Música Para Los Maestros De Reptiles

Portraits - Portraits (Important)
Mad River - Jersey Sloo (Shagrat)
Anna Själv Tredje - Tussilago Fanfara (Silence)
Herbcraft - Discover The Bitter Water Of Agharta (Hello Sunshine)
Herbcraft - Ashram To The Stars (Hello Sunshine)
Sunflare - Young Love (Cubic Pyramid)
Morkobot - Morbo (Supernatural Cat)
Boddika - Acid Jackson (Swamp 81)
Yob - Atma (Profound Lore)
Head Boggle - Headboggle (Spectrum Spools)
Moloko - I Am Not A Doctor (Echo)
Franco Falsini - Cold Nose (Spectrum Spools)
Chicago Underground Duo - Age Of Energy (Northern Spy)
Ufomammut - Oro Opus Primum (Supernatural Cat)
Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. - 1970-73 (Cuneiform)
Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour/Drawbar Organ (Woe To The Septic Heart)
Duane Pitre & Pilotram Ensemble - Organised Pitches Occurring In Time (Important)
Bitchin' Bajas - Water Wrackets (Kallistei Editions)
Bitchin' Bajas - Vibraquatic (Kallistei Editions)
Tyndall - Sonnenlicht (Sky)

La Locura Italiano

I've completely lost my fucking voice. All that comes out is this weird bassy rasp which sounds more like a broken EDP Wasp than a human voice, accompanied by a sensation akin to some fucker forcing a cheese grater down my gullet. Still, laryngitis aside, I'm actually in a damn good mood, and not just 'cos my throat-soother of choice, Isle Of Jura Elixir*, is so fucking delicious...

One of the reasons I'm in a good mood is because one of my favourite bunch of doom-mongers**, mad Italian space cadets Ufomammut, have got their act together again after a couple of disappointingly Isis-esque (or fucking boring, if you prefer, as far as I'm concerned the two terms are perfectly interchangeable) albums*** and remembered what they're fucking good at, namely riffs that sound like the Sun collapsing, incomprehensible cosmic bellowing, and huge swathes of wibbling analogue synths. Colossally dumb space doom of the highest fucking order, and essential listening for connoisseurs of heavy and stupid. Oh yeah, it's called Oro - Opus Primum and it's on Supernatural Cat, in case you were wondering.

Also on Supernatural Cat are another bunch of marvellous loons who go by the names Lin, Len and Lan, and are collectively known as Morkobot. They may be Ufomammut under another name, they may not, I have no idea, mainly because they have metal cubes for heads, as you can see...

A bass, drums and synth trio, they specialise in angular, convoluted space/noiserock and vaguely remind me of an instrumental Supernova-era Today Is The Day, albiet without the gun fetish and raging misanthropy, and their latest, Morbo, sounds (a bit) like a King Crimson loving spider jamming jazz-rock hardcore with Tar§. In other words, very bendy and very good. Goddammit, they even chuck in lashings of slide bass, and apart from Mark Sandman and me, there really aren't many practitioners of that dark art around. And Mark Sandman's been dead for years, so if you crave the injured elephant call of bottleneck bass you know where to go. They're also so tight it fucking hurts, chucking odd time signatures around like it ain't no thang and they never, ever veer into the dread zone of prog toss. If you like NoMeansNo, you'll fucking shit yrself over this lot. Fucking brilliant.





Right. More later, but the painkillers are kicking in and my brain wants to take a power nap.

*12yo, sweet, fruity and honeyed. Get thee to a Sainsbury's and grab a bottle. You can't buy it anywhere else as far as I know.

**With the emphasis on the mong.

***Eve and Idolum. Really fucking boring. Unlike the preceding three LPs, Godlike Snake, Snailking and Lucifer Songs which are simply fucking sublime.

§Another brilliant AmRep band no one seems to remember any more.

Una Consulta

What twat at google redesigned the Blogger interface?  You dipshits, you've managed to make it both less intuitive and less user-friendly. Thanks for that.

Alto Tiempo

Three tracks into the new High On Fire album, De Vermis Mysteriis, something wonderful happens. After Des Kensal's mid-paced tattoo has rolled round a few times, without warning Matt Pike's guitar scythes in, the drums hang suspended for a heartbeat or two, and then... Fuck... I mean FUCK, there are riffs, there are High On Fire riffs, and then there's this. This song, Fertile Green, is everything HOF have threatened to be, a time-threshing relativistic switchback, hurtling unstoppably through the Metalverse, dragging and ripping space in it's wake. Take Devilution's time-bent riffery, ally it to Silver Back's outright fucking ferocity*, stir in a touch of that 'bars as long as the breath required' thing that you'd normally associate more with Conference Of The Birds/Pilgrimage-era Om than this Mach 10 dragster, add one of Mr Pike's most unhinged solos for a quite some time and you have this, an actual goddamn future fucking classic. Now go bang yr head.



