Flanger - Spirituals (2006)

Beautifully microscopic emissions, percussive lines made out of bits of static and white noise, skittering beats and deep Rhodes keyed in for that late night jazz club effect. The two albums that followed on from this amazing debut failed to recapture the same fresh spark, instead settling for a less daring approach to largely familiar material. It’s nice to see, then, that for their fourth album (the first for Friedman’s own Nonplace imprint) the duo have drafted in a whole host of contributors and have radically altered their sound – delivering a rather bizarre but refreshing take on 1920’s charleston with minimal digital intervention. The vocals of Riff Pike III – straight delivery that’s only ever so slightly given the traditional flanger treatment - consciously at the other end of the spectrum to what this duo have delieverd in the past. A cockle-warming, feelgood excursion from two undisputed masters. BK

link @320

Courtesy of Double Avenue Tentacles

The Ornette Coleman Trio - At the Golden Circle Vol. 1 (1965)

Ornette Coleman's 1965 trio with bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett is easily the most underrated of all his bands. Coming off the light of the famed quartet in which Don Cherry, Eddie Blackwell, and Charlie Haden shone, anything might have looked a bit dimmer, it's true. But this band certainly had no apologies to make. Coleman was deep into creating a new approach to melody, since Haden and Cherry had honed his harmonic sensibilities. Izenzon proved to be the right bassist for Coleman to realize his ambitions. A stunning arco as well as pizzicato player (check his solo in "Dawn") Izenzon offered Coleman the perfect foil. No matter where Coleman's soloing moved the band, Izenzon was there at exactly the same time with an uncanny sense of counterpoint, and he often changed the harmonic mode by force. The first of these two volumes from December 3 shows Coleman in a playful, mischievous frame of mind, toying with the trio ads well as the audience on "Faces and Places" by inserting standard bop phrases and song quotes into the heart of his free soloing. On "Dee Dee," Coleman moves along to rhythmic counterpoint by Moffett, pushing Izenzon into the unlikely role of beat-keeper -- not simple for such an amazing improviser. But it's on the closer, "Dawn," that the band gels as one inseparable, ethereal unit, cascading through scalar invention and chromatic interplay as if it were second nature. - Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Ornette Coleman: Alto Sax
David Izenon: Bass
Charles Moffett: Drums

1. Announcement

2. Faces & Places

3. European Echoes

4. Dee Dee

5. Dawn

6. Faces & Places (alternate take)

7. European Echoes (alternate take)

8. Doughnuts

Tracks #1-5 originally released by Blue Note in 1965.
Tracks #6-8 previously unreleased.

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William Burroughs & Kurt Cobain - The Priest They Called Him (1993)

"Fight tuberculosis, folks." Christmas Eve, an old junkie selling Christmas seals on North Park Street. The "Priest," they called him. "Fight tuberculosis, folks." People hurried by, gray shadows on a distant wall.

It was getting late and no money to score. He turned into a side street and the lake wind hit him like a knife. Cab stop just ahead under a streetlight. Boy got out with a suitcase. Thin kid in prep school clothes, familiar face, the Priest told himself, watching from the doorway.

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Sun Ra Arkestra - Friendly Galaxy (2000)

Recorded live at Banlieus Blues Festival, April 1991. Duration 76'43.

A very "jazzy" performance of uninterrupted Sun Ra's standards diluted with "Prelude to a kiss" by Duke Ellington and "Blue Lou". An excursion into the history of jazz encouraged by an ecstatic crowd.

1. Intro Percussion
2. Prelude To A Kiss
3. Blue Lou
4. Lights On A Satellite
5. Alabama
6. Fate In A Pleasant Mood
7. We Travel The Spaceways
8. Space Is The Place
9. Saturn Rings/Friendly Galaxy
10. Melody/They Will Come Back

link@320 [megaipload]
link@320 [rapidshare]

Tom Recchion - Chaotica (1996)

This album, recorded in 85-86, played with tape loops, prerecorded records and cassettes, and keyboards, is really interesting. The first piece is completely abstract, while songs like "Flying Weather" use instrumental samples, looped, that come from much larger songs. This is all really well done, especially since they are all live improvisations, and were not edited after they were created. He gives special thanks to Esquivel, and there are definitely some influences running amok around this music. Pieces like "Space Ship" and many others sound like many tape collagists (such as People Like Us and The Bran Flakes), because they use what sounds like odd little scraps from old records, except there are no vocal samples, and it's slower and experimental. Lots of this stuff is very inspired, like the sad, powerful, Godspeed-esque "Enormos Horses," "The Perpetual Motion Clock," which like a labyrinth of music, and "Chaotica," the squiggly, crashy mixture of sounds that closes it off. Mix elements of People Like Us, Rainer Buerk, Esquivel, Matthew Ostrowski, some maraschino cherries, and possibly Philip Glass… this is what you get.

