Low – "A Lifetime Of Temporary Relief - 10 Years Of B-Sides & Rarities" (Rough Trade – RTRADCDX195) 2004

After Keith Levene,and Nik Turner.Another from this week of Musical Deaths, is the sad loss of Mimi Parker,the lady from Low. The Husband and wife populated trio who gave us the much derided,even by Mimi and Alan, category of this kind of minimal melodic ambient neo folkrock,that has come to be called Slowcore. Which, personally, I reckon fits them to a 'T'. It's slow, and uncompromising....it's .Slowcore!?

I am of an age where my last flirtation with 'hip' music was around the time of Jungle and Post Rock in the late nineties, so I look upon Low as a fairly recent entity,and often overlook the fact that they've been going for nigh on thirty years....that is until this week,as Mimi died of Cancer. Robbing the world of her pure voice and minimalist drumming.

This vast compilation of their first ten years,was the last record i bought in England before i migrated to pastures new in jolly old France.....it's a bit shit here,but it's fucking cheap.We came as a family, and promptly started the process of disintegrating forthwith;such is the fashionable path we trod ,trés moderne.

Now all that's left is me and a house full of records,synths,and to quote Syd,Dust and Guitars.All of which one can simply turn off when they get on ones proverbials.You can't do that with humans I found out.....they have 'needs'....needs that someone on the spectrum can't give without an effort. Its all mi mi mi innit? I don't ask or expect anything that isn't offered.

A great soundtrack to emotional and mental breakdown and its aftermath has to be the melancholic splendor of Low......which is ironic, because they never broke up as a family,just losing a few Bassists along the way....always difficult creatures is yer Bass player.

They do remind one of such indie leg-ends as Young Marble Giants,and Galaxie 500, with a tad of Joy Division's more downbeat moments,as if fronted by English Folk great Shirley Collins....(Is Shirley Collins a Dame yet?...if not why?).

This compilation features all their rare bits from 1994 to 2004,and the demo versions of "Lullaby" and "Cut" from their flawless debut LP,are worth the price of admission alone;enhanced somewhat by swathes of automatic level cassette hiss,as if summoning the soul of Mimi back from the grave to haunt us a bit more.This IS White Soul music after all?

You may have noticed that i am being uncharacteristically respectful in this synopsis of a trendy american group,and i'm sorry, but Low were quite marvelous indeed. Not everything modern and american are wrong you know,he said,stating the bleeding obvious.

This came with a DVD documentary, which you can probably find on YouTube no doubt.

Although this horrified me! Low are one of those groups who shouldn't ever be seen on camera or in photographs; unless as blurred shadowy black and white images in an abandoned bunker somewhere in Alaska .Not that they're ugly or anything,it just doesn't fit the music.There were always far too many clear photo's of Joy Division for example,where we discovered that Ian Curtis always wore the same shirt and looked like Mr Bean...they should have only been photographed by Anton Corbijn,in dimly lit underpasses in winter.Young Marble Giants had this talent naturally.impossible to photograph without looking like they lived in Siberia.

Anyway,Rest in even more Peace that was portrayed in your beautifully depressing tunes Mimi.Hope to hear you again beyond the void one slow looong day? Thanks for all the temporary relief.

And to finish,... some jokey wordplay to lighten the mood......Its all Mi Mi Mi these days innit?

Tracklist:

