Subhumans - The Day The Country Died

I've been reverting back to my primary listenings circa 1985 lately. Unable to secure nostalgia satisfactorily I'll press this in your palm as foisting is always a close runner-up to accurate recreation of near forgotten moments. Oh and if you haven't heard this, you're welcome.

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Wikipedia: The Day the Country Died is the first LP by the punk band Subhumans. The album was recorded in five days in June 1982 and released in 1983 on Spiderleg Records. It was later released on Bluurg, the band's own record label.

The Day The Country Died is influenced by the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The most obvious sign of such an influence is the song "Big Brother" — Big Brother is the dictatorial political leader figure in Orwell's novel. The song revolves around how "Big Brother is watching you", and when Dick Lucas sings "there's a TV in my front room and it's screwing up my head", it is a comparison between the telescreen in the novel which monitored citizens constantly and excessive viewing of mass media. Today, there is a huge amount of video surveillance in the U.K., showing the foresight of this subject matter. Like the novel, this album has dystopian overtones.

The album also describes a world ravaged by war, most likely our world which arguably is, this is suggested by track titles like "Dying World" and "All Gone Dead". The latter contains lyrics like "so long to the world, that's what they said, it's 1984 and it's all gone dead", which can be seen as another reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Day The Country Died is widely regarded as a classic punk album.

^HEAR

"Through interviews with major players in the anarchist-punk movement, DAY THE COUNTRY DIED explores the evolution of a genre. Those sharing their views include Colin Jerwood of Conflict, Penny Rimbaud of Crass, Zillah Minx of Rubella Ballet, and more. The release also includes live concert material"

^{Bonus -> SEE}

Scorpions - In Trance

Before you hate, listen. Listen to "Robot Man" and tell me you can't find value there. Tell me.

Now the real question remains: Which is better "In Trance" or "Fly To The Rainbow?"

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Allmusic: The Scorpions' third release, In Trance, continues to display their high-energy music, which is impossible to ignore. With the eyebrow and penis-lifting "Dark Lady" as the opening track, the album immediately captures the listener's attention and keeps it all the way until the end. The interesting title track is clearly the best song of the album, but singles such as the fast-paced "Robot Man" and the hard-rocking "Top of the Bill" also stand out as highlights. Excellent singing and powerful music make this the best Scorpions recording working with Uli Jon Roth.


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Spacemen 3 - Forged Prescriptions

It was the cover of the the Spades "We Sell Soul" that I was privvy to and that had me hunting this one down. Haunting has been a word I've upchucked freely lately.

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Pitchforkmedia review: Fifteen years ago, kids didn't listen to this kind of music on CD, cassette, vinyl; they listened to it on the tips of their tongues. It used to come on blotter paper, in tabs. When string-seducer Sonic Boom went into his Rainbow Guitarland of Doom, people's serotonin levels never recovered. The Perfect Prescription was like taking an acid bath in the dungeon of the mind: revelatory but solitary. On Forged Prescriptions, the Spacemen are trying to absorb us into their skin.

This two-disc release consists of various alternative mixes, demos, and covers from Spacemen 3's Perfect Prescription recording sessions. According to the Boom, the majority of these mixes were "considered by us to be too hard to replicate live and therefore reduced for the original release." This is admittedly kind of absurd, like saying these tracks were too good to be listened to, but there is some validity in the sentiment. Whereas the disparity between the old and "new" mixes are perhaps subtle at best and practically indiscernible at worst, there is a difference in mood. If The Perfect Prescription often sounded extraterrestrial, it also just as often sounded like traditional Velvets-inspired indie rock. On Forged Prescriptions, though, the stratifications of guitar are even further attenuated to stunning single tones, the basslines float even more subliminally under the psychedelic mind-spinning noodling, and... well, okay, the drums are pretty much the same.

The gateway drug on this collection is the alternative mix to "Things'll Never Be the Same". If the original was a feedback dust-up, quenched in gravelly, occasionally Bob Mould-ish vocals and an abyssal thump, the new mix is so bombarded with combating guitar squeals, earthen drums, and Pierce's sustained tones it will excoriate your entire body. From the classic intro onwards, the guitars are played backwards, forwards, sidewards, epiphanywards. The original was phenomenal strutting feedback stagnating in the void. This is a twirling tea kettle launched into orbit, feedback that goes somewhere, at a pressure that gives you the bends. By "Call the Doctor", the guitars are spewing their trajectories of cosmic refulgence farther than the ears can grasp. At one point, I accompanied this euphony with the "Rolling Fire" setting on Windows Media Player and my computer restarted itself. Truth.