1. Doomed Ships
2. Flying Weather
3. Free Of Ice
4. Ships At Sea
5. Final Fattening
6. Last Breath
7. Is It A Baldwin
8. Drinking Doctor
9. Mindless Dread
10. Space Ship
11. Floating
12. Complex Shape In The Sky
13. Body Of Fish
14. Enormous Horses
15. Worlds That Fly Round And Round The Sun
16. Perpetual Motion Clock
17. Musaphonic
18. Cara Mia
19. Out Of The Dunes
20. Smaller Pulse
21. Chaotica

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Derek and the Ruins - Saisoro (1995)

1. Yagimbo (5:59)
2. Shivareyanco (5:58)
3. Quinka Matta (5:02)
4. Odangdoh (5:34)
5. Zomvobischem (5:46)
6. Manugan Melpp (5:37)
7. Dhamzhai / Sytnniwa (21:58)


Derek Bailey: guitar
Yoshida Tatsuya: drums, voice
Masuda Ryuichi: bass

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Bravo Clippings #16

Wally Wood, "My Secret Husband" (The 3-D Zone #17, 1989)

Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde (1966)

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Brian Eno - Before and After Science (1977)

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Paul Schutze - Site Anubis (1996)

This is the third CD in a Schütze trilogy which began with 1992's New Maps of Hell and continued with The Rapture of Metals; this final chapter is a certified masterpiece. Schütze, who plays keyboards and also supplies various inventive electronic treatments (tapes, digital sampling, etc.) has something of a signature sound. In the two earlier CDs in the trilogy, echoes of the Miles Davis electric funk emerged from time to time as an influence, along with touches of Jon Hassell (...). But on this CD, connections with the electric Davis of the 1970s are much more blatant. There's no trumpet, but Julian Priester's trombone supplies an occasional approximation, and the formidable guest list also includes Bill Laswell on bass, Lol Coxhill on soprano sax, Alex Buess on bass clarinet and Raoul Bjorkenheim on noisemetal guitars. And then there's the drumming. Dirk Wachtelaer's dominant cymbal and snare work is either very closely miked, or treated (or both), but regardless, it is frequently brutal-slamming, crashing, in-your-face confrontational. Throw in some serious guitar shredding by Bjorkenheim, and inspired electronic moans and howls supplied by Schütze, and you've got music that can grab you by the lapels and toss you into next week, and then turn around and drop almost instantly to an insidious, nightmarish whisper. (...) A major rush, and a major recording.

1. Future Nights
2. Early Mutation
3. Blue Like Petrol
4. Big God Blows In
5. Ten Acre Ghost
6. Eight Legs Out of Limbo
7. Inflammable Shadow (AKA: Vermilion Sands II)

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Ornette Coleman - Sound Museum: Hidden Man (1994)

When Ornette Coleman debuted his electric Prime Time band, 20 years ago, its amplified guitars, electric bass, and funky beat alienated many of his oldest fans. His two splendid new releases, Sound Museum: Three Women and Sound Museum: Hidden Man (Harmolodic/Verve), feature a new acoustic quartet with pianist Geri Allen, bassist Charnett Moffett, and drummer Denardo Coleman -- and will undoubtedly win some old fans back. But don't be misled by the title or the instrumentation. This museum is not about preserving the past. The music sounds closer in spirit to Prime Time than to Coleman's original piano-less quartets of the late '50s and early '60s.

Without question, the primary reason these two albums sound so modern and so little like Coleman's earlier quartets is the presence of his son, Denardo, on drums. In the denser, more tangled ensemble of Prime Time, it's harder to hear exactly what Denardo contributes. On these albums, it's evident how essential he is to Ornette's music. Denardo is often criticized for not swinging, and he doesn't in any usual sense. He isn't a funk or rock drummer. His sense of time entirely his own. Although he is unique -- even eccentric -- he is also a sensitive musician. He reacts to the music around him instantly, but his responses are hardly ever the expected ones.Without question, the primary reason these two albums (which include different takes of the same pieces and are sold separately) sound so modern and so little like Coleman's earlier His fills, which can sound as random as tumbling rocks or falling boxes, are in reality exactly positioned and never interrupt the flow of the music.