Lullaby (Demo) 10:06
Cut (Demo) 5:41
Heartbeat 4:08
Peanut Butter Toast And American Bandstand 2:23
Tired 5:11
I Started A Joke 4:28
The Plan (Demo) 2:50
Prisoner (Demo) 6:10
Prisoner 3:48
Tomorrow One 4:28
Turning Over 7:49
Bright 2 1:45
Walk You Out 4:46
Tear Down 4:48
Standby 5:11
David & Jude 1:22
Cheek 3:24
Venus 3:44
Boyfriends & Girlfriends 6:06
Surf 2:31
No Need (Version 1) 5:03
Be There (First Version) 8:28
Lift 5:45
Joan Of Arc 3:21
Long Long Long 3:50
Lion/Lamb (Demo) 3:50
Will The Night (Demo) 2:47
Last Breath 4:47
Joan Of Arc (20 Below Mix) 3:25
Old Man Song 3:48
Try Try Try 0:37
Lord, Can You Hear Me? 6:24
Venus (Time Stereo Dub Mix) 3:51
Those Girls (Song For Nico) 3:06
[silence] 2:50
Words (In Misfits Style) 2:50
Turn (In Misfits Style) 1:03
Over The Ocean (In Misfits Style) 1:36
I Remember 3:22
Kindly Blessed 2:17
Blue-Eyed Devil 5:02
Sleep At The Bottom 4:54
When You Walked 3:55
Back Home Again 5:20
Don't Drop The Baby 4:02
Surfer Girl (Live) 3:35
Blowin' In The Wind 3:49
Open Arms 4:02
...I Love 2:45
Carnival Queen 5:13
Overhead 4:33
Don't Carry It All 4:13
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me 3:58
Because You Stood Still 5:33
Fearless 6:20
Shots & Ladders 2 6:47
Words 5:46
Shame 4:08
Over The Ocean 3:50
Looking Out For Hope 11:28
Will The Night 3:07
Weight Of Water 4:21
Don't Understand 6:56
Immune 3:31
Home 2:25
Dinosaur Act 4:07
Canada 3:49
Over The Ocean (Oosterschelde Version) 5:03
Canada 15:42
Two Step (Live At Bard College) 6:11
Soon (Live At Coolidge Corner) 7:38
I Remember (Live In Paris) 5:40
Closer Than That 1:06:11
In The Fishtank 16:50
Making Of Trust 17:34

DOWNLOAD from heaven HERE!

Henry Flynt ‎– "New American Ethnic Music Volume 4: Ascent To The Sun" (Recorded ‎– Recorded 021) 2004

The final release in the New American Ethnic Music series is "Ascent to the Sun", an earwax rattling hillbilly raga in the family of 'You Are My Everlovin' with a double violin approach featuring our Henry playing against,or with, himself,or his-selves.Late period Flynt, from 2004,It sounds as if he wasn't listening to the other recorded tracks of his own fiddle playing as he added the overdubs,and it works just fine.Freeing himself from the strait-jacket of time structure and syncopation....this ain't no disco;but it is, some kinda twisted hoedown that needs dancing to......maybe we should give Jimmy Pursey a call?

"For me, innovation does not consist in composing European and academic music with inserted folk references. It consists in appropriating academic or technical devices and subordinating them to my purposes as a folk creature."...so says our Henry.

Tracklist:

1. Ascent To The Sun (recorded 2004)(41:21)

DOWNLOAD to the earth HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "The Departing Of A Dream Vol. III: Juliet" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV34) 2004

I'm world renowned for my incisive insight and i'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say that the Juliet mentioned in the title is none other than Juliet Capulet?.....I'm on safe ground there methinks?
Like an insurance advertisement, the fictional life of the prettier half of the star crossed lovers, whizzes by, leaving her wishing that she had taken out adequate life insurance to cover her funeral expenses for loved ones left behind. Still a teenager, I doubt that such responsibilities, post-mortem, had crossed her love addled mind.......but then again her family were loaded weren't they, so no problems there then. This was undoubtedly the whole point behind Bill's most famous play.Not unrequainted love doomed by prejudice.....it was to get youngsters planning for retirement and unexpected funeral expenses. She would have got the famed 'free Pen' and some argos vouchers just for inquiring.....although back in elizabethan times it would have been a free Quill and Ink, plus a token for a sack of turnips.
There are actually thousands of romantically inclined fuckwits who actually write to Juliet in Verona every year, for advise on affairs of the heart.There's even a person employed by the city of Verona, to write agony aunt style replies to these sad individuals!?
These people must not be the sharpest tool in the box,and can't have read the play to its tragic conclusion, then they'd know that Juliet killed herself and in no known circumstances could she give out advise on how Donna can persuade her 58 year old lover, Cedric, to leave his wife.
Loren Connors, manages to en'capulet' (sic) the tragedy of these doomed lovers, while at the same time reminding us that our life is speeding past us before our eyes, in thirty minutes of minimal guitar atmospherics.Drenched in lo-fi amp reverberation and tape hiss.
"Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O, happy dagger,
This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die." (Not a quote from 'Sid and Nancy' by William Shakespeares smarter brother).

