More Grist for the Mill

Apropos Spotify, a graphic breakdown for the artist's payday based on various different media formats.  Looks like I'm justified to stick with Rhapsody, if I'm interested in the artists income . . . although obviously all online sites pretty much suck as far as royalties are concerned.

TNT and Birth of the Cool

Been listening to two of my favorite albums lately, TNT and Birth of the Cool.

TNT is an album I consistently come back to when it comes to Tortoise. It sounds different than a lot of their stuff, at times colder, more robotic. At other times, in particular on the title track, some of their strongest melodies come through. It makes me contemplative; it's the best music in the world to fold laundry to.

Keeping on the Tortoise vibe, I kind of rediscovered It's All Around You. I've listened to this album a million times but for some reason it just clicked. In heavy rotation at the moment.

I've also been on the west coast jazz tip. Listened to Birth of the Cool last weekend a bunch of times, one of my all time favorite albums. Captures that beatnik '50s feeling so well, and the songs themselves are so strong. I love that it closes with "Darn the Dream", the vocals really round off the record well.

It had me exploring more of west coast jazz. I know the Dave Brubek and Paul Desmond stuff pretty well, really like some of those records. But I've been listening to a lot of Chet Baker lately, in particular his records with Gerry Mulligan.

Anyone have any other suggestions on good west coast jazz?

Sunn O))) and Nurse With Wound

ØØ VOID is Sunn O)))'s second album, or their first "all in" album (the first recordings they did up to their standards, which in this case, is a 24 track studio recording to 2" tape).  It's pretty much exactly what you think of when you think of Sunn O))), a band birthed from the second Earth album: big doomy guitar drones, and very little else.  If you've paid attention to any of their later releases, especially Monoliths & Dimensions, then here are the basics.  As every brain dead rocker everywhere says, TURN IT ALL THE WAY UP!

It's back in rotation primarily due to a vinyl reissue on Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ label.  It's a good one to have on vinyl, since the whole point of droning (besides the hypnotic effect) is the nuance and play of textures, including overtones and undertones, which are best realized with analog playback.  The 2 x LP gives a full side to each of the four compositions (playback at 45 rpm for even better depth and fidelity), and the package consists of VERY HEAVY cardboard with beautiful artwork.  The only bitch I have is that the heavy cardboard sleeves almost require lubrication to slide in and out, and when you pull the platter out of its sleeve, you need to grasp the edge with your thumb and index finger and really tug, which means you are marking up the edge of the platter.  Oh well, such is the nature of sacrifice for aesthetics.

The real gem here is The Iron Soul of Nothing, a collaboration between Sunn O))) and 80's industrial/noise/avant legends Nurse With Wound, in which NWW's Steven Stapleton remixes ØØ VOID.  Stapleton gets to the core of the album, picking up various elements of the drone and recutting them for his own version of the same idea.  The result sounds more electro and less doom metal, and more dynamic, as Stapleton is as aggressive in his collaging as possible while still remaining true to the drone.

And, as an added bonus, the packaging is much less annoying here than on the Sunn O))) reissue.

With Sunn O))), you know what you are getting, and ØØ VOID is the base level of what you get.  The Iron Soul of Nothing is Nurse With Wound's revelatory re-imagining of Sunn O)))'s core project.  If either one of these things sounds good to you, you will not be disappointed.

Mega Upload Song???

I'm so confused. So, wait, these guys LIKE Mega Upload?

I'm such a weak-minded simpleton... all it took was this youtube clip and i'm like "Fuck yeah! I love Mega Upload! What the hell, man?!!"

dc

hahaha, is this real?

LoLooks like the days of the freebie are coming to an end

I guess with all the MegaUpload madness other file sharing sites are laying low. Many logs I frequent are closing up because their hosts have deleted the goods.

Some blurbs:

http://www.hqhiphop.net/

As of today, Filesonic.com deleted all my files, as well as Ben's and King Skullie's. I had about 800GB of data stored there. It seems that all the filehosts are running scared because of Megaupload's trial and that there is nothing left to do and no other option but to quit. I made this decision as the creator of the blog along with Ben and King Skullie, that the blog must cease to be. There was too much work and time put into the creation of this place to have it all taken away by some greedy corporate fucks.

It was fun while it lasted, please remember this place as the first that started a wave of good material in outstanding quality. These three years spent with this blog have been a wonderful experience that none of its authors will ever forget. Stay strong, and whatever happens, keep your love for the music. You can leave any messages you have for us here.

