Various Artists - Cookie Wagon

Label : Dhyana Records - DHY 018

Year : 1999

Country : Allemagne

Format : C90

In a world of such far-flunged conclusions and twisted spiders' webs in terms of international Cosmic Coincidences, it can't be too far-fetched to come to the realization that all of these musical blogs found here on the Wired are just a part of a conspiracy seeded by M.Nomized to spread each and every one of his appearances on obscure cassette compilations. It's always the French, right?

For the first time in this post, I would like to speak seriously, if for a moment. No joke, there is some good stuff on display here. Contained within the (unscanned) brown envelope, a musical world is unleashed. Alright I wasn't being very serious there, but I digress as always. 

Dhyana are a weird case. Of course, it's not like I can't say that about every single label I've posted from here; but they are weird even in the context of this strange conception. This German outfit dabbles in a lot more forms of experimental EM than what is usual, which acts somewhat to the detriment of their comps in my damaged drums. You may like it, but some of the stuff here sounds dated to me. And I like quite a bit of stuff that could be put under such a nebulous label. I dunno, definitely a lot of interesting stuff going on here but man, some of that IDM and DnB kinda stuff didn't age well. Don't take it from me, though, take it from the Man!

Here

Lucien Suel - In Hymnis Et Canticis

Label : Rare Produx - No. 25

Country : France

Year : 1991

Format : C90

Furniture music, as per French neo-tradition. French-Canadian, maybe? The original issue of this first appeared on my radar when it was transiently archived on the tentatively run Noise-Arch on-line compen-dium. It was one of the exclusive and elusive members of the [IYD] tapes page, a section of the website that probably only I, in my most humble manner of being, had the outside knowledge of. It eluded the various caches and ambitious archives which sends out their little arachnids to parse whatever they can find. Unfortunately, I do not have much of the faintest memory of what "IYD" means or even stands for. Some more ephemera for the lot.

Anywho, the main dish as presented is here (I'll try to pare down on food comparisons, it really is a plague these days). The reason I exposited upon this meaningless little historie is to give a bit of perspective as to why I went and bought this thing. I do recall enjoying the little mp3 provided by the site, though obviously I had only listened to a portion of it. It seemed the avant-poetic folkisms were the primary instead of the utter secondary, but the concrete musics in sounds of washing hands and various amplified materials really take center stage. Call it like the Bernstein bears or whatever, I just have shit memory.

Here

And yet another "Reupload Roundup"????

andmoreagaiN....

City Wildlife - City Wildlife

Label : Edition Unibeirrt - L

Country : Switzerland

Year : 1987

Format : C30

Swiss not Scheiße. Neutral bias, maybe? Another one from the conspicuous corner of New Wave obscurity; Residential, yes. Dash of early Ween I feel. To avoid rehashing my RYM review, I'll actually talk about the music in English rather than buzzwords and halfhearted platitudes.

Yes, a mini-album as described by the experts at Discogs dot com. As can be seen from the tracklisting on the J-card you can get a glimpse of the brevity of most tracks on the album. Sketches more like, as I do like to describe. The music is a strange minimal treat for minimal ears. Synth experiments mix with vocal experiments and guitar experiments. Or maybe it sounds like one big (small) experiment. A demo album, perhaps? Maybe that's how I got it from Recrec just a week or few days ago.

Here

The next reupload roundup comes nearer and nearer, just need to polish some stuff up; Stayed tune, mon  lecteur.

Guy Clerbois - La Dernière Tentation Du Disque

Label : Ayaa - PSOCDA 1

Country : France

Year : 1993

Format : CD

Ripped by Scramoutcha

Oh, hello. Here is another rip from my fine friend from across that big old body of water--an old rip at that. A sideproject of the frontman (as if there was much of a backing) of the monumental synth-spazz project Vitor Hublot. Somewhat a departure here, maybe more. Here is essentially, at the time, the previous 20 or so years in recorded music history given the John Oswald treatment. Er, if Oswald hadn't already done that at the same time frame. Maybe a bit more obscure in choice here, though I do recognize many a phrase here, and I have a terrible memory! Particularly the first the track-from the getgo I can recognize that song, see if you can. I can't even remember which song it was.