The new "Walking with Jesus" is perhaps the most startling mix, taking the original into an even more incorporeal and immaculate sphere. The Perfect Prescription version used too many 80s-indie-rock guitars for my liking, and vaguely sardonic; this one is an anesthetic plunge into purgatory, equipped with a choir instead of rock 'n' roll, and it's positively cultish-- the anthem of a Polyphonic Spree crossed with Heaven's Gate. "Come Down Easy (Demo Version)" is a filthy atomic 100-bar blues, oscillating echoes of birdman Pierce, our acidhead savior. You will bow down to him for his beatific benevolence and serenity. Except in this religion, the communion wafers are shrooms, the crucifix is the solar system, and the holy book is my hallucinations about Toad Demons: "It's 1987/ All I wanna do is get stoned."

But the second disc is the one that truly breathes new life into Perfect Prescription. The extended version of the Red Krayola cover "Transparent Radiation" replaces the angry muddle of the album version with light and clarity. The demo version of "Walking with Jesus" is when the Son of God bought a shotgun, rockin' twine and fuzz battered by shivering engines. The demo version of the heralded "Starship" and the previously unreleased cover of the MC5's "I Want You Right Now" are bone-implodingly dense, perfect tributes to 60s psych-metal, plasma ghosts emerging from Sabbath's grave.

To get pragmatic for a second (a little silly considering the only word this band knows is "excess"), the differences between these tracks and their album version counterparts can seem innocuous enough if you're not listening closely. Purists who've spent years memorizing every note of The Perfect Prescription are sure to think of it as little more than a curiosity. Many of the mixes here, however, are more complex, harmonious and pulverizing than those on the original classic. The second disc also acts as a sort of paltry best-of that combines some excellent covers with the most memorable songs from the original LP. As for those neophytes who ask if this album's any good if you're not on drugs, a better question might be whether drugs are any good without this album.

— Alexander Lloyd Linhardt, October 28, 2003

HEAR Disc 1

HEAR Disc 2

The Clash - Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg

Via Goz... So many thanks:

Wikipedia:

Combat Rock was originally planned as a double album with the working title Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg, but the idea was scrapped after internal wrangling within the group. Mick Jones had mixed the first version, but the other members were dissatisfied and mixing/producing duties were handed to Glyn Johns, at which point the album became a single LP. The original mixes have since been obtained and subsequently bootlegged.

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Thin Lizzy - Peel Sessions

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LCD Soundsystem - S/T

Dance music by a guy that knows a lot about music... so much so that it's not really dance music so much as an education, a feel good tutorial, a thinking man's Yaz, a depressives Daft Punk... and, ja know what? It's American, goddammie.

I've spent a lot of time with this record the past four years - on beaches, in cars, in bed, at desks. Don't matter. This size fits all.

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Allmusic: If a music-nerd version of Animal House set in 2005 is ever made, "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" — the boisterous opener of LCD Soundsystem — would make an ideal theme song for the fraternity on which it is based. The self-conscious, awkward music obsessives pledging into this fraternity would have to pass a complex trivia test, own a compulsory list of records, and, as a hazing ritual, ask to dance with someone in public. If LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy were the least bit open to the concept, he could be the fraternity's advisor. Judging from a handful of singles and this album, he'd be more than qualified. His first A-side, 2002's "Losing My Edge," laid all his cards on the table, name-checking nearly everything that has been branded indispensable by a record store clerk during the past 20 years. This is someone who clearly owns tons of records and cannot escape them when making his own music. Acid house, post-punk, garage rock, psychedelic pop, and at least a dozen other things factor into his songs, and he's not afraid to be obvious. On occasion, he doesn't even allow fellow nerds to play guessing games. This is the case with "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" — drowsy/dazed John Lennon vibes through and through — as well as the drifting/uplifting "The Great Release" — an alternate closer to either of Brian Eno's first two solo records. Otherwise, Murphy's songs cough up references from his subconscious or are put together as if he's thinking more like a DJ, finding ways to combine elements from disparate sources. "Movement" careens into high-energy guitar squall after a pounding beat and cranky synths; "On Repeat" happily replicates the scratches and jabs of guitar heard from A Certain Ratio, PiL, and Gang of Four, but its mechanical pulse and curveball synth effects couldn't be any more distanced from those three groups. Nothing here exceeds the brilliance of "Beat Connection" or "Yeah." Like just about everybody else these days, Murphy's more skilled at creating isolated tracks than making full-lengths, even though this particular full-length has few weak spots and unfolds smoothly as you listen to it from beginning to end. The bonus disc, containing all the stray single tracks, adds a great deal of value.

