VILLAGE OF SAVOONGA (s/t)
(THE COMMUNION
LABEL COMM54) CD
Released
the week of August 21st, 2000
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The music on this long awaited CD issue of the legendary first album by
Bavarian collective Village of Savoonga spans 1991-'94 and
still stands as the group's favorite material. With five non-LP songs
from rare singles and
compilations, this completes the Village of Savoonga discography on compact
disc.
Village of Savoonga's delightfully mysterious music has consistently
bewildered listeners with its beautiful, 3am-texture drapery, subdued
pacing, somber piano, scratchy looped sounds, and spooky organ-drenched
segments. Mood pieces, electronic manipulations and semi-structured rock
segments frequently originate as soundtracks for films - Sparta's Philipp
Schatz and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu in the case of tracks on their
acclaimed second album, Philipp Schatz.
The band's third full-length album, Score, found itself on
"Best of the Year" lists of numerous critics. The soundtracks here
originated
with rhythmic, noisy or "natural" sounds, further "alienated" by
electronics with loops and musical tracks layered on top, and completed
over a two-year period as the band added more layers and melded everything
into a pair of suites.
KIM GORDON / DJ
OLIVE / IKUE MORI: SYR5
(SYR / SONIC YOUTH RECORDS
SYR05) CD/2xLPReleased
the week of August 21st, 2000
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Midheaven mailorder
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Taking a breather from the Free Kitten snazz (while Miss Julie
births Alice and teaches inner city high school, Yoshimi lives about
10,000 miles away
and Mark Ibold is aswamp in the madness that is Pavement) Sonic Youth's
femme-mystere Kim Gordon has created a distinctly new trio of
spontaneous composition
and prose. Since reclaiming the electric guitar (her original instrument
with the Sonic Youth) and developing a newfound post-Patty Waters free-vox
technique, she has enjoined her vision with the improvisational
meta-talents of Ikue Mori (ex-drummer of no wave legends
DNA, currently in
a class by herself with other-world sampling) and DJ Olive (of
the wizardly
We, coiner of the ill term "illbient" and
regarded by those in the heavy
underground of postbeat turntable/drum'n'whatever as "the heaviest").
Together the trio hit the local boards throughout 1999 and created a
unified concept of sound/energy dynamix. They recorded with engineer
Wharton Tiers and mixmaster Jim O'Rourke for the
first recording on SYR not
by Sonic Youth proper (a situation which will be, possibly,
expanded upon).Cibo Matto's Yuka
Honda on a track, are at once sensuous, elegant and completely blistering.
This is truly the new illprovisation rising up from ground zero.
ANGUS MACLISE Brain
Damage In Oklahoma City
(SILTBREEZE SB81) CD
Released
the week of August 21st, 2000
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Brain Damage in Oklahoma City is the second installment in the
Siltbreeze/Quakebasket series of music by poet/mystic/shaman Angus
MacLise.
Culled from the archives of Mr. Tony Conrad, this volume (covering the
years 1967-'70) highlights MacLise's unique and intricate drumming style.
Cembalum, bongos, hand drum, barrel congas-all are majestically
thumped'n'bumped for maximum orgasmic sensory satisfaction.
Comprised of eight tracks, the acme of this collection is the two large
ensemble pieces, "Dreamweapon Benefit for the Oklahoma City Police Dept.
parts 1 & 2," featuring Angus (barrel conga), Hetty MacLise
(tampura), the
poet Jackson Maclow (recorders and voice), Henry Flynt
(song flute and
voice) and Tony Conrad (limp string). These tracks, recorded in May of
1968, are the apex of maximist loft style psychedelic improvisation.
Conrad's illuminating, occasionally hilarious liner notes set up the
narrative of this volume and offering a brief glimpse back into the
mind-scrambling fracas that was NYC, USA, Earth 1968. Along with more
gorgeous, brain-warpng Invasion-stryle sleeve art, included in the CD
booklet is a reproduction of the poster for the Dreamweapon Benefit,
confirmation in black and white that for four nights in May, 1968, Wooster
Street Cinematheque was definitely one witchy place to be.