Tracklist:

1 Her Love 20:39
2 Her Fate 4:54
3 Her Death 1:47
4 Juliet... 1:26
5 In Lovers Eyes 1:46

DOWNLOAD with emphasis on the 'down' HERE!

Jandek ‎– "A Kingdom He Likes" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0777) 2004

Jandek Monday arrives as life passes like grains of sand slipping through ones fingers.
I think this is the only studio Jandek album, in the classic Jandek style, that I haven't yet posted on this blog......only the really long piano based ones are left,plus loads of live ones.
Jandek is on fine form,as the music groans like a dull toothache that responds to no painkillers. In fact a trip to the Dentist to have the nerves scraped out of a root canal without anesthetic, or a cosy night in listening to the whole of this album is a tough call.

DOWNLOAD an album nobody likes HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Shadow Of Leaves" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0774) 2004

To herald the return of 'Jandek Monday' ,here's the ginger bard torturing a detuned Bass for forty minutes. Naturally, overlaid with his trademark moan and doom-laden prose that reeks of apathy and pointlessness. This kind of existential honesty rarely shows its ugly head above the water.The opposite of entertainment,but very much an endless tunnel into the black truth of oblivion.
This ain't James Blunt in other words.

Tracklist:

1 Shadow Of Leaves 29:02
2 Find Me Again 6:15
3 I Give You Me 5:04

DOWNLOAD from the shadows HERE!

Jandek ‎– "The End Of It All" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0775) 2004

No,It's not the end of it all, it's Jandek Monday, and this is "The End Of It All" CD. It might seem and sound like the end of it all, but the earth and indeed, Jandek himself, carried on existing another 14 years and counting after this baleful whine was recorded.
I quite like the sound of the guitar abuse on this one,which has a grisly metallic chime quility,as recorded in an empty bathroom.

Tracklist:
1 One Of Those Moments 20:15
2 I Hadn't Been There Before 5:49
3 They Don’t Matter At All 5:36
4 I Met You 8:12

DOWNLOAD to the end of this cd HERE!

The Homosexuals ‎– "Astral glamour" (Hyped To Death ‎– MSS-204) 2004

Way back between 1978 and '82, from a time when 'CD' was personal column talk for 'Cross-Dresser',The Homosexuals produced a cassette lake of unreleased music,and a few self-financed ep's. Then twenty-odd years later, in 2004, Hyped 2 Death released these 3 CD's in a box full of Homosexuals.

To label yourself a Homosexual in 1978 was a life-threatening act, and this bunch of, probably, straight squatters, were prepared to suffer for their art.

Firstly, no record label would touch any group called that with your barge-pole,never mind release any records.Not that anyone in The Homosexuals gave two fucks.

Their philosophy was admirably puritanical in its rejection of any commerciality whatsoever. Even the cult of personality was roundly shunned as no-one was really sure who was in the band, or what their names were, especially as their pseudonyms changed almost weekly.

Sadly,now we sort of know who the members were, and most of their recordings are more readily available for the great unwashed to exchange their monetary units for.

The most prolific member, Jim Whelton (or Welton?), carried on privately releasing music well into the 21st century, under a myriad of different monikers....which you can find in the archives of this blog by clicking here!

So this box set,featuring plenty unreleased versions of Homosexuals related material, is the logical end for our all too brief sojourn into the murky world of The Homosexuals.