A familiar cast of characters. I wonder if this was an artistic choice or one borne out of the need to credit the musicians themselves. I'll go with both.

Here

Iceplants - Cravenous

Label : Small Tools Tradition

Year : 1992

Country : US

Format : CD

Ooooo this is a pleasant surprise! (Apologies to the other variety of surprise)

Actually, maybe it is unpleasant. Iceplants were never a pastoral group, totally negative type music. Jaunty self-murder ballads, things of that nurture. They sounded British to me at first, but they were actually germinated from the pistols and stamens that populated the burgeoning fleurs du mal of the 80s Colorado subunderground scene. Dismal, really. This is quite a bit different from the other material (paltry amount of which) I've heard from this old and exciting project. Less "dark" cabaret and more Industrial-ambient postpunk. Still, it's worth getting your ears on.

My search for the rest of the material of this band is almost nearing completion... Unless they have even more stuff I don't know about. My next step in this journey might find me at the Library of Congress. I just have to thank my good digital friend Tony Coulter and whoever gave this to him for making the trek abit lighter.

Here

Breather - Loves And Disloves

Label : Sonic Incision Records - SI 001

Country : US

Year : 1984

Format : LP

You might be familiar with this one, a rip of it has come to pass a couple times throughout the blogosphere. I bought it for a bargain while on vacation, so I figured I'd post it. I seem to remember the existing rip being rather unsatisfying... Though I am not a very good arbiter for such a thing. I think the tracks were combined and was only encoded at 256kbps, so I'll do it a couple things better. Properly ripped and post-processed (to a certain extent, I'm too cheap to buy click repair), in clear FLAC.

The album itself is prime Bay Area weirdowave, a Goth facsimile with a guise of sparse avantrock. Good stuff.

Here

Olliwor - To Many Heroes

Label : Das Moniflabel - PP015

Year : 1988

Country : Switzerland

Format : C60

Or is it "OILiwoЯ"? Think Chris Knox further augmented by the Residents and label honcho 

Die Welttraumforscher, and at times antecedent to the utterly unique Svede mrperfect.

Another treat from the welt of Loon:

a previous mystery to me in the Moniflabel catalog, I had only so much information provided to me about the who's and what's of this project; Olliwor Fried is the token.

On this tape, the singularly named Olliwor

plays the browns as it were, a focus on

lowfi pop and the odd interlude

of dreamtime.

My comparisons above were rather immediate connections.

     Very Tall Dwarfs, in an affected English that is. The best parts of this exercise is the bent melodies mixed with

       the discordant synths and fuzzed out geetars. It is rather different from the usual Forscher affair but also very much hereditary, especially based on what I have heard from the early days of the label.

I'm going to continuously seek out as much as I can from Das Moniflabel 

With that, enjoie.

Here

Ornament & Crime Arkhestra - Live At The III. ITIM Festival

Label : Amf-Music - amf 1035

Country : Germany

Year : 1994

Format : CD

Ripped by Scramoutcha

I don't think this has anything to do with Sun Ra, but it is apparently an Arkhestra. A point of departure of sorts from Alain Neffe, or maybe not. I associate their music with the kind that pulsates electronically through synthetic means, this is a bit more of a jazzy and organic palpitation. Very folk too, though avant in its intentions. Still peppered with industrial backings, so this alien muse is not too alien.

Here

X-Ray Eyes - X-Ray Eyes

Label : Megaphone Limited - 007

Country : US

Year : 1994

Format : CD

Ripped by Scramoutcha

Another bountiful feast from my friend over the information superhighway. This has been on my radar for a little while and I've finally got a blip. Those familiar with Megaphone Limited will have a good bit to like here, and some recognizables as well. Improvisational folk and pop melodies crash discordantly with its jazz and atonal origins. Jason Willett and Caroline Kraabel ring a bell? This album certainly is rrrringing hoooo!

"utterly individual (albeit gently so)" says the website

Schwarzwurz / Harald "Sack" Ziegler - Zugabäh! / Helau?

