[dave]

"...and pretend your name is keith". Genius.

[Houdini]

Guru Guru - Electric Junk (1971)  Stroke those chins now!




And, Oxymoron (1972)

[Houdini]

GCW beat me to it but I think this one has to be seen.


Fork Handles

[GCW]

I can't see that at work but if it's what I think it is I was gonna post it at the same time as the F.U.N.E.M. sketch (Swedish Made Simple).
But I decided it wasn't neglected- it's quite well known compared to Swedish Made Simple.  Still very funny though.

[Houdini]

Ah you're very quick tonite (in fact I'd forgotten you posted them 1st).

Man I'd so forgotten about Bulla

[Houdini]

Yog Sothoth - Fou L' Art Noir (1984) (As ever we're unsure of this links longevity.)



A French jazz-rock band that seem to have disappeared.

1. "Nekrosis"
2. "Maint Reve Vesperal"
3. "Fou L' Art Noir"

Pascal Morrow: violin
Philippe Guillot: saxophones, flute
Jean-Yves Joron: keyboards
Pierre-Gedeon Monteil: bass
Olivier Lechien: drums
Cathy Camilleri: voice
Mark Sims: trombone

Incredible, if you are open to this sort of thing.  Al?  Popp?  Yoss?  Slopes?  Soaps?

(You will need to unpack this .rar file.  Jim and I recommend Win-rar!  The E-ver Unpacking!)

[Houdini]

I had to think quite hard on which thread to include this in - Beats: on the face of it, lazily for everything but more appropriate for electronca: no go;  Noisy guitar shiz:  great, but a broad random church;  and the Masterpieces.

I settle for Neglected Masterpieces.  I've followed all music bar post-soul/disco black music closely for 23-odd years now and it's rare to be bowled over by something so unique.  I've never heard anything quite like Skepticism - Stormcrowsfleet. (.zip / 160kbps)



Stormcrowfleet is the debut album of the Finnish band, Skepticism. This album is one of the most depressing, and atmospheric works to ever heard come out of the metal underground.   It's an amazing metal album - and of a style that is just not heard.  It's slow, funereal, epic, mournful, majestic - an incredibly beautiful record than spans time itself.  It's a hard record to quantify unless one knows something of the environment that spawned it:  when one thinks of Finland, in particular if you have never visited the country - you may fall upon all manner of stereotype - well now there is no need: this is generic.   Endless leadlined fog; permafrost; opaque olive shades of forest thicker than one could imagine.

1. "Sign of a Storm"
2. "Pouring"
3. "By Silent Wings"
4. "The Rising of the Flames"
5. "The Gallant Crow"
6. "The Everdarkgreen"

Again, an easy 9/10.  I really hope you dig this (in it's lightest parts it's reminded me very obliquely of Rammstein - but I do mean obliquely.)

Having discovered this LP I don't think I could continue w/ out it.

[Houdini]

An interesting review of Stormcrowsfleet  (Bummer the file is only 160 kbps ~ but I'll buy the original)


 

Simplicity is the most difficult tool that can be used in music; most much rather have a cacophony that drowns out lack of direction and bury incompetence under hills of slurred notes [Mayhem anyone?--Editor]. What sort of a band resigns itself to the use of the heaviest, detuned power-chords/bass and an eerie organ to their fullest - at the most painfully languid pace - yet with a lapidary minimalism to engage, move and terrify even the most indurate of listeners?

It is one big mass of barely-coherent distant muddle, just within the capacity of human hearing. The guitar-bass recording/mix is really very deep and the organ sounds a little uncertain of its volume at times. It is not going to be easy to enjoy even for the extremest metal worshipper. Oh, but where they take you from there...

"Sign of a Storm" holds the tension of times before a storm: a moderate gale, expectant green swish and crazed human grins directed at the ominous massivity of rain-bearing clouds. The ground smells storm and life revels in the exhilaration of a deluge, well aware that it will be accompanied by thunder and lightning. It is a barely-contained explosion preceeded by a scheming calm, all captured beautifully by Skepticism. "Pouring" might be described as moments sampled of the rain itself: a slightly faster pace and not as fragmented or amorphous as the earlier track. The rest of the tracks are all equally good, not one seems redundant or excessive in spite of the detached and sparse nature of the music. "The Everdarkgreen" is a great finish. The organ here is really pronounced in its tone and able to create some fabulous soundscapes. My only problem is with the vocals: why not the female vocals in the vein of Anathema's "Everwake" or say My Dying Bride's "Black God"? The growls are too ugly, too "easy" to listen to. Beautiful female vocals could have provided a stark contrast to the bottom-heavy drowse.

Depressing music? Perhaps, yes. Death metal? Not precisely. Classical music? Maybe, even. Paradoxical, anyway, eminently wise yet of a childlike naïveté, surely for at least the nominally insane. Of course, insanity is often a significant architect in the erection of and a great motivator in the diligent study of Genius. Every time you must study the nuances of its spires and ancient bricks - perhaps pay attention to that note of the faint organ you missed the last time or absorb the silence more respectfully - the silence being something you surely scorned on the first listen, silence which is as much a brick as a note itself. Gigantic, decrepit stone structures, grand as the centuries they have seen: Stormcrowfleet is not music you can easily place - in terms of the compositional nature - in a genre or even in a particular era of musical evolution. It is just a warped atmosphere, a weather-beaten landscape seasoned by centuries. It has a sonic aura of "green": evergreen thicket poetically entwined with pillars and a refreshing, dense mist. Scoure these cavernous ruins and you'll surely find great treasures: facets of the purity of expression seldom found in music these days.