Abnormal service will be resumed forthwith.

PS...check out my 'Homosexuals Special' radio show from Weds 09th May, on LYL radio at 3pm-4pm CET....click this> http://lyl.live/show/zchivagos-disco-dystopia/

Track Listing:
Disc: 1
1. Hearts in Exile
2. Soft South Africans

3. Astral Glamour
4. Divorce Proceeding(s) from Reality
5. Collected of You
6. Vociferous Slam
7. Mecho Madness
8. Flying
9. Technique Street
10. Mecho Madness, No. 2
11. (Do The) Total Drop
12. Walk Before Imitate
13. Neutron Lover
14. Naming of Parts
15. False Sentiments
16. Birds Have Risen I
17. Birds Have Risen II
18. Kiss With Venom
19. A Million Keys
20. My Night Out
21. All About Cheap
22. Hearts in Exile [Full Mix]
23. Soft South Africans [Guitar Mix]
24. Collapsible You
25. Regard Omission
26. Galore Galore
27. Cause a Commotion
28. Nippon Airways

Disc: 2
1. Prestel
2. You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To (Pt. 1)
3. Calvary
4. Symphonic Thaïs
5. Toto Rello
6. Yoghurt
7. Mad Bombers of Major Valour
8. Re Entry
9. You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To (Pt. 2)
10. Snapshots of Nairobi [Live]
11. Mitsu at the Controls
12. Still Living in My Car
13. Jesus
14. Magic Moments, Pt. 2
15. Magic Moments, Pt. 1
16. Cheetah [Vocal Version]
17. Early Developments [Vocal Version]
18. One Minute [Vocal Version]
19. Making Eyes [Vocal Version]
20. Vision Expanding [Vocal Version]
21. Charlie Watts [Vocal Version]
22. Galore Galore [Vocal Version]
23. Across Continents
24. Final Distance
25. Pamela
26. It's What's in It, Isn't It?

Disc: 3
1. Nursery Chymes
2. In Search of the Perfect Baby
3. Snapshots of Nairobi [Instrumental]
4. My Size Side
5. High and Low
6. Black Noise
7. Ants on Parade
8. In My Age
9. Woman/Man
10. Victoria Falls
11. Oh Baby Baby
12. Making Eyes
13. Charlie Watts
14. Symbols I Love
15. Especially to You
16. Two Horizons
17. There Are Shy Moons
18. Adventure Master of the Future
19. Early Developments
20. Gimme Gimme
21. One Minute
22. Cheetah (Click here for missing MP3)
23. Visions Expanding
24. Who Put the Jung in the Jungle Drums
25. Radio Ham Stormy Jam
26. Another Step
27. Funeral

DOWNLOAD CD-1 HERE!

DOWNLOAD CD-2 HERE!

DOWNLOAD CD-3 HERE!

Die Trip Computer Die - "Abyss" (self-released CD-r) 2004

Apparently there's about 17 'Die Trip Computer Die' CD-r's doing the rounds from around the turn of the millennium. This is one that has escaped total obscurity to tickle your lug holes and stimulate your hypothalamus.
This one is very much more Post-Club, plunderphonic samplerdelic mindfuckery. Like Trip-hop fed trough a sausage making machine with added spice in place of the pure cubes of unpalatable fat. There's nothing I'd enjoy more than feeding Tricky or Massive Attack through a mincer, and selling them back to the 'hip' ganja toking clubbing clique as tastless sausages.Smoke this sausage if you dare?
DTCD, do dance culture deconstruction effortlessly,mixing it up as a nice fluffy omelet to compliment your Trippy Tricky sausage.

Tracklist:

1-18 Untitled

DOWNLOAD into the abyss HERE!

