Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

"The Sleepytime Gorilla Museum opened its doors to the public in 1916, only to show them a well-managed fire. Its doors were closed shortly thereafter and remained so for the rest of the century. Almost. The last year of the 20th century found the improbable trio of words once again adorning a placard posted outside a derelict urban building, with the addendum- "No Humans Allowed." Indeed, the awkward re-inaugural movements were witnessed by a lone banana slug (Ariolimax dolichophallus)-- a suitable beginning for a group that would soon shelter Oakland California's hindmost interpreters of Anti-Humanist literature. Their incessant travels since 2001 have brought new life to the Movement. Like their namesake and its instigators (Futurist Lala Rolo and Black-Mathematician John Kane) the new museum embraces the essential weakness of the Movement. But also like their predecessors they reject the elitism of the avant-garde in favor of a reckless populism: They are entertainers. Though not without humor, their often wide-ranging musical and theatrical choices are rarely ironic. This sincerity extends to a passionate craftsmanship, as evidenced by:

1. The LIVE SHOW, a costumed festival of hyperventilating self-derangement, which has yet to include much of a puppet show, but has included human performers of varying stiffness (see Ink Boat).

2. The ALBUMS- Grand Opening and Closing (2001 Seeland/Chaosophy), a collection of boisterous laments for the failure of the millennial apocalypse; Live (2003 Sickroom), a collage of mishaps and singularities from various stages; and Of Natural History (2004 Mimicry), a setting, in part, of a debate between two contradictory pillars of 20th C. Anti-Humanism: The Futurists versus the Unabomber.
3. The INSTRUMENTS, many of which are homemade creations of bassist/producer/mechanic Dan Rathbun: The Slide-piano Log, the Percussion Guitar, the Electric Pancreas, the Vatican, & the Pedal-action Wiggler; or rare: Autoharp, Glockenspiel, Toy Piano, & Viking Rowboat.
4. The ROAD approached as (A) a place of potential learning: the bloody history of our doomed nation, its warm and varied current inhabitants- our hosts and their regional splendors, and (B) a scar which conducts us in our lumbering Green Bus into the temples of Nature: Forests, swamps, deserts, mountains, and coasts, with national parks and rest stops alike as places of reverence and study, sources of sound and vision, many of which appear on Of Natural History.

5. The FOOD, prepared on the bus kitchen in large pots, in quantities befitting a seven+ person crew, mixing local ingredients with reliable spices, beans, and the "other black meat"- coffee.

The Museum are unified in these various crafts by the simplicity of their opposition to rock music. In the words of John Kane, "Nothing should be left undone which might contribute to its demise." To this end they employ a most tried and proven destructive force: rock. ROCK AGAINST ROCK. In this they were preceded by Oakland bands Idiot Flesh and Charming Hostess, which brought together Museum members Dan Rathbun, Carla Kihlstedt (violin+), and Nils Frykdahl (guitar+). SGM's initial writings and first shows were with drummer David Shamrock. Drummer Frank Grau, who co-released the first album and managed the band until recently, instigated touring in 2001. Industrial percussion-tornado Moe! Staiano brought his visceral spontaneity from the inception until late 2004. New life has arrived with drummer/orator Matthias Bossi, who took the throne on New Year's 2004, and blossomed like a menacing jungle flower. Finally, with the Of Natural History tour of fall 2004, Michael Mellender, player of percussion and ALL THINGS, rounded out the Museum with his singular brand of hyper-kinetic instrumental dysfunction.

The group writing process is at a new level of collaboration and the next album's songs are well underway. More U.S. touring is imminent. A European tour hovers. The stalwart Museum crew-- Neil Yamagata (sound/photography/field recording) and Allen Willner (lights/delicious stews)-- are ready for the road. 2005 saw the release of The Face, A DVD collaboration with Shinichi Momo Koga, The Last Human Being. A single 45 on Moe!'s label (Dephine Knormal) featuring SGM, Cheer-Accident, The Ex and Voodoo Muzak was also released.

In January of 2006, amidst a clutter of cheesecake and frozen champagne, SGM singed the eyebrows of Andreas Katsambas. Who threatened them with a record deal? And assured the Museum that his label has been and would continue to be called The End Records? The very same Andreas Katsambas. With his pen and on his paper, on January 3rd, the Museum, as a formal entity, signed with this emminently appropriate label whose commitment to the forthcoming apocalypse is without question. This newfound collaboration will birth a plethora of new high- fidelity explorations. FIRSTLY: a re-issue of the Museum's inaugural opus, Grand Opening and Closing, featuring two newly minted symphonic catastrophies, and AGAIN: an as-yet unnamed studio album to be loosed in March 2007."

My words couldn't possibly do these guys any justice, there is simply no other band that tickles me quite like Sleepytime does. This particular album has 3 bonus tracks on it.

^^^^Grand Opening and Closing!

^^^^Of Natural History

Killing Joke-Unspeakable Radio Sessions

I received this CD as a birthday gift from my cousin about 4 years ago. Supposedly it's very rare, I haven't even been able to dig up its existence on the official Killing Joke website. Lots of classics on here, all alternate takes and different mixing jobs. Apart of methinks it is the John Peel sessions, but I'm seeing different album art and song order on mine (though they share all the songs). If anyone has an idea where the fuck this thing came from I'm all ears. Regardless, awesome album and has heavier mixes than some of the originals.

UNSPEAKABLE

Big Blood-Already Gone I & 2

Big Blood are my favorite married musical duo since Sonny and Cher.

