Oxbow-Fuckfest 12 Galaxies (2CD)

Late Christmas present I suppose.

Here is the limited edition Fuckfest (remastered)/12 Galaxies albums from the psychopaths of Oxbow. Fuckfest is all cleaned up, with a little added acoustic track (which happens to my all time favorite song from Oxbow), The Valley. The second album, 12 Galaxies, is an all acoustic set in San Francisco (album named after the venue played "12 Galaxies").

Fuckfest is as great as the original (I think better, the production is well balanced and the extra track is stunning), and the 12 Galaxies all acoustic experience is like nothing you've ever heard from Oxbow. Very doped out and seemingly on edge, but not near the sweaty genitals in face approach Eugene enjoys so much. Could be a valuable entry album for those who haven't listened to Oxbow yet, may serve as the only album a non-Oxbow fan can tolerate, or could be the most frightening piece of humanity one has heard through acoustic instruments, you be the judge.

Fuckfest (Remastered)
12 Galaxies

Happy New Years!

Book of Knots-The Book of Knots

"The Book of Knots is ex–Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone, with the aid of ex–Skeleton Key member Matthias Bossi, ex-Swan Norman Westberg, current Mekon Jon Langford, Sleepytime Gorilla Museums and 2 Foot Yards Carla Kihlstedt, and a slew of other like-minded musical family members. The Book of Knots is a seamless ride through a perfect Swans-derived squall: early-'80s-derived sturm and drang, with the occasional no-wave guitar solo and/or feedback that sounds like a seagull fight in a Dumpster behind a clam shack.

Underwater strings, pipe organ, shortwave radio transmissions, and banjos add a swirling, seasick undercurrent to the satisfying thwack of drums, bass, and guitar. For a pickup band, the voices heard from complement each other nicely: Langford's drunken sailor, Bossi's expansive (and pretty!) wailing, and Carla Kihlstedt's unhinged widows all walk through the song "Tugboat"; and the bass-heavy Cro-Magnon crunch of "Crumble" and "Boston to Bombay" are even better. Rockers who attempt sea chanteys usually make them sound like Weill-esque elegies to heroin, but the best songs here are as big and bottomless as the deep blue, with just enough added saltwater taffy sweetness to pull you into their wake."

The album morphed organically from a few musicians in the studio recording material they had written with a nautical, narrative, conceptual theme in mind, to a collective of featured artists. The artists on the album are all inter-connected by bands and friendships and circumstance. No one was commissioned so much as drawn-in through the circles of connectivity. Well over 40 different instruments can be heard on the album. The songs are woven together creating a tale of longing, despair, loneliness, mortality. The narrative is a labyrinth of connections, or knots, tying each segment of the story to the sea.

This is easily my favorite concept albums of the last decade, tales of the wrenching experiences of seamen and the unforgiving beast of our seas. You can smell the salty dankness below deck filling up with the thickening foul stench of freshly hunted whale oil burning in there lamps. The maddening cries of disheartened sailors rings inside the ribcage of the vessel, drinking away sorrows of friends submerged and rotting in the abyss.

Just as soon as the stars through your sextant tell you land is near, waves rip through your ship and swallow your crew. Lungs explode with salt water, crew dismembered and chewed by sharks. Somehow you make it to dry land, yet your nightmares of the sea are ever present and cannot be drowned away with the bottle.

On any of your nautical travels, remember The Book of Knots.

Group Doueh-Guitar Music From The Western Sahara

" Initially released on vinyl in 2007 and then on CD the following year, Group Doueh's first formal album as such is actually a compilation drawing on literally decades of work by the band, led by Doueh himself, whose approach can be summed up (if somewhat oversimplified) as traditional music from his Western Sahara homeland, called Sahrawi music, played through the lens of classic '60s and '70s rock and funk, with Jimi Hendrix and James Brown mentioned by Doueh as particular touchstones. Doueh's spindly, often mesmerizing guitar performances perfectly capture the balance between the past and present that Sublime Frequencies looks for in general, so it's no surprise to see them behind the release of the collection; filmmaker Hisham Mayet sought out Doueh in his home city of Dakhla and recorded two of the selections, while the rest come from Doueh's tape archive, perhaps roughly recorded but no less powerful for that reason. The music is performed by the core quartet of Doueh, his wife Halima (vocals and tbal, a drum), their son Jamal on keyboards, and another singer, Bashiri, and the eight tracks showcased all rapidly establish the band's aesthetic for even a casual listener. Halima's high, clear singing rides above the loping guitar figures of her husband, alternating between core melodies and open-ended explorations that always stick to the groove; this is not a band supporting a soloist, but an ensemble. "Fagu" may begin with one of Doueh's most entrancing pieces, his guitar sounding like a snaky drone that then stops and starts almost like a glitch, but the vocals swirling around the music take it to a further level of beauty, while "Dun Dan" wouldn't be what it is if you couldn't hear Jamal's electronic beats punching through the performance at points. If "Eid el Arsh" is the group at its most exultant, the team of Halima and Doueh in full flight, then "Tirara" demonstrates the calmer side, Doueh's low-key work supporting the back and forth of Halima and Bashiri's handclaps and soft drumming. "

The first of a strong trio of bands I know of from the Western Saharan region that I'll throw up here. Hearing the greats (Jimi Hendrix and James Brown) trickle down into the Saharan is quite a trip when infused into traditional Sahrawi music.

This will take you for a wild ride, bring plenty of water.