Label : Senseless Gebollah - SG ! #14

Country : Germany

Year : 1993

Format : C60

Back to our regularly scheduled programme, as abnormally placated it is. I got this tape from the honcho of the immortal Ebus tape conglomerate on Discogs recently, and it certainly is a strange beast. The A-side is composed of live performances from a band/duo/project/experiment called Schwarzwurz. Prior to this I had no exposure to them and on first glance, they are pretty damn wild. Noise-industrial improv, "Fuck You" kind of music.

Now the B-side is from a figure that I have a much greater familiarity with. Harald "Sack" Ziegler has been putting out warped pop for years, and with a live backing it becomes even rougher.

Just the two sides ripped, pristine and without any bells and whistles in the post-processing and splitting processes. Since the tracks are quite hard to discern from one another due to the quality and nature of live performance and my ignorance of most of the content, I hope it's acceptable.

Here

Marica - 海Jellyfish月

Label : Invitation - CDR-1465

Country : Japan

Year : 1987

Format : CD

Crossarmed and pangless.
Truth be told, I was juggling the notion of whether I should post this here or on my "sister blog", given that this is a bit too poppy for the content here and not quite the "Avant-garde Jazz, Leftfield, Post-Punk" posited by Discogs; truly the treachery of labels there.

Truth be told a second time, this isn't an avantpop romp, but a solid slice of 80s Japanese new-wave. We in the industry (note: not industrial) throw these kinda releases under the nebulous umbrella of "Art Pop". Not quite Kate Bush, but I never listened to her anyway.

So, why wait? Immerse yourself in synthpop goodness... the kids on-line are always impressed by obscure Japanese albums.

Here

Die Welttraumforscher - Ein Sommer In Der Wirklichkeit

Label : Das Moniflabel - PP026

Country : Switzerland

Year : 1991

Format : LP

Ripped by Scramoutcha

Friends are becoming easier to come by, another guest rip. Via the slsk chat service I have been in correspondence with this fine fellow for the past few weeks, and we have reciprocated gifts with each other ever since. I've mentioned Die Welttraumforscher before in a post from the side gig called "Loon", where I briefly laid out my various admirations for the protjection.

Released in the early 90s on his own imprint, Christian (Pfluger) lays out rumsey in the feeling that lingers, to butcher a Bodycocktail tape title. Whimsical, great word. A cheatcode in description, a word which can describe (as descriptions ought) a myriad of ecstatic feeling without giving too much in the way of actual thought. Anyway, it is whimsical. On a whim, I can imagine, 'ol Weltschmerz cut this piece of plastic in a matter of a few afternoons. The synth melodies are pretty as ever, the minimalisms of which compound and impress upon the remote listener an appropriately dreamlike quality.

My supplier compared it to the latter nineties group Broadcast--"Tender Buttons" in specification--which I can definitely hear though very much stripped down and lowfidelity. Yes, yes, yes; less Romandie Stereolab and more... Well Swiss Die Welttraumforscher. Not much like it, doesn't take a world of dream researchers to find that out.

 Here

Comes with both the original rip and the declicked version, use either or both at your convenience.

(also, it's FLAC)

ひうがなつ [Hiuganatsu] - 日向夏

Label : Club Lunatica - CL-009

Country : Japan

Year : 2000

Format : CD

So this disc finally came in, after about 2 months worth of travelling over the open seas and across the new frontier I present it you. That's what I get for cheaping out with Surface shipping. See the cover there? That's what the album sounds like: a summer afternoon tinted yellow with the diffusion of sunbeams. The low hanging cloud localised inside the corridor also fits, somehow.

It feels as if this unique scene of Japanese music is always producing surprises, a lot of good stuff here. Accordion heavy, which is always good, and with an immature light. Based on that description alone I've heard this album dozens of times before, and yet it is unique. I am not so sure if this is a scene like I said offhand before or if it is just a coincidental mishmash of likeminded musicians operating at the same time and working with the same tuneful clay. Or maybe that's just what a scene actually is.

I appreciate that they were so kind as to include an English translation of the lyrics, just a nice little touch. Though this is certainly more Francophone than Anglo given the credence towards such musicians as France Gall and Klimperei.

                        Here

Failing Lights - True Form

Here