This is the most indelible and alluring folk music that I've ever heard (though I'm pretty new to the genre). If you like strange despairing music while still being seemingly uplifted, you'll eat this up.

Already Gone 1

Already Gone 2

Ephel Duath-Pain Necessary to Know

"Repetition often yields recognition. In music, even the most difficult passages become patterns through repetition. This applies to both songs and albums. Repeated listens of albums create knowledge and anticipation of the succession of events. Rare is the album that defies comprehension after many listens; rarer still is the album that does so, not out of incoherence, but out of design. Ephel Duath guitarist and mastermind Davide Tiso says, “Repetition is comfortable for the audience. It kills the shocking side of the real innovation.” His band’s latest album, Pain Necessary to Know, avoids repetition like the plague. Inspired by his new hometown, Venice, Tiso has created 39 minutes of continually changing “liquid music.” According to Tiso, the album offers “a constant sense of anxiety, a fluctuating idea of controlled chaos.” Those discomfited by comfort will find much to enjoy here.

Named for a mountain range in Tolkien’s mythology, Ephel Duath began in 1998 as a duo. The band’s debut, Phormula (later repackaged and reissued by Earache as Rephormula), ran Norwegian black metal through a funhouse of electronics and demented wackiness. Vocalist/guitarist Giuliano Mogicato then left, throwing the band’s future into doubt. Surprisingly, Tiso carried on by recruiting non-metal musicians. With a lineup including a 47 year-old jazz/blues drummer, a funk/pop bassist, and two vocalists contributing screamed and sung vocals, Ephel Duath released The Painter’s Palette in 2003. The stunningly eclectic album was aptly titled. Metal, prog rock, and free jazz held equal sway as trumpet and saxophone bleated away on top. The band’s ace in the hole was Davide Tolomei, whose Mike Patton-esque crooning leavened even the harshest textures. The album must be heard to be believed; it’s truly a musical kitchen sink, and a tough act to follow.

However, as we know, Tiso loathes repetition. Instead of continuing the fireworks of The Painter’s Palette, he has streamlined things somewhat. Gone are the horns, as well as Tolomei, who evidently didn’t take to the band’s metallic elements. There’s a new keyboardist, Riccardo Pasini, but his role is more as textural support, rather than as a lead voice. In writing Pain Necessary to Know, Tiso found his guitar lines changing to compensate for Tolomei’s departure. Thus, the guitars are more melodic than before, with far less repetition. In fact, there is so little repetition that the notion of “riff” becomes inapplicable. Instead, the guitar plays in free-flowing figures, toggling between clean and dirty tones with eye-blink frequency. One passage in “Crystalline Whirl” goes from Isis Sturm und Drang to slicing odd meter cymbal catches to King Crimson-esque unison runs to a sinuous snake charmer groove—all within 30 seconds. Unlike, say, The Dillinger Escape Plan, these twists and turns aren’t spastic. Through tight playing and brilliant composition, these ten-second themes flow together coherently. The effect is kaleidoscopic; just when one begins to grasp one theme, it becomes another that’s related yet distant.

Music like this isn’t easy listening. There’s not much in the way of vocals, save for the occasional screamed verse. Even after many listens, nothing repeats enough for songs to stick in the head. Instead, the listener has shifting signposts—an organ texture here, a plucked harmonic there, whatever one remembers from last time. The album has no definable mood; words like “happy,” “sad,” “aggressive,” or “mellow” hardly describe material this abstract. The listener doesn’t even have the comfort of genre. Much of this album is so far removed from metal that it is only sold as such because of the band’s previous output."

These Italians will make your head spin like rotini marinated with DMT. A seriously disorienting yet comfortable cohesiveness to this masterpiece, crafting massive kaleidoscopic visions that push and pull your mind into some groovy gritty crevices. Give every song the love it deserves, you will be greatly rewarded.

Pain Necessary to Know

Group Inerane-Guitars From Agadez (Music of Niger)

"Group Inerane is the now sound of the Tuareg Guitar Revolution sweeping across the Sahara Desert and inspired by the rebel musicians that started this music as a political weapon used to communicate from the Libyan Refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. Spearheaded by the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, Group Inerane has been together for several years and carries the rich tradition of Tamachek guitar songs for another generation. These ten tracks are a combination of amplified roots rock, blues, and folk in the local Tuareg styles at times entering into full-on electric guitar psychedelia. This music is performed with two electric guitars, a drum kit and a chorus of vocalists. The recordings were captured live in the city of Agadez in the Republic of Niger."

My favorite Saharan music I've heard yet. Ahmeds guitar weaves you through the gorgeous expanses of desert, into the hearts of the protesters and then on high like a vulture on a heat thermal looking for the corpses of the decaying. A bitter-sweet album that faces you with the civilian affliction of conflict, but you can't seem to listen to this album without smiling and I think that's exactly what they intended.

You need this album.

Guitars From Agadez (Music of Niger)

Ghosts of the Canal-Five Episodes From The Subsconcious

Hailing from Brooklyn, Candiria are a notorious fusion of grindcore, funk, hip-hop, and jazz. This album detracts and yet still holds true to there common fusions, but with a much higher emphasis on jazz. Though the lineup is the same as Candiria, Ghosts of the Canal is a sharp deviation from anything else they've done.

Some spaced out agitated acid jazz could do everyone a little bit better.

5 Episodes Of The Subconscious