Showing posts with label 7 inch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 7 inch. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Toychestra - Toychestra

 

Label : Self-Released
Country : US
Year : 1999
Format : 7 inch

More toy-based avantpop for whoever still pops their head in here. Not much to really say that wouldn't involve the term "toy" being repeated incessantly, but it's more than worth a short listen. In contrast to the delightful music and artworks, the sleeve smells of old cigarettes. 
Funny what secondhand goods can get you.


The group runs a tight ship at bandcamp, so check that out if you want the rest of their discog.




Monday, December 9, 2019

Defuser - World Suicide And Freeze Please

Label : Landslide Records - LSD-502
Year : 1982
Country : US
Format : 7 inch

Here's a real classic, straight from the underground bunkers.

Chiefly the B-side, which is atypically featured in prominence compared to the headliner Freeze Please. You might have heard it before on various platforms and differing qualities, but I figured I would throw my hat in the ring and post my own personal rip. Fresh! 
Defuser were a very intriguing project in the new wave oeuvre: frenetic synths match up to the frenetic vocalisms, a combo which really works as expected. Though that's a little vague, I'd let this speak for itself at 45 revolutions per minute.
 Here
While Defuser hasn't gotten the VoD treatment or a sniff of a CD retrospective, you can make do while someone picks up the pieces by going to their website that's packed with info and good old MP3s.

Friday, November 2, 2018

Circadian Rhythm - 新鮮なかおり

Label : Air Records - AIR-3008
Country : Japan
Year : 1986
Format : 7 inch
Some Eastern hospitality in the form of a cute little 7 inche package. The music is quite comfortable, too. A languid Lacrymosa side project, with pop sensibilities between the avant bursts. It's odd, I quite enjoy the B side and do like the chintzy little melodies of the A-side, but this doesn't grab me as much as I would have anticipated... It has all the niceties of the Japanese new wave in all its [musical description/cliche] and weirdo sensibilities (or zolo, whatever that is). Sort of like a lot of technopop I hear, I would prefer to hear kraftverk or O. My. Dee.
Of course, I could just let it settle. Let it grow on me, yes, grow on me like a, er, mushroom. Yes, yes, yes, yes,  Psilocybin hallucination or insomnia? I'll go with the latter, my circadian clock's only right a couple times per day.
I neglected to scan the back side of this one, wouldn't you believe it? Lucky enough, someone was gracious enough to facilitate the missing spaces to Discogs, making my job halfway obsolete. Oh, if you would like to hear more from this rather obscure outfit I recommend checking out Tony Coulter's show on WFMU. If you bug him enough he might just queue em up.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Napalmed / Mood Nanamenicaca - Split

Label : Napalmed
Country : Czech Republic
Year : 1999
Format : 7 inch

What was a Christmas present to me is a Boxing Day gift to you, the reader. Hope you all have had a jovial holiday, and if not, I hope to at least spread some joy your ways. Here's some stirring sounds provided by Czech noise masters Napalmed and a sideproject of a blog favorite in Hachiman-Mae.

Now, I'm not sure if many of those who come by this blog read my reviews on rate your music, but I'll keep this brief so as to not create a retread of my review of this on there. This split was something of a surprise to me as it played along, shattering my expectations ov it. At first glance, I had thought this would be a coin of different sides in terms of sound: The harsh machinations of Napalmed and the lowfi junkfolk of Hachiman-Mae. But, as you may hear, it deviates quite a bit from my preconceived notions.
For one, the two sides do not present much of a radical difference from one another when it comes to general aesthetic. Two sides of electronic experimentation as it were. Though Napalmed's contributions fall more into the realms of industrial synth and Mood Nanamenicaca's in the ways of glitch collage, the aural arenas are not separated so much as they are in perpendicular realities. If that makes any sense at all.


Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Tsukimoto Tadashi [月本正] - 1983-1985

Label : n/a
Country : Japan
Year : 1987
Format : 7 inch flexi

Probably the sparsest record that's been shown a light on this blog. Each little track comes and goes as the needle crosses borders between grooves, leaving only jilted melodie and lowfi guitar and piano recordings behind.

