Feb 29, 2016

RhoDeo 1609 Watchmen 05

Hello,


Watched any great books lately? Now you can. The most celebrated graphic novel of all time that broke the conventional mold continues to break new ground. Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons oversees this digital version of the graphic novel that adds limited motion, voice and sound to the book's strikingly drawn panels. All 12 chapters of the story are here, nearly 5 hours spanning everything from the mysterious demise of the Comedian to the crisscrossed destinies of loosely allied superheroes to their fateful impact on the world. Be in the know. Be watching. With Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic.... N'Joy

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A critical and commercial success, Watchmen is highly regarded in the comics industry and is frequently considered by several critics and reviewers as comics' greatest series and graphic novel. In time, the series has also become one of the best-selling graphic novels ever published. Watchmen was the only graphic novel to appear on Time's 2005 "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels" list, where Time critic Lev Grossman described the story as "a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium." It later appeared on Time's 2009 "Top 10 Graphic Novels" list, where Grossman further praised Watchmen, proclaiming "It’s way beyond cliché at this point to call Watchmen the greatest superhero comic ever written-slash-drawn.




The Watchmen: Motion Comic is a 2008 American animated short film series of motion comics for web and television based on the DC comic book series Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The series consists of twelve abridged 25–30 minute segments, each based on and sharing a name with one of the twelve chapters of the book. Both male and female characters are voiced by actor Tom Stechschulte. It was released on DVD in March 2009 to coincide with the Watchmen movie’s release.


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In October 1985, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and on the eve of nuclear war, a depressed Rorschach, one of several outlawed vigilante superheroes, begins to investigate why all former masked superheroes are either dead or have declined. When another one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion--a disbanded group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers--Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future.



Watchmen The Motion Comic 05 Fearful Symmetry... (avi  233mb)

05 Fearful Symmetry... 25:31

Rorschach continues to pursue his "mask killer" theory, focusing on Moloch. Moloch is murdered and Rorschach is the target of a setup, leading to his capture by the police.

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previously

Watchmen The Motion Comic 01 At Midnight, All the Agents... (avi  233mb)
Watchmen The Motion Comic 02 Absent Friends... (avi  233mb)
Watchmen The Motion Comic 03 The Judge of All the Earth... (avi  233mb)
Watchmen The Motion Comic 04 Watchmaker... (avi  233mb)

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Feb 28, 2016

Sundaze 1609

Hello,

Much to its credit, electronic dance music has always played fast and loose with its own history. A hugely sprawling form hyped on progress, it seems to announce a new aesthetic revolution every few weeks. Movements divide into micromovements, which then splinter into even smaller subsets, which in turn fan out into different camps, and so on. Each gets its own name, its own historical precursors, its own migration lines, its own self-aware philosophy. And even if, like the high sciences, these variations get parsed out in a language largely impenetrable to those not obsessed with obscure nuance, at the very least they stand in for electronica’s heartening faith in meaningful change. Underlying that spirit, though, is a conflict over the importance of the music’s dance roots. Fans of the unfortunately named IDM (Intelligent Dance Music; ugh) consider danceability a sort of blight on their new language, while dance-floor populists dismiss the former as obnoxiously cerebral and pretentious.

Glitch is a genre of electronic music that emerged in the late 1990s. It has been described as a genre that adheres to an "aesthetic of failure," where the deliberate use of glitch-based audio media, and other sonic artifacts, is a central concern. Sources of glitch sound material are usually malfunctioning or abused audio recording devices or digital electronics, such as CD skipping, electric hum, digital or analog distortion, bit rate reduction, hardware noise, software bugs, crashes, vinyl record hiss or scratches and system errors. In a Computer Music Journal article published in 2000, composer and writer Kim Cascone classifies glitch as a subgenre of electronica, and used the term post-digital to describe the glitch aesthetic.

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Mille Plateaux (the name was taken from Mille Plateaux, a philosophy book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, published in 1980).is an influential electronica record label founded 1993 by Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2000, to take advantage of the popularity of glitch music in the electronic music scene, Mille Plateaux released their Clicks & Cuts Series, which showed both Mille Plateaux and non-Mille Plateaux glitch music luminaries exploring the genre.