Farewell,

http://churchofzer.blogspot.com/

Probably as a consequence of the MegaUpload hysteria, it looks like my Mediafire account was wiped out. If this is true and permanent, this entire blog just dried. It may go on and start over... Stay tuned.

25 Songs: White Boy Angst

Enjoy!

Megaupload taken down

Just saw this story about the key people behind Megaupload being arrested in New Zealand. I had no idea about the whole story behind Megaupload, and I haven't used much of these sites lately since I got on Spotify, but it's an interesting development in the web piracy debate that we've posted a lot about on the blog.

rare footage surfaces...

More rare than a Sasquatch sighting... videographer Paul Stevenson has recently captured actual footage of the Scoobie Brothers, apparently working on new material in the English countryside.

2012... is it a possible sign of the apocalypse?

Stay tuned, true believers.

dc

I Never Meta Guitar

Get it? It's a pun.

I found this comp, "I Never Meta Guitar" on Spotify... cool collection of solo guitar tracks in the style of those solo Marc Ribot albums (who is conspicuously absent from this line up).

Features Jeff Parker, Nels Cline, Scott Fields, Mick Barr, Elliott Sharp, plus a bunch of guys I never heard of that Bill Zink is probably up on. Also features Rootless' favorite guitarist of all times... Mary Halvorson. Rootless responds: "I find her cold, devoid of emotion and robot-like."

It's worth adding as a Spotify playlist. I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that Spotify is dope, absolute game changer, but it totally does not "have everything", there are lots of holes in the net, and it is not replacing my iTunes library or my vinyl, for that matter. And its search functionality kind of sucks.

dc

Best of the Best ofs

Everyone probably has list fatigue at this point, but I thought I'd post one more. I love the end of the year because all of the end-of the-year lists get me hip to so much cool music I might have over-looked. Here are my top scores from all the lists, including off the blog here:

Sandro Perri, "Impossible Spaces": The review I read said he was along the lines of the Sea & Cake, which was pretty accurate, great songs, really cool album.

The War on Drugs, "Slave Ambient": At fist I listened to this album, and past ones, with curiosity. I'm a big Kurt Vile fan and I was fascinated by how alike these guys sound (I'm aware that KV played in this band for a while), and the Americana (Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, etc.) vibe they have going. Then I was driving the other day and it just clicked and I started just digging these albums for what they are--great music. They're playing Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 6th, just bought tickets.

Shabazz Palaces, "Black Up": One of the dudes from Digable Planets, intergalactic hip hop, one of the few albums in that genre I've been feeling in a while.

Julianna Barwick, "The Magic Place": Sounds like Grouper, which is a good thing.

Zomby, "Dedication": Kind of Burial meets Boards of Canada. Been listening to this a lot.

Julian Lynch, "Terra": The same mellow feel as Sandro Perri, maybe more melancholic, with tasteful horns and bugged-out synth.

Bibio, "Mind Bokeh": Finally checked this out, surprising and interesting.

The Minimal Wave Tapes

This came out like 2 years ago. It was on my radar, I saw it on the wall at record shops, and it definitely caught my eye (how could it not with that cover?! that typeface?!!) but the blurb of weirdo 80's synth music didn't really get me excited.

The short version, I gather, is a label "Minimal Wave" started putting our these reissues in 2005 of obscure, private label 80's synth gems from around the globe. Stones Throw made a comp and released it a few years ago.

When I saw that Stones Throw announced that Vol 2 is on the way I thought I'd see if I could finally check Vol 1 via Spotify. It's there, and it's dope!

I see it kind of like Numero Group is to funk/soul or Iron Leg blog is to psych/garage... extracting gems from the deep deep underground and sharing to the masses. Except here, instead of funk or psych, it's early Depeche Mode-esque "Sprockets" synths and drum machines. And similar to Iron Leg, a lot of it is so bad that it comes full circle and it's awesome. Also reminds me of the "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm" comp on Soul Jazz, if you feel that.

Check it out (if you haven't already) if anything here sets off your Spidey Sense. I've been doing the robot for three days.

dc

The Kronos Quartet

I found an old Kronos Quartet mixtape in the basement.  It was pretty good, so I thought I would share it.  This is fairly light on their minimalist pieces (I wasn't into that at the time), but I think it's an interesting representation.  Listen and enjoy!