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Blank Dogs - On Two Sides

A lil Chrome, a lil Joy Division, a lil Ariel Pink. Good things happen here and the spooky factor is oddly comforting. A recent favorite. Headphones lying on your bed, room darkened.

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Serge Gainsbourg - Rock Around The Bunker

Jawohl!
(Special Gift für Hilts)

Yet another one of Serge's many finest moments,
this here little re-imagined nostalgia trip-slash-ode
he produced to conjure his fondly Nazi-riddled youth.

The titles are tantalizing enough:

1. "Nazi Rock"
2. "Tata Teutonne"
3. "J'Entends des Voix Off"
4. "Eva"
5. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
6. "Zig Zag Avec Toi"
7. "Est-Ce Si Bon?"
8. "Yellow Star"
9. "Rock Around the Bunker"
10. "S.S. in Uruguay"

But don't let that stop you!

Guitars by Alan Parker ("Hurdy Gurdy Man")
Backing Vocals by Clare Torry ("Great Gig in the Sky")

Wiki summarizes like so: a 1975 album by French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, containing songs which combined pseudo-1950s musical arrangements in the manner of Grease or The Rocky Horror Show with lyrics relating to Nazi Germany and World War II, complete with Gainsbourg's usual sex and scatology.

As a young Jewish teenager in occupied France, Gainsbourg was forced to hide from the Nazi and Vichy authorities; Rock Around The Bunker was all the more controversial in a country that has had a long period of coming to grips with its role in World War II.

Songs like "Nazi Rock", "Tata Teutonne" and "SS in Uruguay" further established Gainsbourg's role as France's resident pop provocateur, and was contemporary with David Bowie's similar Nazi obsession.

OR See Allmusic's more nuanced take here.

The opening lines to album opener "Nazi Rock"
invokes The Night of The Long Knives
(wheee!):


Voici venir la nuit des longs couteaux,
Enfilez vos bas noirs les gars,

Ajustez bien vos acroches-bas,

Vos porte-jartelles et vos corsets,

Allez venez ca va se corser,

On va danser le Nazi Rock!

Hören Sie!

(props: audiofile cribbed from this here fun little industrial musicblog)

God Is My Co-Pilot - The Best Of God Is My Co-Pilot

Smart n sprawling and herky jerky and those adjectives that get tossed freely into the forum because you have nothing really tangible to compare a band and its music to. In a better world GIMCP would be as hot shit as Le Tigre thinks it is. Taking nothing away from Le Tigre... okay a little something.

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A good allmusic bio: A loosely-formed aggregation of downtown New York City players built around the openly-bisexual husband-and-wife duo of vocalist Sharon Topper and guitarist Craig Flanagin, God Is My Co-Pilot emerged as one of the most crucial voices in the underground music community of the 1990s. Exploring themes ranging from sexuality to radical politics to religious enlightenment over a martial squall channelling the spirits of no-wave noise, hardcore thrash, post-funk and avant jazz -- along with the occasional touch of Middle Eastern jump-rope chants and Finnish folk music -- the group was both astonishingly prolific and breathlessly passionate; as stated in their anthemic "We Signify," "We're co-opting rock, the language of sexism, to address gender identity on its own terms of complexity. We're here to instruct, not to distract. We won't take your attention without giving some back."

Topper and Flanagin founded God Is My Co-Pilot in 1990 after finding themselves increasingly alienated from modern music; in true D.I.Y. spirit, Flanagin bought his first guitar and soon developed a self-taught improvisational technique denying the very existence of chord progressions or other accepted patterns. With a rotating battery of percussionists, he and Topper -- a remarkable vocalist capable of stop-on-a-dime shifts from sweetness to savagery -- began performing throughout New York, becoming favorites at the famed avant-club the Knitting Factory. The first in a seemingly endless series of GodCo releases was the 1991 EP Four Steps Down the Road to Trouble, issued on the group's own Making of Americans label; their first full-length, the 34-song I Am Not This Body -- a wildly eclectic free-for-all -- followed a year later. Once the floodgates opened, they never stopped; the group's massive recorded output was itself a crucial element of their polemical stance, a direct challenge to the accepted notions of music industry production and consumption.