*This LP is more in the Blessed Black Wings mould than the last couple. I am most definitely not complaining.

Río Loco

It's hard to express just how much I fucking love this song. It is, quite simply, a motherfucker*. I'd advise turning this up very, very loud and playing it at least twice.



Quick note for anyone whose appetite has been whetted by this and wants to check out Mad River's glorious first LP, do not buy the double cd reissue that's got the inferior second album, Paradise Bar & Grill, in the same package. The reason Mad River sounds so weird and wired is that it was accidentally mastered at slightly too high a speed, giving it a sharp, edgy, bad trip vibe, and someone decided to remaster the fucker not only at the correct speed, but in such a way as to dull the hugely trebly impact of the three (oh yes, three) guitarists, rendering one of 'em almost inaudible on some tracks. It's a fucking disgrace, and I urge you to seek out an unfucked-with copy.

*And the theme song of my late teenage years. But we'll say no more about that.

¿Rachel Khoo, Puedo Ser Su Espátula?

Anyone who's known me for some time has probably heard my "why rabbits* are the ultimate embodiment of evil" theory**. They've probably also noted my deep and abiding (and to some, inexplicable) love of Moloko, a band whose music has always instantly filled me with idiot glee and the urge to dance like a tit because they manage to be funky as fuck, poppy as all hell*** and deeply odd all at the same damn time, which is not an easy trick to pull off. And, of course, the incomparable Róisín Murphy§ was one half of 'em, and I fucking love Róisín Murphy. Not just because of that smoky voice which does things to me I'm not going to discuss in a public place, or that uncanny elastic phrasing of hers, the way she can twist and wrap a vocal line around a skewed rhythm section in a manner which is somehow percussive and slinky at the same time, but also for her utterly batshit lyrics, which I've only just realised, 17 years after the fact, are responsible for the aforementioned evil rabbit theory§§. And this, Killa Bunnies, is the song solely responsible:



Fear them...

*As in rodents.

**When my brain is idling, especially if I'm off my face, I've always enjoyed thinking a ludicrous idea right through to it's ultimate conclusion, just for shits 'n' giggles. I once came up with an entire religion based on analogue synthesizers and kittens purely because I was a bit bored and very, very stoned.

***And given that poppiness isn't really a trait I look for in music, or even respond to very often, the fact that Moloko did pop so fucking well that I love 'em all the more for it is a high and very rare compliment. Their first two LPs, Do You Like My Tight Sweater? and I Am Not A Doctor are just fucking wonderful and I won't have a word said against 'em.

§In the pub a few days ago, someone asked me which singer I would most want to collaborate should such a ludicrous possibility arise. Well, here's yr answer.

§§They don't make any fucking noise. I don't trust an animal that doesn't make a fucking sound unless you sit on it, especially when there's billions of the buggers running around under our feet in their hollowed out catacombs, they've got some sort of fluffy bastard hive-mind going and they're just biding their time...

Puro Kvlt Idiotez

Oh yes. I like this idea. Go here and find out what it is. And join me in voting. The world's first Black Metal airline is within our grasp...

Bestia Acuática Excelente Tres: ¡Plato Voladors!

Is it in the sea? Is it in the sky? Who knows? The silent invasion of the Benthocodons continues apace...

Space jelly!

Alemáns

Keeping with the spacerock theme, here's the band that arguably invented the whole thing*, Amon Düül II, knocking seven bells of psychedelic shit out of their classic Phallus Dei sometime in 1968.



*Their bass player, Dave Anderson, undoubtedly invented spacerock bass. There's a good reason he ended up in Hawkwind a couple of years later...

Dave Brock Es Una Verga

I fucking love Hawkwind*. We know this. And I've always been inordinately fond of the album Quark, Strangeness & Charm, I mean, it may not be the last word in brain-destroying spacerock like Space Ritual, but it does contain Bob Calvert's greatest moments with them and an emphasis on motorik that tends to go unremarked, not to mention a certain stylistic similarity to early Roxy Music. So it is with great delight that I present this clip of Hawkwind doing Quark, Strangeness & Charm in, I'd guess, 1977, on the Marc Bolan show of all fucking places...