In early 2004, Mille Plateaux parent company Force Inc. Music Works went bankrupt due to the collapse of Germany's main independent music distributor, EFA-Medien. Mille Plateaux and other Force Inc. Music Works owned labels were folded at that time. The label was revived briefly in late 2004 under the name MillePlateauxMedia, with 4 releases. In 2005, two releases were made by RAI STREUBEL MUSIC S.L. on the label Supralinear with the note "by Mille Plateaux".

In 2006, Mille Plateaux (along with the other former Force Inc. Music Works labels Force Inc. and Force Tracks) was taken over by the Berlin-based company Disco Inc. Ltd., who only released two CD albums. In March 2008, Mille Plateaux was acquired by TOTAL RECALL, an online store and distributor for used and new music. With new owner Marcus Gabler, known as singer of the band Okay as the A&R manager, they aim to close the gap existing since 2003 and continue the original work. Mille Plateaux relaunched its activities on 7 May 2010, with three new albums.

Sublabels
Ritornell Started 1999. Even more abstract and experimental than the parent.
Cluster Started 2010. Releases experimental ambient music.
Force Intel (sister label) Started 2010. Releases less experimental electronic music, typically IDM.


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There's no evading Mille Plateaux's ambitions with Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 2, a mammoth triple-disc compilation pretentiously attempting to both summarize and further the German techno label's self-termed click movement. The label's first volume appeared a year earlier and took some time to resonate before garnering tremendous critical praise by the year's end. Thankfully, after a year's worth of follow-up records, press releases, and year-end awards, the curiously awaited Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 2 doesn't disappoint, proving that there is more to the click movement than hype and overwrought theorizing. First of all, contrary to what this album's academic liner notes may have you believe, don't get too hung up on exactly what the click aesthetic implies: Just know that the music found on this compilation was composed on computers rather than analog gear, the artists tend to employ some sort of subtle glitch-like sounds, and that the sonic vocabulary for composing this music is remarkably vast. Given these common attributes, it's no surprise that the 36 artists featured here present an oceanic breadth of styles. Some (SND, Farben, Auch) drift toward stark yet melodic minimal techno, some (Vladislav Delay, Kid 606, Rude Solo) aim for the dancefloor; others (Andreas Tilliander, Mikael Stavostrand) revel in murky dub, others (All, Full Swing, Thomas Brinkmann) unleash dizzying whirlwinds of sound. And, unfortunately, several (the near-entirety of the third disc) present unpleasant experiments where the jarring, abrasive, and/or boring characteristics outweigh anything of interest. So, as you would probably expect with a compilation this vast, no matter how diverse your tastes, you're not going to like everything here -- there is just way too much variety. Still, you have to acknowledge Mille Plateaux for being comprehensive, even if it dilutes the album as a whole; they've perfectly summarized a vibrant techno movement.



Clicks & Cuts 2-1 (flac 314mb)

01 snd - Circa 1666 6:19
02 Farben - The Videoage (re-edit) 5:40
03 Andreas Tilliander - Vibetan 4:35
04 Frank Bretschneider - Walking On Ice 6:34
05 alva.noto - Neue Stadt (Skizze 8) 4:14
06 Deltidseskapism - Tanken Aterskapad 6:34
07 Tomas Jirku - Pohdka 5:59
08 Swayzak - Kisonga 6:49
09 Geez 'N' Gosh - 012001 4:57
10 Random Inc. - Losing Touch 4:57
11 Dan Abrams - Academic 6:10
12 März - "Ranking + Rating 5:05

Clicks & Cuts 2-1 (ogg   167mb)

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Clicks & Cuts 2-2  (flac  318mb)

01 Vladislav Delay - Holiday 6:17
02 Kid606 - While You Were Sleeping 6:50
03 Reinhard Voigt - Personal 4:59
04 Mikael Stavöstrand - Repl 4:49
05 AUCH - The Animal Factory 5:21
06 Rude Solo - Tight 4:12
07 Antonelli Electr. - Unintense 5:41
08 All - All Music 4:44
09 Full Swing - Drive 4:29
10 Thomas Brinkmann - 0100 6:34
11 Donnacha Costello - ri2.2 5:05
12 Sutekh - 19xx 4:36