Die Trip Computer Die - "All Shag Ringo" (Self-released CD-r) 2004

In the grand tradition of Die Computer Trip Die,I've plundered a recycled review of this great ,very privately released record in a language I can't understand, by a member of the public on some forgotten web-site., somewhere out there; and Die Trip Computer Die are certainly very 'out there'; as deliberately obscurely as anybody has ever been.......to sell-out a little, i can reveal that this is distantly Homosexuals related, so you now know that its very good indeed......if a trifle smart-arse,but the 'Good' kind of smart-arse.
Take it away Fabio R.......:

"Enigmatica, intricata, colossale trilogia sperimentale di mai immessa in commercio quella di Die Trip Computer Die, in tre torrenziali satelliti ‘stream of consciousness’:All Shag Ringo, ottenuti tessendo con pazienza, perizia, intrigo ed estro casalingo, un’infinità di suoni e visioni, forme dinamiche e scarti di lavorazione.
Si ottiene un ‘monstre’ collage D.I.Y. in assoluta libertà strutturale, tra samplers, improvvisazioni, immersioni ambientali, decolli e frastorni psichedelici, rotte spaziali con onnipresenti lattiginosi filamenti di tastiera a tessere e palesare reami metafisici e visioni celesti. Tutto ciò è fatto ‘reagire’ con brandelli di suoni, sfigurate e terrificanti emissioni media, alieni-quotidiani dal richiamo mnemonico e d’effetto spiazzante. Si genera un rapporto conturbante e alquanto inaudito tra elementi sì disposti, dalle giunture truccate, di suggestive e arcane forme richiamate.
Incerta rimane la data di realizzazione, mancando qualsiasi menzione ad essa. Qualcuno menziona il 2002, ma questi montaggi potrebbero calarsi negli anni ’90, stanti indubbie comunanze con The Orb atterrati nella California dell’assurdo di LAFMS, o l’abilità collagista, fedeltà e immaginario, ardire e ardore tipici delle recenti, smaliziate generazioni di artisti elettronici." (Fabio R.)

I couldn't agree more Fabio......er.....what did you say again?

Tracklist:

1. All Shag Ringo

2. Untitled

3. I Was A Prisoner Of The Feedback king

4. Untitled

5. Loyal telly

6. Untitled

7. You Will Forget pain

8. Untitled

9. The Psilent Ones

DOWNLOAD to be well and truly shagged by ringo HERE!

Rudimentary Peni ‎– "Archaic EP" (Outer Himalayan Records ‎– BOOBOO8) 2004

More of RP's power trio 21st century death rock. Very fine and powerful it is too.
I think I have selected "Mercy Of Slumber" as the tune that is played as the handful of mourners at my cremation shuffle out of the crematorium to go to the pub.
Don't think me a cynic,but,the four lines to opener "One and All" are one of the most profound summations of the human condition in pop music.(see above as scrawled on the sleeve).
This is Metal as it should be played,and how it should sound, basically. Although to use the 'Metal' pigeon hole is a great disservice to a legendary combo. It isn't Metal, because you have to be a complete Twat to play in an HM group. And to my knowledge Blinko is too mentally ill to be a complete Twat.

Tracklist:

A1 One And All
A2 Suffer
A3 In Crematorium Flame
A4 Lost
A5 The Rain
A6 Mercy Of Slumber
B1 The Curse
B2 The Enlightened Dreamer
B3 X N.H.S.
B4 Farewell Tomorrow
B5 House Of The Void
B6 Rehearsal For Mortality

DOWNLOAD lots of short songs about death HERE!

Throbbing Gristle ‎– "A Souvenir Of Camber Sands - Live December 3rd 2004" (Industrial Records ‎– TG CS 1) 2004