I said before on a different site recently, this is one for fans of pseudo-children's muzak the likes of Uncle Calvin's Private Life, maybe Dragibus, etc... But this is a much more stripped down version of that kind of stuff, so donut expect some elektrik eccentricism. The influence of nursery chimes is obvious when he himself gives thanks to his childhood on the back cover. Placed above his halcyon days, he also gives thanks to the great D.D. Records, one of the greatest tape labels in Japon's fabled histry.

I believe Tsukimoto appears on the excellent DD comp "Disk Musik", performing a chune not unfamiliar to the stylings posed here. He also appeared on some compilations put out by the also excellent and eclectic Fifth Column label.







Saturday, November 11, 2017

Various Artists - Industrial Folk Vol. 1

Label : Squealer - SQR 014
Year : 1995
Country : US
Format : 7 inch

Since I'm lazy, I'll just paste the review for this I made on Rateyourmusic:
An interesting little document of something of a sound of bygone days, described here as "Industrial Folk"--not Industrial folk as in the traditional music of the worker but of the "merger of folk roots with modern technology" sez the liner notes. Further on, these folkish roots "are modified by the alien technologies available to the modern artist; tape loops, feedback, and the static of everyday life". I feel like I'm padding an essay here, but it is a pretty interesting perspective especially in retrospect.

A number of these artists would not seem too unfamiliar to those who have gone through the underwaternow tape archive. In fact, I associate this time and place and sound and aesthetic with this particular website. A different flavor of cassette culture.

If you could gather any meaning from that melange of text, I mean to say it's a pretty cool EP. I was going to make a grandiose point on how appropriate that something christened "Industrial Folk" would emerge from the fallen follies of the rust belt, when I realized only a few of these groups would qualify as being from said wastelands. 

That's a cool thought, though. "Industrial Folk" as a genre, not Industrial Worker Folk music, which apparently is something that people have categorized, but a designation for the fin de millénaire incarnation of lofi folk found on some-a tape from labels like Shrimper or Bees Make Honey or, of course, Squealer. 





Sunday, August 13, 2017

Pineal Ventana - Stagnancy Is Revolting

Label : PV Records - PV1
Country : US
Year : 1993
Format : 7 inch
Perhaps out of character, have a post-HC record. Saved by its noisy demeanor, however. I may be losing my edge, I almost bought a minimal techno record and very well may have posted it here had I done it (it was rather good, though. Probably should have picked it up). A digression, as they call it, but I appeal to it here.


 Back to the little slab o' vinilo presented, just some scorching noise-industrial sized punx for the discernible of disturbances. A track that it isn't listed actually persists here, which I have made the distinction of in the rip, just for you. There's some nice vinyl messabouts to change it up from the average noisepunck charade, whether its physical or aural I don't really know.


(note to the self, get Photoshop or something to help me stitch manually in a coherent fashion)

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Zuppa Di Pesce - Cicoria / Zucchinie Trifolate


Label : Enban - PC-2
Year : 2009
Country : Japan
Format : 7 inch

Here's a recent item from my own collection. Itoken is a rather prolific musician in the Japanese vanguard, codifying the sounds of some great groups like Harpy and Win A Sheep Free. This project is not so different from those of his past, keeping the avant-garde inclinations and nostalgic enterprises into children's music, only this time it's aiming for a cuisine-themed concept with a brass sidedish. Enban seems to be an obscure little epicentre of the Japanese style of Avant-pop that has sprung about the turn of the century or so, hosting the aforementioned Itoken and the likes of Jon.

As mentioned above, this is a food centered little slab. The titles of both tracks reference Italian dishes and even includes a nice little Italian excursion which probably talks about the foods if I knew a lick of it (see above). They actually have a CD out with the same concept, if anyone has it and is willing to share I'm all ears.




