Foreign World - Trying To Escape

Label : Foreign Records - F.R.001

Country : Canada

Year : 1984

Format : LP

Escapism, or at least an attempt. Less an excursion into a fictional world and more of a desperate following of uncertain paths out of it. Case in point:

A far cry from what I was given in elementary school. Anyway,

onto the music.

That's what has brought us together today.

I've been at this for so long, and I've never really stopped to think about my methods. No, not those methods. "Ripping" yes, but for plastic platters. I have taken a concerted effort of observing other intrepid givers in the community, be they on trackers or on their own blog, and what equipment they use. It seems obvious to me that my rips have been of a fairly lower quality, with noticeable hums, outdated tech, unnecessary parts of a chain, etc... This one isn't so bad given the "slightly warped" as described nature of the record and my lack of a Gritty Doctor 500 or whatever. I'll be lookin' at tomorrow (Welfare) 

Oh yeah, this is some interesting stuff. A sort of ambient electro-folk improvised. A friend pointed out that it reminded him of number stations broadcasts, an eerie unsettler. I like to think some of the vinyl scraping gives it a character all on its own.

here

Electroscоpe - Where The Оscilloscope Meets The Magic Eye

Label : Boa Records - HISS 8

Country : UK

Year : 1996

Format : C60

From the rack, to the deck, to the jack, music blogging's happy lexicon. I've had this for about a year now (a lucky find at a somewhat local hXc-orientated wreckord shop) but hesitated to crack it open and leave it for all to see like I usually do. There's probably a reason for that hesitation, a reason I have either forgotten or repressed but it's all moot now.......

.........Grace it. Lo-fi organ ballads, of the dirge variety. Well, not that sad. Pretty warm, actually. Farfisa noodlings, disparate drum programming and the real thing, sometimes voice poke through the grey light. They run a unique ship here, not sure about a tight one, and it doesn't seem a ship: too abstract.

Here

Sejayno / Maths Balance Volumes - Split

Label : 8mm Records - 8mm 031

Country : Italy

Year : 2008

Format : C44

This one's a bit odd, I feel like I got a bootleg of a bootleg. There is some sort of incongruence between my copy and everywhere else I've looked on the web, biggest glare being the difference in cover and tracklisting. Most places I see it's usually just the bird without a listing under it. Also, I can't find any place that links the "Blade Runner" track title to this release or to anything by Sejayno for that matter. Strange.

Speaking of Sejayno, whose name I always mess up for whatever reason, I have another release of theirs that I might post if I feel... Inclined to do so. You might also be familiar with MBV, but I don't have anything else by them. Though I did have Loveless a long while ago, pretty good album you might have heard of it.

Both groups do a noisy take on freefolk from what I see, Blastitude fodder from what I hear. Another Pierre ambiguity is the track order itself, my tape topside is dominated by Seyjano and the flipside likewise sublimated by Math Balances Volume, which contradicts what the "official" websites say... Odd.

Here

Shep and Me - Nasturtium Inertia

Label : Dear Skull - DS-011

Country : US

Year : 2011

Format : LP

Here's another album for you guys, with the same folk flavor as the last. Truth being, this is free/avant folk in a more Charlie A. McAlister way than a Jackie-O Motherfucker tinge like the last one. Small scale and lowfi ambient pieces abound.

This is a remastered reissue of a 2009 tape. This rerelease is of the odd assortment: it is abridged and yet it is obliged. What I mean by that is that two tracks from the original tape release are redacted in favor of two new ones. Good tidings, a worthy reason to download this one if you happen to have the original. This records packaging is something interesting, too. The sleeve itself is encased in what I can only describe as faux-hardwood flooring texture, and that itself is covered by the album sleeve. Tough nut to crack.

Here

IS - IS

Label : Awesome Vistas - AV-08

Country : US

Year : 2009

Format : LP

It's a real shame I can't really give cool anecdotes on these interesting recordings I find and post here, like all those other respectable illegal filesharing joints. Most of the time, I just find wreckords at a local shop and take em home with little in the way of an obstacle. Quite boring. Maybe I should start writing fictitious proseworks to spice things up. Anyway, what IS this? IS is IS, an improvisational grouping centering around Chris Johanson and his merry group of friends, as seen in this insert:

 A bit voyeuristic, an email conversation between the culprits of this work of freefolk ambiance. As I had found later, some of these cats are pretty big luminaries in the once big(?) free impro-folk scene, lotsa Jackie-O Mothereffer alumni. It's nice, an exercise in a now seemingly bygone style in two sides which probably made for a good soundtrack for the exhibition it was created for. Now that I am thinking for the first time in awhile, I never really thought to check which side is which as this information is obfuscated by the fact that each side is marked by a colored label instead of the traditional text laden generic... I suppose it doesn't matter, unless someone is very serious about the archival of late oughts indie-pain-dance in plasticity.

Here