In 1993 alone, GodCo issued nearly ten separate releases, in a variety of formats (the full-length live CD Tight Like Fist, the EP When This You See Remember Me, and the cassette-only What Doctors Don't Tell You) on a string of different labels (including Knitting Factory Works, Dark Beloved Cloud and Shrimper, respectively). In 1994, their long affiliation with John Zorn's Jewish Culture Series resulted in the release of Mir Shlufn Nisht, a straightforward collection of traditional Hebrew and Yiddish songs; in keeping with the Orthodox directive that the word "God" not be written down, the group even altered their name to read G-d Is My Co-Pilot. By 1995, along with usual flurry of new releases, they also began collecting early singles and EPs with the two-volume set The History of Music; other notable subsequent releases included 1995's Puss 02, 1996's The Best of God Is My Co-Pilot and 1997's Excuse Me, Don't Squeeze Me, a collaboration with Melt-Banana. Get Busy followed in 1998.

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Karp - Suplex and Demo

Made me break out in an awesome rash whenever I listen to these. Still waiting to snag a copy of the Karp doc supposedly released last Fall.

When my wife questions my love for Karp I tell her that I feel they tap into something very powerful. To this she says, "Yes, earplugs."

HEAR SUPLEX

HEAR Karp's DEMO

Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus

Years ago I condemned hip hop as samey, formulaic, unimaginative, narrow, rigid, dumb and a soon-to-be-dead genre... then I heard this. Now I am not so stupid and narrow myself. Not that this is to blame, but this hasn't hurt to open me up a bit. A mindfuckblower beauty.

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Allmusic.com: Featuring material recorded over 1994-1997, Company Flow's official full-length debut, Funcrusher Plus, had a galvanizing effect on the underground hip-hop scene. It was one of the artiest, most abstract hip-hop albums ever recorded, paving the way for a new brand of avant-garde experimentalism that blatantly defied commercial considerations. Musically and lyrically, Funcrusher Plus is abrasive and confrontational, informed by left-wing politics and the punked-out battle cry "independent as f*ck." It's intentionally not funky and certainly not danceable; the beats are tense and jagged, and often spaced far apart to leave room for the MCs' complex rhymes. Bigg Jus and El-P's lyrical technique is so good it's sometimes nearly impenetrable, assaulting the listener with dense barrages of words that take a few listens to decipher. Even if this is all highly off-kilter, it's also a conscious return to hip-hop on its most basic, beats-and-rhymes level; hooks or jazz and funk samples aren't even considerations here. The production is spacy and atmospheric, often employing weird ambient noises and futuristic synths that clash with the defiantly low-budget production values. It's also quite minimalist, particularly on tracks like "Vital Nerve," which is basically just a three-note synth line over a beat, and the classic Indelible MC's single "The Fire in Which You Burn," where Co-Flow trades rhymes with the Juggaknots over a skittering beat and sitar drone. Other tracks have sci-fi and conspiracy theory undertones; some are set in an Orwellian dystopia, while some pointedly satirize corporate and capitalist greed. Yet there's also some straightforward realism, as on "Last Good Sleep," a frightening domestic abuse drama. Funcrusher Plus demands intense concentration, but also rewards it, and its advancement of hip-hop as an art form is still being felt. It's difficult, challenging music, to be sure, and it's equally far ahead of its time.


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The Jazz Butcher - Bloody Nonsense

Fulfillment of a long-standing promise to Gozzer

made possible by the good offices of Processed.


I've sung the praises of Butch before:

you know, a classic British eccentric,

a real Southern Mark Smith.

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AMG puts it this way:

This record is a greatest hits collection,

drawing many of its numbers from the mid-'80s albums

A Scandal in Bohemia and Sex and Travel.

Track selection here is

excellently representative of the artist,

a highly-varied clutch of Butcher's best work.

The ordering of songs is well-considered

and the sound quality is excellent.

This is an excellent introduction

for those unfamiliar with the work of this talented songwriter.

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Rocky says:

Perfect slight lazy summer pop

Without a care in the world and a puckish thumb of the nose.

This is a fresh raw rip straight from my 12" vinyl purchased @ Wax Trax in '86.

Aside from "The Human Jungle", "Southern Mark Smith", sublime "Partytime"

My favorite reasons for this record are "Big Saturday", "Drink", and "Rain"

Give 'em a spin and listen to the digitized needle crackle.

Laid-back goldbricking absurdist boho frippery

never sounded so godawful good.

Whimsy, ma'am?

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Paper Bird

My new favorite song.

After my post on Bob Ferbrache, I came across this lovely little song recorded a year and a half ago.

Paper Bird just released their new EP, engineered by Ferbrache.

Notice cellist Ian Cooke playing with them in this performance.

Just another reason the Denver Scene is so interesting right now.