From Death Camps to Holiday Camps, is not a transition that is too common in the Industrial world;but TG can chalk up another first because that's what they did in 2004.
If this performance was "Live at Auschwitz" we'd have probably all yawned, but no, it was at the Camber Sands branch of the Pontins Holiday camp chain.
"Book Early" was Fred Pontin's catch phrase, delivered to camera with a thumbs up, like a drunk refugee from a carry-on movie. (Check the 1977 Pontins advert HERE).
The sexual abuse that invariably went on at these 'Holiday' camps in the 70's, would have sat well with TG's common themes. So, Pontins isn't too far removed from Auschwitz one supposes; maybe more a Belsen-on-sea type of place where they had Blue coats instead of Brown Shirts.At least Belsen had a swimming pool, and a hostage section for trade-offs with the allies. A bit like the Kids who went to these depressing places, after the Clowns and Blue-coats got their skin crawlingly creepy mitts on them.
So, all-in-all one has established that "All Tomorrows Parties Festival" at Camber Sands Holiday Camp was an ideal place for Throbbing Gristle to end their 23 year silence.
If Pontins had the line-up that ATP 2004 had for entertainment I would have definitely booked early every year.....but I may have had to go to the bar a lot during TG's lengthy set. popping back occasionally to see them do "Hamburger Lady", "Convincing People" and , their touching tribute to the recently dead John Balance, "What a Day". The newer stuff doesn't quite have the same impact, or, at the very least, doesn't have that nostaglic magick for us middle aged former misery laden adolescents.
I am being harsh of course.......there's nothing worse than constantly heaping praise on artists who have already proven that they are one of the greatest and most influential groups of all time. They could do a duet with Britney Spears and still wouldn't tarnish their long shadow of influence.
Actually, I really wouldn't mind hearing a TG and Spears collaboration; a bit like that classic 'Dorothy' single they released in 1980, which featured Max from Rema-Rema as Dorothy.
...anyway......
Here's another Pontins advert from 1979. I especially like the bit where they say "If you choose to leave the Kids, there's always someone to look after them"; then we see little Debbie in the clutches of a creepy clown with a pervy expression.....hilarious!....click HERE!

Track Listing:

Disc 1: 
1. P-A D 
2. What A Day 
3. Greasy Spoon 
4. Live-Ray 
5. Hamburger Lady 
6. Almost Like This  
7. Splitting Sky 
8. Convincing People 
9. Fed Up / Wall Of Sound 

DOWNLOAD a souvenir of that horrific holiday at camber sands HERE!

Throbbing Gristle ‎– "TG Now" (Industrial Records ‎– RETG1) 2004

Twenty three years after their original mission was terminated, TG returned after the untimely death of Coil frontman John Balance. And this comeback session sounds just like Coil, post-mortem.
Coil's music depended heavily on John Balance's human factor, especially latter-day Coil recordings.
Genesis P. Orridge is a poor substitute lyrically and vocally.
"TG Now", or TG then, as its over 12 years old at the time of writing; is an incredibly boring record. Like comparing reformed Roxy Music's "Manifesto" to Brian Eno's Roxy albums.
"Splitting sky" is OK, except for the silly 'gristlized' vocals, that blatantly strain to sound 'evil'; but its about 8 minutes too long.
Original TG was perfect in its imperfection. New TG is imperfect in its perfection.
Why do these groups do this?..........oh sorry, I forgot......cash.

Tracklist:
A1 X-Ray (Edit)
A2 Splitting Sky
B1 Almost Like This
B2 How Do You Deal? (Edit)

DOWNLOAD tg HERE!

Jandek ‎– "The Door Behind" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0776) 2004

Released just after Jandek's myth crushing Live appearance in Glasgow. the cover shows the great man as a mountain man/ hermit.
The six songs are basically the same tune split up into six parts; slow moaning vocals over a minimal detuned electric guitar plucked randomly as if by some dead disembodied hand swaying in the breeze. Heavy going, a lonesome howl recorded by a secret microphone stealthily installed in his mountain shack, or in its Texan equivalent; a lonesome trailer home in an abandoned trailer park.
Another open wound so deep, you can see the naked electricity of a tortured soul writhing inside.

Tracklist:

1	Do You Want Me	6:09
2	Gate Strikes One	8:52
3	I'm Not That Good	6:18
4	The Slow Burn	6:16
5	It's Only You	6:03
6	Every Sentence	9:36

DOWNLOAD and close the door behind you HERE!