Guitar Music From The Western Sahara

Tarantula A.D.-Book of Sand

"These three men use their cover art to present themselves as fleshy gods. A Roman warrior effortlessly holds a swooning woman in one arm, while his other arm carries a bronze shield. Against a majestic and blue-tinted mountain backdrop, a blindfolded alchemist lifts a compass to the wind. Above a gold-painted rune, a knight bends his reverent head down to the hilt of his sword. The scene bleeds with grandeur, valiance, and chivalry. It is a wide-angle panorama of epic lore, vaguely mystical and vaguely biblical. This cover bellows its canyon-deep wail across centuries, beating its broad chest with the significance of the ages and the weight of victory and death. It’s silly as fuck, but it’s huge.

Book of Sand is much the same way. The album’s genius lays sprawled across the 22-minute, three-part Century Trilogy. Chamber strings circle and crouch, then leap up into gnarly crescendos of Wagnerian sturm und drung. In moments where many instrumental post-rockers would choose to drape textures of gauze and mist, the men of Tarantula A.D. beat divots out of stone, and chisel the mountainside. There’s nothing subtle or genteel about it, and this virile bluntness is a refreshingly honest whiff of musk.

By the way, that guitar riff that ties together the Century Trilogy? It’s a lumbering behemoth. A lead-footed yeti trampling woodchucks without hesitation or remorse. It’s the kind of riff that Robert Fripp would have over for supper. Never mind that these guys are classically-trained musicians who double and triple on cello, piano, xylophone, and any number of other orchestral tools. It may be prog. That’s not the point. The point is that they want to shoot in 70mm. They want to carve a bigger Rushmore, and chronicle the titans. Their tangents into flamenco and ambient music subtract from any sense of cohesion, but these wanderings are the products of a playful eclecticism, never showy displays of empty virtuosity.

Like their labelmates in Dungen, they don’t apologize for their broad strokes. This music does not feel self-conscious at all. When CocoRosie’s Sierra Cassidy shows up to sigh the sylvan lullaby on "Sealake," or when the loping whistle hushes the crickets of "Riverpond," there are a few twinkling moments of transcendent beauty, sure. But it’s just the calm before the swordfight.

When the words "classically-influenced instrumental rock" show up, I usually expect glaciers and sloooow builds. Tarantula A.D. surprised me by resisting the delicate, and avoiding those repetitions and cerebral swells. This is restless, foul-breathed, woodchuck-stomping yeti music, and I can get with that."

Now formally know as Priestbird, the trio crafted this piece that has held its place as one of my favorite albums of all time. One of the most colorful and interesting listens that the whole family can enjoy.

Book of Sand

Swans-Body to Body, Job to Job

"This collection includes the 1983 album Filth and various studio out-takes and live recordings from 1982 to 1985, originally released as Body to Body,, Job to Job.

From the center of New York's celebrated downtown music scene emerged a most ugly ducking, the Swans. With a sound like a ditch witch stuck in a tar pit, in 1982 the Swans were the height of noise. Musically, it would be termed proto-industrial, proto-noise rock, but aesthetically it was a sound shot through the axes of power. Strung between the poles of domination and submission, the Swans created a music with a sexually dark, malefic vision of society as despotic and individuals as subjugated to the point of dissolution. This double album, part of a planned series of reissues, captures the Swans at the beginning of their career. The first CD contains their earliest album, Filth, along with a previously unreleased live performance at the Kitchen. It's a classic album and, even though the quality isn't great, sounds more uncompromising live. The second consists of unreleased studio tracks, tape experiments, and live recordings from 1982 through 1985, providing an interesting balance to the "finished" compositions of Filth. It shows Michael Gira et al. testing the limits of their sound, exploring new directions, and laying the groundwork for future albums."

Filthy music for filthy people

John Zorn-Masada Guitars

"It is not overstatement to say that any project associated with John Zorn's Masada ensemble, an acoustic jazz quartet that marries Klezmer themes to free-jazz adventurousness, is worth hearing, and will most likely be excellent. This is certainly the case with this album of solo guitar performances of Zorn's Masada compositions. The pieces showcase the virtuoso skills of three of modern music's most individual six-string talents: Bill Frisell, Tim Sparks, and Marc Ribot, each of whom take turns offering meticulous, passionate readings of Zorn's charts.

Interestingly, there are few of the "outside" tendencies that characterize both the Masada quartet and the trademark styles of the guitarists. Ribot's jagged skronk and Frisell's familiar shower of guitar effects, for example, are few and far between (Frisell's fragmented electronics romp on "Katzatz" is an exception). Instead, the presentation is largely acoustic and remarkably straightforward, with each performance approximating the precision and studied grace of a classical recital. Nearly every track is superb, with Sparks's dizzying metrics on "Ravayah" and Frisell's exquisitely delicate "Elilah" among the highlights. Apart from the stunning musicianship, one has to marvel at the force and sophistication of Zorn's writing. This unique and gorgeous music should appeal to a wide range of listeners."

Masada Guitars

Joy Division-Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979

"This album is full of energy with flawed but nevertheless excellent versions of songs like "These Days," "Shadowplay," and the sped-up version of Joy Division's hit song, "Love Will Tear Us Apart," but also has its quiet and introspective moments with "New Dawn Fades," "A Means to an End," and the closing song, "Atmosphere." The album is chilling, like looking at a moment in time so ideal and good-natured that you know ends badly. The silent moments are deafening, the quieted roar of the crowd, the occasional chants of "Joy Division!" by the Amsterdam audience. You know something's wrong. The album's sound quality slowing deteriorates, with Curtis' voice becoming more and more distant and the drum beat more and more pronounced until the album finally fades into fuzz 16 tracks later. The familiar baritone voice is nearly unheard in "Dead Souls." Whereas this would be a detriment to other groups, this technological failure only strengthens the emotions in the CD, symbolizing Curtis' departure from the band and the world"

Farewell Curtis