 Clicks & Cuts 2-2   (ogg   158mb)

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Clicks & Cuts 2-3 (flac 281mb)

01 Twerk - Inorganic Clarity 4:22
02 Hakan Lidbo - Megalodon 5:59
03 Kit Clayton - Material Problem 5:01
04 M² - Tone Exploitation 5:56
05 Fennesz - Menthol 3:50
06 Matmos - Keine Zähne 4:02
07 Taylor Deupree - Clir 6:30
08 Richard Charier - Filer 6:57
09 cyclo. - c5.1 4:16
10 Pansonic - Arvio (long edit) 6:49
11 Station Rose - Smoother Than Strange 4:32
12 DAT Politics - Hardwai 2:52

Clicks & Cuts 2-3  (ogg   156mb)


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Feb 27, 2016

RhoDeo 1608 Grooves

Hello, as Trumps marches on, the contours of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue becomes more visible, the republican competition fall unmourned to the wayside and the democrats pull out all the stops to block the advancement of the non establishment candidate (Sanders). Hilary stands no chance against Trump he will paint her in the corner where she belongs, the 1%.


Today's artists are .an American jazz, R&B, soul, funk and disco group, originally formed in 1964 as the Jazziacs based in Jersey City, New Jersey. They went through several musical phases during their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then funk and R&B, progressing to a smooth pop-funk ensemble, and in the post-millennium creating music with a modern, electro-pop sound. They have sold over 70 million albums worldwide  ... N'joy

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Formed as a jazz ensemble in the mid-'60s, Kool & the Gang became one of the most inspired and influential funk units during the '70s, and one of the most popular R&B groups of the '80s after their breakout hit "Celebration" in 1979. Just as funky as James Brown or Parliament (and sampled almost as frequently), Kool & the Gang relied on their jazz backgrounds and long friendship to form a tightly knit group with the interplay and improvisation of a jazz outfit, plus the energy and spark of a band with equal ties to soul, R&B, and funk.

Robert "Kool" Bell and his brother Ronald (or Khalis Bayyan) grew up in Jersey City, NJ, and picked up the music bug from their father. A professional boxer, he was also a serious jazz lover and a close friend of Thelonious Monk. With Robert on bass and Ronald picking up an array of horns, the duo formed the Jazziacs in 1964 with several neighborhood friends: trombone player Clifford Adams, guitarists Charles Smith and Woody Sparrow, trumpeter Robert "Spike" Michens, alto saxophonist Dennis Thomas, keyboard player Ricky West, and drummer Funky George Brown (all of whom, except Michens and West, still remained in the group more than 30 years later).

The Bell brothers' father Bobby and uncle Tommy were boxers. They moved to New York to train and lived in the same apartment building as Thelonious Monk who became Robert's godfather when he was born. Miles Davis would drop by because he wanted to be a boxer.[5] They played occasionally with McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas.

The growing earthiness of soul inspired the Jazziacs to temper their jazz sensibilities with rhythms more akin to R&B, and the newly renamed Soul Town Band began playing clubs in Greenwich Village. After a mix-up with a club owner resulted in the group being billed Kool & the Flames, they moderated the title to Kool & the Gang and found a leg up with the tiny De-Lite Records. Three singles from their self-titled debut album hit the pop charts, and although the position wasn't incredibly high, Kool & the Gang became a quick success on the R&B charts. Always a staple of their appeal, the group's live act was documented on two 1971 LPs, Live at the Sex Machine and Live at P.J.'s, including left-field covers of "Walk On By" and "Wichita Lineman" (as well as the not so unusual "I Want to Take You Higher").

Studio albums followed in 1972 and 1973, but it was with Kool & the Gang's sixth LP, Wild and Peaceful, that they hit the big time. "Funky Stuff" became their first Top 40 hit at the end of 1973. Then both "Jungle Boogie" and "Hollywood Swinging" reached the pop Top Ten. During the next four years, however, Kool & the Gang could only manage an occasional Top 40 hit ("Higher Plane," "Spirit of the Boogie"), and though they did win a Grammy award for "Open Sesame" (from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack), the rise of disco -- a movement centered around producers and vocalists, in direct contrast to the group's focus on instrumentalists -- had appeared to end their popularity.