If Denardo provides a rhythmic link to Prime Time, the quartet's ensemble approach also recalls the orchestral sound of the electric group. With Allen playing both chords and single-note lines, and Moffett alternating between plucking and bowing, the density of sound is always in flux, and a variety of textures are woven through the fabric of the music -- just as guitars, keyboards, and percussion vary the density and textures in Prime Time. As is the case with the electric band, each member of the quartet can move at his or her own tempo, and the rhythmic center of the music disperses and converges as the players move in and out of synch. On the version of "Women of the Veil" on Hidden Man, Moffett shadows Ornette while Allen creates soft clouds of sounds by playing chords with the damper pedal down. When Moffett switches to dark, sinuous bowing, Allen responds with single-note lines that penetrate the thick mass of sound. Denardo rushes to double the time, then backs off. Ornette has said that Prime Time is an outfit composed all of leaders; so are the members of this quartet. They are a group making a music with four centers, yet they remain committed to collective unity.

Ornette himself reveals a freshness that belies his years (he's 66). When he plays, there are seemingly no barriers between feeling and sound, or thought and sound. And he never repeats himself. The two versions of the Mexican-flavored "P.P. (Piccolo Pesos)" are a good example. On Three Women, his improvisation is a nimble folk dance that flows around Denardo's colorful array of cowbells, wood blocks, and rumbling toms. Hidden Man's version finds Ornette pecking at the notes of the solo in a series of nervous hops and jumps while Denardo clumps and cantors beneath. In contrast, Hidden Man's "Monsieur Allard" is elliptical and purposely disjointed. Ornette plays variations on the theme, discards them for a seemingly unrelated set of themes and variations, shifts into long rapid sequences of squiggles and squeals, and ends with sotto voce mutterings that fade into the ensemble. Whether his solo is simple or complex, Ornette's every note is drenched in the blues, evoking the power of the human voice.
The tunes played on the Sound Museum CDs are the same, except for one track on each: Hidden Man features a variation on "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"; Three Women includes "What Reason," with vocalists Chris Walker and Lauren Kinhan. There are several new compositions, but Coleman has recorded much of the material before. "European Echoes" dates back to his 1965 trio recordings, Live at the Golden Circle (Blue Note). He recorded "Home Grown" and "Macho Woman" with Prime Time on Body Meta in 1975. (Body Meta and another Artists House release, Soapsuds, Soapsuds, a duet with bassist Charlie Haden, are both slated for reissue by Harmolodic/Verve in September.) But in turning to older material, Coleman is not reviving the past so much as celebrating the present and welcoming the future.

1. Sound Museum
2. Monsieur Allard
3. City Living
4. What Reason
5. Home Grown
6. Stopwatch
7. Women Of The Veil
8. P.P. (Picolo Pesos)
9. Biosphere
10. Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow
11. European Echoes
12. What A Friend We Have In Jesus (Variation)
13. Mob Job
14. Macho Woman

Ornette Coleman: saxophone, trumpet, violin
Denardo Coleman: drums
Charnett Moffett: bass
Geri Allen: piano

link @192 [Re-Up]

Jeff Mills - Exhibitionist 2004 (Part 1)

Compared to Justin’s abs or Kylie’s arse, your average DJ does not offer much to look at. And yet at every gig Jeff Mills plays, groups of punters crowd around the booth scrutinising his every move. Now, Mills is no pin-up – despite the feverish fantasies techno trainspotters undoubtedly have about this Detroit techno legend – yet as a DJ he’s a true performer. Largely eschewing the boring beat-matching and segues of most techno and house jocks, Mills tears through 4/4 rhythms like a hip-hop scratch DJ, rarely playing any record for longer than two minutes before he rips it from the deck, hurls it over his shoulder and slams another beat in perfectly in time. It’s his spontaneity and intuition that sets him apart from most overpaid record changers, yet Mills has now tried to capture that spur-of-the-moment feel on his new Exhibitionist DVD.

