with Jenny Holzer.

This one's available digitally through the Stones Throw website. I make no promise that you'll find it as relaxing as I do, but you'll feel good supporting L.A. area artists with a little dosh.

Discogs

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various artists - Dali: The Endless Enigma

I had an "uncle", the husband of my mom's best friend, who was a literal rocket scientist. Today, he'd almost certainly be noted as on the spectrum, but in my childhood, he was called, at best, eccentric; at worst, a goddamn weirdo. But he was always kind to me, letting me dub tapes from his CaseLogic whenever he and his family would come to visit. It's how I got my first listen to a lot of the posthumous Reprise Hendrix recordings, a ton of the Rolling Stones' ABKCO tapes, and even Tangerine Dream.

I was out over the weekend, ostensibly on a trip to pick up a late lunch for Mrs. Mummy & I, but I figured I'd hit a couple of shops I hadn't visited since last year, and saw the spine of this peeking up from amidst the dross. "Dali: The Endless Enigma"? It's the sort of title that grabs my attention, regardless of the content.

I saw names like Robert Rich and Klaus Schultz on the front cover, ringing an image of Dali's "Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano", and it was a done deal. The pathway to late 80s ambient and new age is paved with film scores and Krautrock. It's how I ended up spending $3 on this, 10 tracks of abstraction inspired by the titles of the surrealist's paintings.

Discogs

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various artists - Japan For Sale Vol. Two

If Japan is for sale, then I guess I'm buying.

I've been on a buying spree lately. I found a few solid penny CD auctioneers on eBay, plus I'm still in the thrift stores 2 or 3 times a week. It's made a bit of a dent in the bank account, so I think it's probably tijme to cool it, at least thru the end of the year. I have a ton to listen to, a ton to box up; no need to add to it unless it's the deal of the century.

Or I can just recognize that I treat anxiety with retail therapy sometimes.

ANYWAY...

I copped this one for less than a buck on the basis of it having POLYSICS and Puffy Amiyumi on the comp and some very fun Shag artwork, Clearly, it doesn't take much for me at that price point. But here's the second of four snapshots of the SonyMusic Japan family at the turn of the millenium. This one's fascinating to look back at, especially with how strong a force K-pop is now around the world. It makes me wonder how such a diverse music culture fell out of view.

Shit, I'm probably just musing on account of subscribing to Crunchyroll and watching a bunch of anime.

Discogs

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various artists - Cyborgasm - XXX Erotica In 3-D Sound

I have a vague remembrance of audio porn being a thing in the early/mid-90s. Not ASMR, but sex-positive folks reading dirty stories backed by ambient tracks.

Was it hot? I have no recollection.

Where did 15-year-old me learn about this? Probably some zine, or maybe Raygun or Option or one of the edgier American music rags.

Anyway...

I think I bought this last year because Susie Bright and Annie Sprinkle were on it, and they both rule. I'm 99% certain this came out of San Francisco, which, if you remember S.F. in the 90s, makes a fuck ton of sense. Discogs says the original long box release came with a condom inside.

Feel free to fap. Just don't listen to this at, I dunno, work. Or church.

Discogs

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various artists - Manifestation VII

A lot of people will tell you that you need to have experienced Manifestations 1 through 6 to truly understand Manifestation VII.

I say, just dive right in. You'll still get plenty out of this regardless of context or history.

Discogs

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Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing

The older I get, the more new age I find myself listening to. I've found a few Tomita records on my sojourns into the world, and they're always a welcome addition to my collection. "Snowflakes Are Dancing" was Tomita's first record to get released outside Japan, his first release on RCA Red Seal, and the first of his five 70s records adapting classical music for the synthesizer. Here, it's Claude Debussy, channeled into quadraphonic Moog. It's just great stuff.

For dorks only: this was ripped from the 1991 CD reissue, produced with Dolby Surround encoding. So, you know, if you still have a hi-fi, feel free to get real loud and blow this out. The later editions have some corny looking artwork that I can do without; honestly, I'd prefer a color scheme on this one that was more in line with the aquas and greens present in the original 1974 art. But if you want to get really buck wild, Music On Vinyl released a 180g reissue of this earlier this year, featuring the original record on crystal clear & white marbled vinyl. It looks pretty sweet, and I'm sure sounds the same.

Discogs

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Louise Huebner's Seduction Through Witchcraft

Imagine walking into even the freakiest of record stores or secondhand stores and asking for this. "Please, do you have a copy of Louise Huebner's 'Seduction Through Witchcraft'?" Having been that person, I can tell you; nothing makes me feel like more of a pervert than trying to track down a copy of this landmark ambient recording, featuring a sixth-generation witch once honored by L.A. County. It's like an illustration of a thick-lensed, bulbous-nosed, stooped, trenchcoat-wearing masturbator come to life, creeping about looking for tips and tricks on how to finagle the interest of the disinterested. Even the most liberal minded are sure to look like they've smelled a fart, with only imagination available to determine why ANYONE would want...what, is it a book? A record? A pamphlet?

But the kink shaming is SOOOOO worth it.