All together now:

 Copernicus had those renaissance ladies crazy about his telescope...



Oh, where's Dave Brock I hear you cry? Chucking a strop because he's not the frontman. He's not even playing the guitar on this version, it's Adrian Shaw (bass) as Brock didn't even bother turn up to play on the version they'd be miming to because it was on a kids show. Twat. Ah, the 70s.

And yes, Bob does have a hawk attached to this wrist. No, I don't know why either.

*When I say Hawkwind, I mean pre-1980, when, let's face it, it all went tits-up and stayed there except for the very rare nugget of spacey brilliance amongst all the crusty dung. Ginger Baker in Hawkwind? Fuck off. They were never the same after Levitation, an album many people inexplicably seem to like.

Aprender Húngaro

I did write a really long post about struggling with pain and whatnot, a positive one for a change, as I've conquered a few demons that have been royally fucking with me all year, but I deleted it. Because when it comes down to it, I'm finally in a good fucking state of mind, most parts of my life seem to be going rather well thank you, and I'm not sure that huge blog posts analysing what's going on with my fucked-up nervous system and it's attendent effects on my inner life are actually that fucking helpful. So instead, here's a song which I think sums up my current mood quite fucking nicely...



Heh.

Música Roedor

I fucking love this record. It's genuinely fucking bonkers. Especially as the preceding album (Sorcerors) was pretty standard vaguely psychy folk stuff*. Not sure what happened in the intervening couple of years, but it sounds like it involved a Soft Machine album and a fuckload of acid. This is the shortest (and heaviest) track, a mere eight minutes compared to the expansive weirdness of the nineteen minute opener, Sun Symphonica, or the jazzfolkpsychprogfroth they work up over thirteen minutes on Call Of The Wild, but what a fucking eight minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mice And Rats In The Loft by Jan Dukes De Grey.



*Not my bag, too much fucking Donovan and Tull in the mix for me.

Ahora

More fun at The Bird's Nest, as the rather fine Now* are having a bit of a shindig to celebrate the release of their new lathe cut 10"+ cd on $500 Dollar Limit**, my old mucker Marcelo Madrid and me good self will be trawling through our respective record collections to bring you only the finest in sonic delights in between and after sets by Now, Alex Charles, and Now + Alex Charles.

And it's fucking free. Not on a school night either, so you've got no excuse for not coming down and joining like-minded and lovely people in alcohol-fuelled bacchanal, dancing like a tit should the mood take you and buying some rather beautifully put together limited edition records for an extremely reasonable price.

More info be here

*The only band I've ever been in that has proper songs and stuff. They kick serious arse and have done for some considerable time, and if you haven't heard 'em yet, I suggest you get yrself over to their Soundcloud and remedy the situation immediately.

**Don't have an url for 'em yet. Stay tuned.

El Gato Y El Hippy

Revelling in schadenfreude is wrong, I know, but sometimes it's just so fucking hard not to kill yrself laughing at a minor misfortune, such as the wonderful example recounted in the bottom footnote of this post. And a few days ago, when I was in desperate need of a giggle, I was idly gazing out the window, down onto the courtyard where the resident hippy happened to be doing his morning tai-chi and two of the many excellent cats who frequent our gardens were out for a leisurely perambulation around their territory*. So, I'm sat at the window, coffee and spliff in hand, enjoying the first proper sun of the year, wondering if the decidedly not meditational music I was listening to was interfering with the hippy realigning his chi, and watching the cats doing cat things, when one of them decided that the hippy was the most interesting thing in the yard and sat down to watch. After a minute or so, the cat started to creep forward, just like it had seen a fascinating piece of string and was certain the string had not seen the cat. Closer and closer, lower to the ground with each step, eyes fixed on the oblivious hippy who was carrying out a manoeuvre which looked like someone dropkicking a smurf in very slow motion. Then, cat leapt at hippy, burying it's claws in his outstretched leg, eliciting an alarmed cry that quickly ascended into the ultrasonic and causing the hippy to crumple to the ground in an amusing heap while the cat, curiosity satisfied, sauntered back off to join their mate and see if there was anything interesting in the bins.

*Or possibly playing Cat Chess.

La Cavidad

Riff. Singularities. Excellent meth reference. And a lyric demonstrating an understanding of the implications of General Relativity. That'll fucking do for me.

I do like me some Cavity. Insert yr own joke here.