Then, in 1979, the group added two new vocalists, Earl Toon, Jr. and, more importantly, James "J.T." Taylor, a former Jersey nightclub singer. Kool & the Gang also began working with jazz fusion arranger Eumir Deodato, who produced their records from 1979 to 1982. The first such album, Ladies Night, was their biggest hit yet, the first of three consecutive platinum albums, with the Top Ten singles "Too Hot" and the title track. Celebrate!, released in 1980, spawned Kool & the Gang's only number one hit, "Celebration," an anthem favored by innumerable wedding receptions since. With Deodato, the group produced several more hits, including the singles "Take My Heart (You Can Have It if You Want It)," "Get Down on It," and "Big Fun," and the albums Something Special in 1981 and As One a year later. After Deodato left the fold in late 1982, Kool & the Gang proved their success wasn't solely due to him; they had two immense hits during 1984-1985 ("Joanna" and "Cherish"), as well as two more Top Tens, "Misled" and "Fresh." The group's string of seven gold or platinum records continued until 1986's Forever, after which James "J.T." Taylor amicably left the group for a solo career.

Although Taylor did reasonably well with his solo recordings (many of which were produced by Ronald Bell), Kool & the Gang quickly sank without him. They replaced Taylor with three vocalists, Skip Martin (formerly of the Dazz Band), Odeen Mays, and Gary Brown, but failed to chart their albums Sweat (1989) and Unite (1993). Taylor finally returned to the group in 1995 for the release of a new album, State of Affairs. They continued well throughout the 2000s, releasing 2001's Gangland, 2004's The Hits: Reloaded, and 2007's Still Kool (recorded after the 2006 death of co-founder Charles Smith). They often collaborated with new and well-known younger talent.


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Kool & the Gang's funky debut was an unexpected hit, with a first single (self-titled) climbing both the pop and R&B charts. Subsequent singles -- "The Gang's Back Again," "Let the Music Take Your Mind," and "Funky Man," -- followed the first into the charts, and there were plenty of other standout tracks: "Raw Hamburger," "Chocolate Buttermilk," and "Kool's Back Again." Though barely over a half an hour long, Kool and the Gang is a blast of a record containing strong elements that would become the band's trademarks: smooth melodies, suave rhythms, and brassy horns. This is one of Kool & the Gang's jazzier albums and a strong debut worth checking out, though less accessible than any of their later pop recordings.



Kool & The Gang - Kool & The Gang  (flac 204mb)

01 Kool & The Gang 2:57
02 Breeze & Soul 5:29
03 Chocolate Buttermilk 2:14
04 Sea Of Tranquility 3:33
05 Give It Up 3:40
06 Since I Lost My Baby 2:07
07 Kool's Back Again 2:53
08 The Gang's Back Again 2:44
09 Raw Hamburger 3:37
10 Let The Music Take Your Mind 2:58

Kool & The Gang - Kool & The Gang   (ogg 84mb)

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Kool & the Gang's fourth album -- but only their second studio record -- was just as strong and joyous as its live predecessors, though it featured a few more vocals and emphasized strong musicianship over hard grooves. (Of course, the band always did pretty well at both.) The title track and "Love the Life You Live" were two more great party jams to add to their repertoire, despite the growing similarity of Robert "Kool" Bell's basslines. The two-part "Electric Frog" was a squelchy instrumental spotlighting an Arp synthesizer and some great ensemble playing on the chorus, while the band reserved a great feature for trumpeter Robert "Spike" Mickens on "Blowin' with the Wind." "Love the Life You Live" was the most fully realized early Kool & the Gang jam, and the one that most looks forward to their parade of hits to come ("Funky Stuff," "Hollywood Swinging"). Ending the album with a smile (if not style) was "Funky Granny," a lightweight but hilarious sequel to their 1970 hit "Funky Man."