Sunday, March 26, 2017

Semicolon - Violent Sneeze & The Neighbor's Pool

Label : Shimmy-Disc - SHIMMY-793
Country : US
Year : 1993
Format : 7 inch

An odd one, this. I've had this for awhile and decided to let this loose to help squelch the creative malaise this blog has been experiencing the past month or so... I'll give it to you guys straight and to the point: it's recorded at the wrong speed. Yep, at about 12 less revolutions taken for what's needed for pain. This is necessary, however, as the original recording is generic folk rock with a female muse, whereas the one presented here is more of a darkfolk interpretation with a bit of a demon's growl.

Also, I haven't been able to fix the buzzing that has become more prominent over the past year, probably a preamp issue, maybe the receiver itself. I won't be able to sort this out til I get new equipment probably.


Thursday, March 9, 2017

Soul-Junk - 1946

Label : Sub Pop - SP 301
Country : US
Year : 1995
Format : 7 inch

Soul-Junk, the slightly less spastic and more theologically inclined Trumans Water, is a project I've heard about for a long while. Now that I've heard them, I'm casually intrigued to say the least. The most interesting part of this particular slab of waveforms are the free jazz sputterings of the interludes, before giving away to more conventional (and to my taste, too "alt rock") songforms. It's a quicky to be sure.



Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Candiru / Fat Hacker - Split

Label : Red Stream Inc. - RSR-0103
Year : 1993
Country : US
Format : 7 inch
I've posted a lot of Industrial musics on this blog, but I've never really divulged in the rock or metallic side of the "genre". Barring some exceptions depending on your definition of Industrial rock/metal, of course. I don't really care for this kind of stuff, preferring the more noisy and abstract sound. This release itself is no real outlier in this calamity. Enjoy, some Harrisburg bred Industrial rawk split with some NY style racket.



Friday, January 6, 2017

The Judas Iscariot - Skeptics, Mystics and Blind Idolaters...

Label : Denied A Custom - CUSTOM #2
Country : Japan
Year : 1997
Format : 7 inch

I've kept this one hidden away from the blog for quite a while, thinking it wouldn't really fit the mold. It's a bit too hard/grindcore for my tastes, unlike their previous (and better, in my view) EP "Harrison Bergeron Bound?". Flashes of what I like from that release can be heard in the penultimate track "wheres the cheese and mission?". From the packaging and band name, this takes on a theological theme of sorts. Speaking of the packaging, it is pretty elaborate, if not varied. Letters, a little picturebook, and some catalogs in this little 7 inch EP. It even includes a little biography for the band, in Japanese:
OCR'd:
音楽、ミュージカル、オペラなどなどの宝庫で知られるニューヨーク。 まん いずざばすたーどに対抗するバンドはやはり存在した...ギターレス ストレートフォワードスラッシュジャズと言えば、JUDAS ISCARIOT。 15人分のギターをー人のベースプレーヤーであるJeff がまかなうバンド、 JUDAS ISCARIOT。7inch に12曲も詰め込んでしまったつわもの3人組。 偶像崇拝物 (宗教・UFOなど) すべてを否定するために付けられたタイト ルが, この Skeptics, Mystics and Blind Idolaters...。スローな曲に飽きさしまった、バンド編成にギターはいらないと思う人、ぜひ御ー聴を!最初から 飛ばして行きます、JUDAS ISCARIOT。イエスは、。最後のユダを待ってい た。ニューヨークのJUDAS ISCARIOT (ユダイスカリオテ) をよろしく。
Using machine translation, it says somethin' about New York (TJI's home state) being thee home of operas and some such stuff. It's probably not very accurate, daga. Also included in the packaging was this typed letter signed by the label honcho themself, Yoshiyuki Takahashi (no relation to the mangaka of the same name, I assume). It seems like a heartfelt response to a letter from the previous owner, but for all I know it could have been included in every mail-ordered record sent to the states.
In addition to these snippets are some other scraps of printed matter:
Perhaps the coolest thing is little novelette, rife with topographic illustration and esoteric texts:





 That about does it for the packaging, for me the most interesting part of this little release. I never particularly liked straight hardcore punx or grindcore so this is a bit of a wash for me, the more artsy punky aspects of their work is found elsewhere.



(Note the idiosyncratic capitalization, is that a cipher?)