“Exhibitionist is a document and an exploration of the art of DJ-ing,” Mills explains. “By allowing the viewers to see more clearly the techniques of DJ-ing I will hopefully attract more attention and a better understanding of what I do.”

link (306 MB, AVI, 45 Minutes, Decent Quality)

Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples Of The Moon/The Wild Bull (1993)

Morton Subotnick helped bring the modular voltage-controlled synthesizer to a state of readiness for performance and recording and was the first composer to take advantage of the new instrument's potential. Composed in 1967 specifically for release on Nonesuch, Silver Apples of the Moon was Subotnick's first full-length LP of electronic music, and the album became an international sensation. Its title is taken from Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus," in which Subotnick found inspiration. Structured as a series of sonic plateaus and troughs, Part A has a fascinating vocabulary of points, glissandi, spatters, hisses, whistles, and sirens, and the variety of tones and gestures sustain interest. Yet, in contrast to the first part's capricious shapes and irregular sections, Part B develops rather predictable sequences over a steady ostinato, which seems automated and uninspired when compared to the fresh ideas heard earlier. In 1968, Subotnick released The Wild Bull, a dark work that relies on deep, lowing tones, harsh attacks, and metallic sonorities to convey its tragic mood. Inspired by an ancient Sumerian poem of mourning, Subotnick gave this piece a human quality by simulating cries and mixing in the sound of breathing. The original tapes were restored and digitally mastered in 1993 for Wergo's reissue on disc.

Silver Apples Of The Moon (1967)
1. Part A (16.33)
2. Part B (14.52)
The Wild Bull (1968)
3. Part A (14.04)
4. Part B (15.01)

link @320 [Re-Up]

Miles Davis - Another Bitches Brew

"This is a bootleg with legs, being the rare and mostly well-recorded snapshot of Miles’ late 1970-1971 band, near the end of its life. It was the last band sans guitars Miles ever put together. This music is built from the ground up, and Michael Henderson held the keystone. (Try playing the bass line to “Yesternow” or “Honky Tonk” without losing your place or speeding up, and you may begin to appreciate Henderson on a new level.) By this concert, he’d dropped the Holland emulations and gotten back to his rock-solid rhythms, but he was not yet a player to look to for keeping things interesting and evolving, except perhaps by accident. Keith Jarrett, holding down two keyboards, ably takes on the mid-ground role of colorist. With so much space in the music and no guitars to fill it, it’s a big job. His organ playing here is subtle; so much so the CD producers list only electric piano. (Jarrett’s tenure lasted just a week or two past this concert.) Gary Bartz doesn’t get a chance to add much to his resume here, which is a shame (Miles’ post-1970 concept tended to treat saxophonists as an optional feature—in for a solo, then out again, never initiating a change in direction, always following Miles). The two-percussionist plus drummer setup—Leon Chancler, Mtume, and Don Alias—works well enough, but without guitar the rhythm sounds thin and at times a bit tenuous. The recording balance doesn’t help, being somewhat light on the bottom end (the engineers no doubt thought they were mic’ing and mixing a “jazz” gig—but the mix is clear as a bell).

The set is marked by tense, drawn-out transitions between themes. “Directions” floats in on a rocket before dropping into half-time at 3:27; the transition into “Honky Tonk” begins at 10:25 and stretches over two minutes, with Jarrett and Henderson musically arguing over where the music will go. Once it gets rolling, Jarrett builds some new modalities and nervous rhythm under the sax and trumpet solos, adding unexpected but just-right pokes and prods, then shouting out his own gospelly funk. For a wailing Bartz, he’s down home; under Miles, he goes off into exotic territory. One doesn’t usually think of Jarrett as having an accompanist’s nature, but here’s the evidence. In between the solos, Jarrett gets his groove on. At 23:44 Miles ushers in that stuttering, march-like bit which, after nearly four minutes of neither-here-nor-there-ness, begins to take form as a hard-driving “What I Say”. Too fast to funk hard, as the Live-Evil version does, the whole thing gets so frenetic it’s kind of silly. Jarrett’s post-bop arabesques fit the music a little better than the sax wails. The tempo turns fluid, halving and doubling ambiguously, before a conga duo takes center stage, backed by Chancler’s discreet hi-hat locomotion. This two-percussionist band with Mtume and Don Alias, with five or six congas onstage, is among the least-documented of Miles’ multitudinous incarnations. It’s gratifying to hear them take the spotlight in tandem so winningly. “Sanctuary” receives an atmospheric theme statement, before Miles screams a few times, turning up the juice.
At 55:17 Miles plays the “Honky Tonk” cue again, but Henderson goes into “Yesternow”. There’s a hole at around 60 minutes where Miles pops in a startlingly atypical muted sound, a lone bugler lost in acres of no-man’s-land. Moments later, Bartz stages a break-out by adding some through-the-horn vocalisms, but reins himself in after just a few spooky whoops. (Miles never seemed to care for anything too self-consciously “weird”.) At that moment, there’s an abrupt fadeout, just as things are getting really interesting. Leaving one lost in speculation as to whether a second set from this remarkable night exists on tape". Tom Djll, One Final Note