Kool & The Gang - Music Is The Message  (flac  204mb)

01 Music Is The Message 5:18
02 Electric Frog (Part 1) 3:43
03 Electric Frog (Part 2) 3:02
04 Soul Vibrations 4:39
05 Love The Life You Live (Parts 1 & 2) 5:40
06 Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart) 3:26
07 Blowin' With The Wind 2:31
08 Funky Granny 5:55

Kool & The Gang - Music Is The Message   (ogg 98mb)

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Good Times was a bit spotty compared to Music Is the Message, compromising Kool & the Gang's legendary funk instincts for a variety of digressions that don't turn out the way they should. There's much more good than bad though, beginning with the title track, a school's-out jam just in time for summer. "Making Merry Music" is in a similar mold and just as good, while the group leaps into wild, unhinged, horn-driven funk for "Rated X" and "Country Junky." The songs that make it less interesting are the maudlin ballad "Wild Is Love," a salute by music director and tenor Khalis Bayyan to one of his influences with "I Remember John W. Coltrane," and the meandering "North, South, East, West." The closer, "Father, Father," is a solid attempt at recording social-message soul along the lines of Curtis Mayfield, but for much of the time, Good Times sacrifices the group's hallmarks (deep-pocket grooves and fast, intricate ensemble playing) on the altar of artistic experimentation.



Kool & The Gang - Good Times  (flac 201mb)

01 Good Times 4:16
02 Country Junky 2:55
03 Wild Is Love 3:24
04 North, East, South, West 3:38
05 Making Merry Music 3:04
06 I Remember John W. Coltrane 4:02
07 Rated X 4:02
08 Father, Father 5:37

Kool & The Gang - Good Times (ogg  81mb)

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Prior to James "JT" Taylor adding pop flavor vocals, which help garner a handful of top selling albums, this was Kool & the Gang's most successful album, spawning three bonafide R&B hits. Produced by Robert Bell, and featuring Donal Boyce's incredulous vocals, these songs have held up well. The fast, chugging "Jungle Boogie" was a club favorite, while "Funky Stuff," with its "whoa whoa whoa" hook, was slower and spacier than "Jungle Boogie." The band formerly known as the Jazziacs got their first R&B number one with "Hollywood Swinging," a slightly faster than mid-tempo song with whistles, festive ambiance and lead vocals by keyboardist Ricky West. All three hits were inspired by Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa," and were recorded in one night at a studio in midtown Manhattan. The title cut flash backs to their prerecording jazz days, when they dazzled New Jerseyites with their playing skills.



Kool & The Gang - Wild & Peaceful  (flac 252mb)

01 Funky Stuff 3:00
02 More Funky Stuff 2:50
03 Jungle Boogie 3:03
04 Heaven At Once 5:01
05 Hollywood Swinging 4:36
06 This Is You, This Is Me 5:23
07 Life Is What You Make It 3:53
08 Wild And Peaceful 9:26

Kool & The Gang - Wild & Peaceful (ogg  100mb)

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Feb 26, 2016

RhoDeo 1608 Goldy Rhox 250

Hello, today the 250th and final post of GoldyRhox, classic pop rock in the darklight a Canadian-American roots rock group, originally consisting of Rick Danko (bass guitar, double bass, fiddle, vocals), Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, guitar, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboards, saxophones, trumpet), Richard Manuel (piano, drums, vocals) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, percussion, vocals). The members first came together as they joined rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins's backing group, the Hawks, one by one between 1958 and 1963.

In 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966. Following the 1966 tour, the group moved with Dylan to Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, which forged the basis for their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. Because they were always "the group" to various frontmen, Helm said the name worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as today's mystery group in 1968 and went on to release ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with them over the course of their career, including a joint 1974 tour.

The original configuration of the group ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate live ballroom performance featuring numerous musical celebrities. This performance was immortalized in Martin Scorsese's 1978 documentary. The group recommenced touring in 1983 without guitarist Robbie Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. Following a 1986 show, Richard Manuel was found dead of suicide, but the remaining three members continued to tour and record albums with a succession of musicians filling Manuel's and Robertson's roles; the final configuration of the group included Richard Bell (piano), Randy Ciarlante (drums), and Jim Weider (guitar). Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Levon Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years, but he eventually regained the use of his voice. He continued to perform and released several successful albums until he succumbed to the disease in 2012.

