In the post-rock atlas, though labeled as freak-folk, Jackie-O Motherfucker more so assumed the mantle of the Fahey-ian troupe recollecting their traveling experiences, but whereas Fahey was the wise troubadour singing about his travels in the civilization, Jackie-O Motherfucker were intellectual freaks that sung about their experiences in the primeval jungle, as evident in the translucent, shaman abstract blues "Everyday". Then "Sun Ray Harvester" dispensed with the blues and was left with an abstract current of ritualistic ambience, and Doors-ian psychodrama a la "The End". It was a sound infused with jazz and ethnic flavours in "777", and then turned full circle in the electrifying jazz/ ethnic/ blues "Bus Stop".
"Feast Οf Τhe Mau Mau" was their most jazz moment yet, but it was a primitive, ritualistic, atavistic jazz. In contrast, the essence of their music transubstantiated in a higher trance in "Fantasy Hay Co-Op", the tribal shamanism had apparently reached the spirit world. By "Breakdown", it wasn't as if the previous trance was revealed to be a temporary mirage, but more like the spiritual directions were being channeled in a more psychological direction, almost pathological, and ending in a fragile impressionist jam, the whole experience this fading away, being only a dream, a hypnosis. Get it here.
With Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound fame) producing and participating, Malachai was a bit of an anomaly in the Dots' discography, no other album of theirs sounded like it, which proves how extensive Stapleton's contribution was.
"Joey The Canary" was a vibrant acid ballad, borrowing from an American Indian tribal ritual, and featuring a psychedelic screeching guitar solo. In contrast, "Kingdom Of The Flies" dived into the void of a catatonic psychedelic ballad, solemn, ethereal and graceful, with a mysterious and sinister epilogue. The Stapleton factor fired on all cylinders in "Encore Une Fois", a disjointed electronic lullaby, that felt like a magnet that dragged metallic musique-concrete arrangements, and moved them around at will. "Wildlife Estate" was just as weird, a freak soul-funk with expansive arrangements, as if a fusion collaboration between Frank Zappa and Syd Barrett.
Instead, "Pavane" was almost ambient jazz, abstract and cosmic, and with impressionist brush-strokes; it was an environment. Then "Window On The World", after a sinister and climactic noir-jazz first part (as if the soundtrack to a psychological thriller), it veered in a disorganized electronic jazz-ethnic march, bringing to mind both the anarchic spirit of Half Japanese and the junk culture of Faust, while the coda added further dysfunction, with a radio frequency going all wobbly and out of sync.
This dadaist mayhem also reminded of the collaboration between Ron Geesin & Roger Waters in Music From The Body. This was also echoed in the 19-minute "We Bring The Day", arguably the most ambitious piece, that assumed the forms of the fantasia, the requiem, the sonata, the folklore lullaby, the abstract symphony, the psychological ambient environment, and so forth. The lush jazz symphonic tapestry of "Paris 4 AM" was a fitting epilogue, as if the whole experience was a dream that faded away in the horizon. Get it here.
Meredith Monk and her vocal troupe cut a line between experimental theatre and music, marking a passage through the Ancient Greek tragedy, the opera, world-music, the archaic ritual and the mystical chant. It started with "Gotham Lullaby", presenting a contralto over a desolate and stark piano sonata. Then "Travelling" set a feverish gypsy dance, a wild ritual stirring the primeval forces at play. The sonata returned in "The Tale", as the backbone to an offbeat pantomime/ theatrical performance. The album got progressively more ambitious, with "Biography" combining the operatic wail, what seemed like twisted reflections of some tragic torch song, and an experimental Ancient Greek tragedy. Yet the masterpiece was "Dolmen Music", an archaic ritual, a mystical chant that reached from the depths of time to the far reaches of the universe, a menacing polyphonic counterpoint between the male and female choir, like a cosmic beam resonating through the edges of the universe, and leaving behind a streaming echo of mass-subconscious particles.Get it here.
It'd be wrong to say that Dream Theory In Malaya was jazz/ ethnic. It was much more than that. Jon Hassell was a musician researcher delving into the realms of Jung-ian psychology. Dream Theory In Malaya was expressionist, futuristic, impressionistic, surrealist. It was folklore set in a sub-chamber in a void. It was a subconscious dream.