ROY MONTGOMERY
Allegory of Hearing
(DRUNKEN FISH DF47) CD
Released
the week of August 21st, 2000
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After the success of last year's Roy Montgomery album on
Drunken Fish, And
Now The Rain..., and the first installment of Roy's singles
compilation 324
E. 13th St. #7, The Allegory Of Hearing is set to
bring even more adoration
upon New Zealand's true "guitar hero."
Recorded in Montgomery's harbor cottage in Lyttelton, NZ, during October
1998 on his trusty Tascam Porta One and mixed in January 2000,
Allegory is
a return to an instrumental palette first witnessed on his debut DFR CD
Scenes From The South Island and Temple IV CD (Kranky).
Armed with newly
acquired Rickenbacker 12-string and vintage Farfisa electric organ, plus is
usual Teisco, e-bow, and Quadraverb arsenal, RM has created eight short
soundtracks of a particularly meditative nature. All, save one, clock in at
under six minutes, making this a slightly more digestable dish for those
with smaller appetites. But fans of Montgomery's high-profile contribution
to Harmony of the Spheres collection will be pleased
with the exception,
"Resolution Island Suite," which clocks in at over 17 minutes, was
premiered at Terrastock II in San Francisco 1998, and appears here reworked
in an instrumental form. The title, by the way, refers to an island at the
far southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand named for British
explorer Captain James Cook's vessel, the Resolution, from his second visit
to NZ in 1773. The island was used 100 years later by an Irish immigrant
named Richard Henry (1845-1929) as a sanctuary for endangered flightless
birds that were being hunted into extinction. Unfortunately, the hundreds
of birds he transferred perished, as he'd misjudged the distance small
mustelid and rodent predators could swim. He retired a decade later, rather
despondently, unaware that his amateur ornithological work would provide
the basic knowledge and practice for conservation work for the next century
and beyond. The album is therefore dedicated to Richard Henry other
socially flightless birds who have turned their talents toward nature.
ABSTRACT
TRIBE UNIQUE South Central Thynk Taynk
(MASSMEN
MASS08) CD
Released
the week of August 21st, 2000
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Following the dreamy sound and conscious lyricism of Abstract Tribe
Unique's Mood Pieces album, Abstract Rude (tha
Skorpion), Irie (Lyon King),
Zulu (Butterfly Priest), and producer Fatjack (the
Elephant) got together
to create their second venture, South Central Thynk
Taynk-their attempt at
soulful stimulation of a hip hop community they saw as oversaturated with
underachievement. Together they combine jazz, funk, and soul into a
signature atmospheric sound that provides the foundation upon which
Abstract Rude lays his deep, melancholy voice.
Originally released by Ocean Floor in 1998, South Central Thynk Taynk
deserves the worldwide appreciation that a reissuing by Massmen, now the
home of all Abstract Tribe Unique releases, will surely secure.
ABSTRACT
TRIBE UNIQUE Instrumental
(MASSMEN MASS06) LP
Released
the week of August 21st, 2000
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Abstract Tribe Unique, along with fellow L.A. pioneers
Freestyle Fellowship and Aceyalone, have gained worldwide notoriety
for their mesmerizing live performances and thought-provoking,
consciousness-raising lyrical styles. But they are probably most
respected for their extremely stylized blend of soul, fusion, and hip
hop, a bangin' combination of catchy hooks that leaves people humming
long after the pause button has been pushed. The eight
all-instrumental tracks-- lifted from their three previous albums
(Mood Pieces and the soon-to-be reissued pair South Central
Thynk Taynk and Underground Fossils) and their
contributions to the Project Blowed album-- showcase hot new
versions of tunes most requested by fans of their atmospheric,
grooving sounds.
ALLES WIE GROSS
Vertonung