The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked them No. 50 on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time, and in 2008 they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.


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Most of the albums i 'll post made many millions for the music industry and a lot of what i intend to post still gets repackaged and remastered decades later, squeezing the last drop of profit out of bands that for the most part have ceased to exist long ago, although sometimes they get lured out of the mothballs to do a big bucks gig or tour. Now i'm not as naive to post this kinda music for all to see and have deleted, these will be a black box posts, i'm sorry for those on limited bandwidth but for most of you a gamble will get you a quality rip don't like it, deleting is just 2 clicks...That said i will try to accommodate somewhat and produce some cryptic info on the artist and or album.

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Today's mystery album is a triple album by the mystery group, released on Warner Bros. Records in 1978, catalogue 3WS 3146. It is the soundtrack to the 1978 film of the same name, and the final album by the original configuration of today's artists. The triple-album documents the Band's "farewell" concert which took place at Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving Day 1976. The event included an actual Thanksgiving dinner for 5000 attendees, with ballroom dancing and a stage set for La Traviata borrowed from the San Francisco Opera.

The concert featured songs by today's mystery group interspersed with the group backing up a variety of musical guests. These included many with whom they had worked in the past, notably their previous employers Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan. Van Morrison, a Woodstock neighbor, had co-written and sung on the track "4% Pantomime" for the Cahoots album. Individual members of the group had played with the invitees on the following albums: in 1972 with Bobby Charles for his eponymous album; in 1973 with Ringo Starr on Ringo; in 1974 with Joni Mitchell on Court and Spark and with Neil Young for On the Beach; in 1975 with Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield on The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album; in 1976 with Eric Clapton on No Reason to Cry and with Neil Diamond on Beautiful Noise.

Sides one through five of the album consisted of songs taken from the concert. Side six comprised "The Last Waltz Suite," new numbers composed by Robertson and performed by today's mystery group on an MGM soundstage. Here today a 2014 MFSL remaster with booklet ...N'Joy



Goldy Rhox 250-1   (flac 365mb)

Goldy Rhox 250-2   (flac 370mb)


Goldy Rhox 250   (ogg 296mb)


Ok so this is the final Goldy Rhox post, it never really got the interest i expected, so after almost 5 years it's time to quit the format, in place of it here will be a weekly re-ups posting.

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Feb 24, 2016

RhoDeo 1608 Aetix

Hello,

Today's artists were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by the use of "found" material, re-constructed to better serve their purpose, of making "more" with "less"......N'Joy

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More expressly political than their German counterparts Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Department followed the same tack: A creative use of the ethos in which diverse objects (including large amounts of scrap metal and power tools) can be used as instruments. The group formed in the London suburb of New Cross in 1981. The core members of the group were Graham Cunnington, Paul Jamrozy, Jonathan Toby Burdon, Paul Hines and Angus Farquhar. Other members who played with the group at various times included Alistair Adams, Neil Starr, John Eacott, Andy Cowton, Tony Cudlip, David Coulter, Gus Ferguson and Martin King. Comedian Vic Reeves played bass in an early incarnation of the band.[1] The band signed to Some Bizzare Records, a label connected acts like Depeche Mode Soft Cell, PTV, Foetus, Swans. The slides and film for Test Dept multi-media events were made by visual director Brett Turnbull.

Their discography spans a wide variety of influences and styles, including a collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir in support of the miners' strike of 1984. They were particularly notable for complex and powerful percussion, as well as high-energy live performances. Like the German band Einstürzende Neubauten, another Some Bizzare Label signing with whom they are often compared, Test Dept used unconventional instruments such as scrap metal and industrial machinery as sound sources; however, Test Dept's use of these objects was far more rhythmic than was Neubauten's, and was often accompanied by film and slide shows. The group were noted for large-scale events in unusual site-specific locations, such as Waterloo station, Cannon Street station, Stirling Castle and the disused St Rollox Railway Works in Glasgow.