"Chor Moire" was a futuristic camouflage for a world-ethnic music, vivisected and rearranged, miraged from a shapeless reality. "Courage" was an ectoplasmic ethnic-ritual stream, floating over a jungle landscape, formulating the turmoil of the spiritual-dance "Dream Theory". The end of the journey was the ghostly landscape of "Datu Bintung at Jelong".
The focus had shifted from the jungle to the sky, it was a subliminal landscape, reflections made out of aether.
It reflected both towards the future and towards an unimaginable past. "Malay" was an impressionistic sketch, it was the memory of hundreds of small streams running in the jungle to connect with a bigger whole. By "These Times", all that was left was a whisper, an inaudible gust of wind. By "Gift of Fire" the spiritual forces had gathered again, ready for yet another day of dance, condemned to be repeated in eternity, like seashell resonance. Get it here.
The Residents turned to ambient-concrete and ethnic in Eskimo, whose tracks were accompanied by text explanations, thus patronizing what should have been a visceral experience.
Purely musically, the ambient ceremonial chant "The Walrus Hunt" artificially recreated the feel of the arctic wasteland, whereas the starlit ritual "Birth" got some of the Residential weirdo treatment. Then in "Arctic Hysteria", the internal ethnic-concrete collage hinted at Jon Hassell's work to come. Similarly, "The Angry Angakok" reminded of Pink Floyd's concrete chaos in "Several Species" from Ummagumma. "A Spirit Steals A Child" was a deformed ethno-theatrical performance, while surprisingly, in "The Festival Of Death" the ritual metamorphosed to a delicate concerto, a warm moment in the frozen land.
Basically this album represents the point in The Residents' career when their music moved from being a stream of lava of abstract junk-culture to a conceptual art-rock.
EDIT: Dead link because of complaints to Rapidshare.
Yello maintained their place amidst the most creative bands of the 80's with Stella. "Desire" was one of their fluid, atmospheric, soundtrack-based, exotic tinged, electronic doom jazz themes. "Vicious Games" occupied the same territory, as if a haunted disco theme for a surreal soap-opera. In "Oh Yeah", the ever present deformed disco-theme was vivisected with an abundance of distorted vocal effects.
The epitome of elegance, "Desert Inn" was a mixture of ethnic ritual chanting, disco beats, jam-rock flourishes, and an epic ambient electronica awe. "Stalakdrama" was a symphonic experiment in tension, it's Wagnerian overture magnified to a point of feverish splendour. In "Koladi-ola", another ingenious piece of electro-pop, prevailed a digital funk-rock whose elements came from all sorts of disparate sources.
This wild eclecticism continued in "Domingo", a mix of heavy-metal, soundtrack themes, chanting, classical, banging beats etc. "Sometimes" returned to their elegant and gentle side, yet still managed to sound like a rolle-roaster ride. Similarly the desolate but grand synthscape of "Ciel Ouvert" evoked images of spiritual delirium. The amazing creativity encapsulated in these synth-rock tracks would make indie favourites like New Order or Depeche Mode blush at their own mediocrity. Get it here.
A classic record from the otherwise anemic Greek new-wave scene. Metro Decay's gloom-rock was electronic flavoured and lyrical ("Μαύρος Κύκνος"), occasionally acquiring an austere and epic tone ("Ανάμεσα σε 2 Κρεσέντα"). They were also capable of crafting ambitious compositions, such as "Το Ταξίδι", that vibrated amidst sinister synthesizer drone-oscillations, a robotic beat, ethereal piano brushstrokes and the melodic outburst of the chorus.
"Εισαγωγή στην Κινηση" was clearly influenced by Joy Division's "Isolation", but the ace up their sleeve was the traditional Greek-music garnishes amidst the frenetic electronic march. The same fundamentals were also applied in "Παιχνίδια στην Επιφάνεια", where the solo splashes veered almost into jazz territory. They were also competent at constructing fluid environments, like in the moving-blindly in the darkness threat of "Απειλή".
The ethereal gloom-rock returned in "Το Πάγωμα του Πάθους", where the cosmic sheen in their music simulated a free-fall in an ecstatic whirlpool. With the robotic beat replaced by a ritualistic trance and abstract symphonic ambience, "Υπέρβαση" reached for a sorrow far deeper - like Fra Lippo Lippi did in In Silence. It was a trend repeated in the galanty-show of "Λίμπιντο", that moved menacingly beneath the surface like a tectonic rift.
Get it here.