Not so much for the spoken content, although it has a seasonal quality that suits this time of year perfectly. Nah, it's the team of Louis & Bebe Barron that makes this a terribly underheard record. They created the soundtrack to "Forbidden Planet", the first all-electronic film score, and still as influential a bop as any reel o' tape as exists.

Anyway, I'm kinda glad I can now restrict my weird record searches a bit, now that I own this.

Discogs

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Tomita ‎- Live At Linz, 1984 (The Mind Of The Universe)

It's the fifth of the month, and the rent still due, but let's look to the future, shall we?

In a step away from my normal fare of "three chords and the truth" (let's be fair, it's more "two chords, a blast beat, and an haiku"), I thought I'd share a recent obsession. It's Japanese electronic artist and composer Isao Tomita, whose back catalog is mostly, sadly and unfairly out of print here in the States. Now, I'm not a streamer, so I've no clue if you can just whip up something like his recording of Holst's "The Planets" on Spotify. But I've turned up a few of his recordings on vinyl, CD, and tape recently, and I think it's worth checking into.

Brian Eno (rightfully) gets a lot of credit for originating/popularizing ambient music, but Tomita contemporaneously served as a counterpart to Eno and Wendy Carlos, bringing synthesized sounds to the music listening public in the 60s and 70s. Tomita composed music for Japanese gymnasts and anime soundtracks, adapted composers like Mussorgsky and Holst, and made a record of 60s pop and rock standards...basically as a Quadrophonic demo for Sony. Without knowing it, I heard his music first as a kid, watching "Star Gazers" and hearing him adapt Debussy for the theme song. Hell...he even did the theme for the "Zaitoichi" TV series.

ANYHOWWWWWWW...

In September 1984, Tomita performed live at the Ars Electronica festival on the bank of the River Danube in Linz, Austria. The program was nothing but bangers: Holst, Stravinsky, Wagner, Vaughan Williams. Even John Williams' theme from "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" made an appearance. It's a pretty awesome concert, the sort of thing that you could play a kid and made them fall in love with composition and the classical tradition. I wish I'd heard it in full when I was 8...or seen it live.

RCA hasn't reissued this anywhere since 1991, which I think sucks. See for yourself. I assume, as a purveyor of the finer things in life, like 20-minute long records with 30 songs, and forgotten Italian giallo movies, you'll probably dig this.

Discogs

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Hakim Bey - T.A.Z.

I've been familiar with Hakim Bey for around 25 years now, probably as a natural extension of studying anarchism in my late teens and early 20s. There was (and still is) something attractive about his running with Burroughs, his presence in far-left culture from Leary's League for Spiritual Discovery all the way up through Occupy, and his ability to draw links between politics, crime, and art. His pedophilia, once it became more public, put me off in a big way.

So why share "T.A.Z."? Well, it's a weird-ass artifact from the mid-90s. "T.A.Z." is a spoken word record, scored and arranged by Bill Laswell on his Axiom label (a sub-label of Island Records). Like Laswell's Material work, the music here is grounded in dub, but moves continually into Eno-esque ambience and drone. I don't love Laswell, but this remains interesting to me.

And that's because of the readings from Temporary Autonomous Zone that comprise the spoken word portions of the record. There's theory at play here that, in practice, can make life still worth living, especially as our national culture devolves into fascism. Bey once spoke about the energy having been spent out of American activism; creation of a separatist structure outside the boundaries of control can be a recharge to activism. By attaching a finite time limit to its existence, one can also avoid the depression of what is intended as a permanent autonomous zone being destroyed.

I dunno...that's what I'm thinking about right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some dick jokes and I'll write about some dumb punk rock record. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Discogs

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The Out_Circuit - Burn Your Scripts, Boys (unmastered)

Nathan Burke is the Out_Circuit

I honestly couldn't even tell you the "when I saw them" part of when I saw the Out_Circuit. I would guess it was the Ottobar, 2002, even though I haven't the faintest idea who else played with them. Such was the impression they left on me that night. It was what I heard when I listened to Smart Went Crazy, to Karate, to Juno; the influence of ambient music, jazz, post-hardcore, presented live in a way I hadn't heard often. I listened to "Burn Your Scripts, Boys" like it was going out of style. I assumed they'd end up doing the record with Magic Bullet or Lovitt or DeSoto. Yet it took over two years for a label to pick this up, finally releasing in 2004 as a split between D.C.'s Lujo Records and the UK's Autoclave Records on the CD, and Austin's Arclight Records on the vinyl. I was pretty boggled at the delay. Even going 15 years since my last listen, I'm still amazed that more people haven't discovered this.

This is ripped from the initial, limited to 250 units CD-R that I picked up from Nathan that night at the Ottobar. Recorded by Ken Olden and Brian McTernan in DC, it would later be mastered by Chad Clark for the actual release. I hear more distortion on the bass end of this unmastered release. It's never been an unappealing thing to me; I like hearing things in progress. I discovered that Nathan Burke now lives out here in Seattle, and put out a new Out_Circuit record in 2018. I'll be picking that one up this Friday for Bandcamp Friday.

Discogs

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