The band's album The Unacceptable Face of Freedom was praised by a music reviewer for The New York Times, claiming the album was notable for a "sophisticated use of sound-collage techniques and the helter-skelter momentum of its cyclical rhythms
In later years the band's music became less industrial and took on many of the properties of techno. The band's political stance was energised by the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

The band split up in 1997, but its former members have continued to work in the fields of art and culture. Angus Farquhar re-established the ancient Gaelic Beltane Fire Festival, held yearly on the night before/morning of the first of May on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. Farquhar also formed NVA, an innovative theatre company specialising in large-scale site-specific events. Cunnington, who suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, produced a one-man show in 1996 called Pain, recounting his experiences as a sufferer from this condition. Jamrozy works as an artist under the name of Satellitic. Gus Ferguson teaches music to orphans in Kathmandu, and young buddhist monks in Northern India..

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A Good Night Out was TD's final LP for Some Bizzare and fulfilled the bands contract for the label after an acrimonious split. Hence it is a mixture of studio pieces and live recordings but a reasonably accurate document of the group in flux. The album continues their forceful manifesto, although the execution has progressed from the tribal pounding of early work to ambitious performance art. Much of the LP was recorded live in London and Amsterdam in what was, judging by the cover photo, a huge multi-media extravaganza — some sort of Marxist military opera. Lyrics which continue to spew bitter, sarcastic and intelligent tirades against the domestic policies of the British Empire are more powerful than ever. Pretentious perhaps, but A Good Night Out also shows Test Dept.'s abiding commitment to their beliefs — social, political and artistic.

The cover for the record is a photo of the groups set in the Monasterio De San Benito, Valladollid,Spain, which was a centre for the Spanish Inquisition in the Middle Ages. The performance in the Monastery was a collaboration with the Valladollid Music and Theatre schools as well as UK choreographers and dancers Liz Rankin and Jacob Marley, with a set designed by Tom Dixon.  The show was directed by Andy Wilson who went on to direct the award winning TV drama Cracker.



Test Dept. - A Good Night Out (flac  247mb)

Act One 
01 A Good Night Out 7:42
02 Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes And Is Constantly Perfected Under The Immaculate     Guidance Of The Great, Honourable, Generous And Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is The Blue Sky In The Hearts Of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage And Bow In Deep Respect And Gratitude To Her. The Milk Of Human Kindness 6:52
Act Two 
03 Generous Terms 6:05
04 Victory 5:49
05 Cha Till Sinn Tuille (We Shall Return No More) 6:40
06 Demonomania 7:13
07 Voice Of Reason 2:42

Test Dept. - A Good Night Out  (ogg   101mb)

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The only information given on the cover of Terra Firma is a brief libretto for each of the five tracks (which range from five to fourteen minutes each). Try "While the melancholy piper Alistair pipes a lament, the lovely Nadka grieves" on for size. No, you haven't picked up a Russian novel by mistake. The stories all lead to a concluding call for all world citizens to unite on firm ground (hence the title). The omnipresent drums shape four of the five cuts (the one exception being the inadvisably sung "Dark Eyes"), with other instrumentation — pianos, tapes, horns, (other peoples') voices, etc. — providing each with a distinctive signature. Another ambitious effort that only Test Dept. could have undertaken.



Test Dept. - Terra Firma (flac  198mb)

01 Fall From Light 4:33
02 Kick To Kill 6:13
03 Sweet Sedation 4:12
04 Spring Into Action 4:15
05 Plastic 4:55
06 Inheritance 3:42
07 Cold Witness 7:11

Test Dept. - Terra Firma  (ogg   83mb)

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Gododdin is the result of another collaboration, this time with Brith Gof, a Welsh theater group, and some of the lyrics and liner notes are in that beautiful and unusual language. The performance from which the album developed is based on an epic Welsh poem, and was originally staged in an abandoned car factory in Cardiff. (It was later performed in Hamburg, Germany with sponsorship from Mobil and Philip Morris; a rather ironic capitalist twist.) Despite the militaristic theme, the music is more haunting and less bombastic than A Good Night Out. A chilling work.