-----------------------------------------------------
CD 1
Recorded Live in Belgrad, 03 November 1971

Miles Davis (tp); Gary Bartz (as, ss); Keith Jarrett (el-p); Michael Henderson (b); Ndugu Leon Chancler (d); James Mtume Foreman, Charles Don Alias (cga, perc)

1. Directions
2. Honky Tonk
3. What I Say
4. Sanctuary
5. It's About That Time
6. Yesternow
-----------------------------------------------------
CD 2
Recorded Live in Belgrad, 07 November 1973

Miles Davis (tp, org); Dave Liebmann (ss, ts, fl); Reginald Lucas, Pete Cosey (el-g); Michael Henderson (b); Al Foster (d); James Mtume Foreman (cga, perc)

1. Turnaroundphrase
2. Tune in 5
3. Turnaroundphrase
4. Calypso Frelimo
5. Tune in 5
------------------------------------------------------

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Dariush Tala'i - Radif Volume I (1994)

"The Radif is a serious and introverted music with extreme refinement and richness in ornaments. The repertory of Persian Art Music together with its traditional order of classification is called the Radif. A repertory of melodies that have been collected by different people and added to the repertory at different times. This repertory is not like Western Art Music, which is composed and intended to be played exactly as written. It is made up of traditional melodies, many of which are derived from popular and folk sources ; their origins have been obscured with the passage of time.
This repertory was organized by musicians to be used both for performance and instruction. More specifically it provides a multitude of model melodies (about 250) which is used like prototypes as a point of departure for improvised performance and composition of set pieces. The oldest Radif that we know about comes from two masters of the Radif, Mirza Abdullah (1843-1918) and Aqa Hosein Qoli (died 1913). These two brothers spent their whole lives teaching their radif with an incredible conviction and rigor and educated the test musicians of the following generation. The students were supposed to memorize the entire repertory; therefore, it was important that the Radif be both complete and brief ; and hence, as concise as possible. Moreover, since the intention was to make the radif concise, and since different people played the same melody in different ways, the masters selected from among the versions of a melody to create their Radif.
To understand the concept of the Radif, we must first understand that the Radif and the modal system are not the same thing.The characteristic of melodies (which are called gusheh-s) are as important as their relationship. The position of each melody in the Radif is determined by its modals characteristics.The performance of Persian Music is made by the multi-modal structures which in each system (dastgâh or âvâz) a number of gusheh-s demonstrate the different part of the system.
Since the idea of a Radif originated with a family of musicians who played the Tar and the Setar, the earliest Radif-s are intimately linked to these instruments. Moreover, because the precise use of the mezrab (plectrum or nail) was very important for performance on the Tarr and Setar, the melodies, often derived from vocal sources and added to the repertory of these instruments, necessarily became more regularized and structured. They also took on the style of performance of those musicians, who, since the y were scholars of the musical tradition and fine artists, transformed the melodies int0 a very elaborate and cerebral form of Art Music".
Dariush Tala'i

1-30. Dastgâh-e Shur (28.21)

31-35. Pièces Rythmiques de Shur (30.03)
36-42. Âvaz-e Bayât-e Kord (8.08)

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Eveready Harton in Buried Island (ca. 1925)

Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, sometimes known simply as Eveready, Pecker Island or Buried Treasure, is a pornographic animated cartoon made in the United states circa 1924 (1929, according to IMDB; 1925 according to other sources), depicting the unlikely adventures of the perpetually aroused title character with, among others, a man, a woman, and a cow. Supposedly, American film labs refused to process the film, and it had to be developed in Cuba. The artists are unknown, but a widespread rumor states that a group of famous animators created the film for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay.

link [70 mb; 7 minutes; VHS Rip; Decent Quality]