Listen at the nadir of your lifetime, and next morning you'll find that your wrists bear strange scars and your blurry parents have concerned looks...or you will have touched the void, already.

"Up there The Light of no Sun
Dim is the glow
Up there are the Stars
Far, far below
Up there Skies painted
With Glances; The Touch
Up there He is
Proudly Alone"
- The Gallant Crow

Review by Rahul Joshi

A fantastic quote from a different review of the same:   The drumming is slower than the evolution of lung cancer . . .
 
www.myspace.com/officialskepticism

www.skepticism.fi

[Houdini]

Been getting back to ones industrial roots today w/


Coil's ~ Horse Rotorvator (1986).



Totally forgotten what an amazing record this.  Grandiose, bizarre, doomsome - extraordinary soundscapes/songs.  Hard to imagine it's so old really - which is the mark of great music.

(PM me if it takes your interest and I'll send a link).

[Falling Down]

You might be interested in this then Houdini...



A ltd edition Coil Absinthe (label designed and signed by Sleazy) with two glasses and CD..

I assume also that you've listened to the more recent Coil CD's (Musik to play in the Dark I & II, The Remote Viewer (which is awesome BTW)?  If not, give 'em a whirl. I much prefer them to their earlier stuff..

And here's a free download in Memoriam to Jhonn Balance http://thresholdhouse.greedbag.com/release/~in-memorium-jhonn-balance-it-jus-0/.

Enjoy...

[Houdini]

Ah ha!

I have heard of this release but yet to hear it. (I love absinthe once in a while.  Do you know the tunnel between Cwm-Y-Glo and Llanberis?  Along the old 'beris road?  I'm sure you do.  There was a techno party in this tunnel not long back; I turned up w/ a bottle of Spanish pomegranate absinthe 80% ...  Within minutes of my arrival all partygoers were tripping their tits off and looking at the tunnel ceiling saying:  nice texture .... - which is off topic bull, ha!)

(I think this link to a DL is duff?)

FYI:  The BH link will remain open a wee while longer, für sie.

I will attempt to track the Music to play in the dark 1 & 2 down - as I have yet to hear it.  I am ashamed to say I have left Coil for some time, but I'm back on the case!

[Bonjoy]

Two amazing albums that fit the thread title perfectly

Bill Fay - Time of the Last Persecution


 There's a review here which sums it up pretty well  http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/817

Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms



Here's one of the songs on some random youtube video thing  http://youtube.com/watch?v=HeCe1l94Dd4
and here's another one http://youtube.com/watch?v=meU2j0PlGX0&feature=related from use in a Daft Punk film thing (this one is very Carpenters(in a good way)), this video is pretty funny if you watch it to the end.

Check them out, you'll thank me.

[Falling Down]

I'll second the Bill Fay album - absolutely brilliant.

[SA Chris]

The album is hardly neglected, as it is just out, but a double album for a fiver is pretty good value. Some masterpiece tunes.

[andy popp]

I'll second the Bill Fay album - absolutely brilliant.

The Independent has a 'Cult Classics' piece in its art section on Fridays and today they highlight a 'lost' Bill Fay album Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow released on Durtro in 2005.

[Houdini]

THROBBING GRISTLE ~ Hamburger Lady (no vid just sound).

[Houdini]

Neat TG interview / LIVE thing from Berlin 05







Out of this world, really.

[Houdini]

PIERRE HENRY ~ Psyche Rock (1967)

[SA Chris]

Does anyone remember The Associates? There was a thing on telly the other night about Scottish Music and it's the first time I had thought about them in the 10 years since i heard Billy Mackenzie comitted suicide. Party Fears Two was a great song.

[andy popp]

Per Ubu. Not brilliant quality but still very worth viewing, not least as a reminder.

[Houdini]

Andy that's atrocious quality, but I'm lucky as I know Pere Ubu, I think you should seek a finer clip, dude.

I wanted Die Wellen (The Waves) from Germany's finest:  Einstürzende Neubauten (Demolishing New Buildings), but I can't find.  In it's stead I offer Nagorny Karabach from the LP Alles Wieder Offen (Everything's Open Again).  It's a decent clip w/ a translation for you non-krauters.



Blixa Bargelds' voice is sublime, is it not?

[Houdini]

I like the music of the various bands of Albini but some of his opinions baffle the fuck out of me.  One of those is his view of modern industrial music (my thing).  What did he say?  That the genre went DISCO!  Tit.  The genre went fully industrial, which in these times means PC controlled.   

Alas, this talented bigot forgot that Industrial is a reflection of the current state of industry & technology which necessarily must change w/ progress.  Industry must become more mechanised, more efficient, more machine-like, more metronomic; shit - that's industry for you.  See the TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO dl thread for more info on modern industrial.

[andy popp]

Well, I thought the Per Ubu was at least watchable and gave a flavour. However, the following is most definitely of good quality and serves to highlight a band I nominated many pages ago: .

Looking forward to listening to the Einsturzende when I'm on a different pc.

[Houdini]

I love this band and I love this LP.  Popp, you've redeemed yourself 

[Jaspersharpe]

Look if you ever get overly serious/tired and just fancy an amazing funny unique book then you have to get

Here comes the big tip, people,
*Ducks low*

This really is very good and I've not even finished the first book yet.