Test Dept. & Brith Gof - Gododdin (flac 221mb)

01 Sarff 4:31
02 Gwŷr A Aeth Gatraeth 5:54
03 Arddyledog Ganu 5:38
04 Glasfedd Eu Hancwyn 6:05
05 Trichant Eurdorchog 5:10
06 Yn Nydd Cadiawr 5:32
07 Truan Yw Gennyf Fi 5:42

Test Dept. & Brith Gof - Gododdin   (ogg  97mb)

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Soundtrack of the collaborative show with Dutch dance group Werk Centrum Dans or Rotterdam Dance Group. This consists of recordings from the live show Materia Prima, performed in Holland, Italy, Finland and Denmark, as well as some earlier material. This particular set of recordings is heavy on the tribal instrumentation as well as the usual array of hand built percussion. The pipe, didgeridoo, and a variety of native drums are used throughout the album. Overall this album is much slower and works with the subtle intricacies of the instruments rather than consisting of a pure tribal frenzy. There is as much imagery evoked in the absence of sound as their is by the instrumentation itself. Lacking the frenzy of other works, this album relies on subtle and understated percussion. The genius of these revolutionaries lies in their ability to make tracks that are simultaneously haunting, energizing, emboldening, and beautiful; there should be at least one track on this CD that will leave you reeling with strong emotion. Materia Prima is yet another classic Test Dept. live album that should not be missed.



Test Dept. - Materia Prima (flac 205mb)

01 Landrites 10:16
02 Firedance 8:07
03 Pipe And Didgeridoo 2:07
04 More Of Everything 6:57
05 Apocalypse 7:15
06 Funeral 5:57

Test Dept. - Materia Prima   (ogg  88mb)

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Feb 23, 2016

RhoDeo 1608 Roots

Hello, as we will be staying in Brazil until the Olympics there's plenty of time to explore the it's music scene. The music of Brazil encompasses various regional music styles influenced by African, European and Amerindian forms. After 500 years of history, Brazilian music developed some unique and original styles such as samba, bossa nova, MPB, sertanejo, pagode, tropicalia, choro, maracatu, embolada (coco de repente), mangue bit, funk carioca (in Brazil simply known as Funk), frevo, forró, axé, brega, lambada, and Brazilian versions of foreign musical genres, such as Brazilian rock and rap.

Today. a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and internationally. Widely known as the composer of "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema"), one of the most recorded songs of all time, Jobim has left a large number of songs that are now included in jazz and pop standard repertoires. The song "Garota de Ipanema" has been recorded over 240 times by other artists.....N'Joy

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Antônio Carlos Jobim was born in the middle-class district of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro. His father Jorge de Oliveira Jobim (São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul, April 23, 1889 – July 19, 1935) was a writer, diplomat, professor and journalist. When Antônio was still an infant, his parents separated and his mother, Nilza Brasileiro de Almeida, moved with her children (Antônio Carlos and his sister Helena Isaura) to Ipanema, the beachside neighborhood the composer would later celebrate in his songs. In 1935, when the elder Jobim died, Nilza married Celso da Frota Pessoa, who would encourage his stepson's career. He was the one who gave Jobim his first piano. As a young man of limited means, Jobim earned his living by playing in nightclubs and bars and later as an arranger for a recording label, before starting to achieve success as a composer.

Jobim's musical roots were planted firmly in the work of Pixinguinha, the legendary musician and composer who began modern Brazilian music in the 1930s. Among his teachers were Lúcia Branco, and, from 1941 on, Hans-Joachim Koellreutter. Jobim was also influenced by the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, by the Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ary Barroso, and by jazz. Among many themes, his lyrics talked about love, self-discovery, betrayal, joy and especially about the birds and natural wonders of Brazil, like the "Mata Atlântica" forest, characters of Brazilian folklore, and his home city of Rio de Janeiro

Jobim became prominent in Brazil when he teamed up with poet and diplomat Vinícius de Moraes to write the music for the play Orfeu da Conceição (1956). The most popular song from the show was "Se Todos Fossem Iguais A Você" ("If Everyone Were Like You"). Later, when the play was turned into a film, producer Sacha Gordine did not want to use any of the existing music from the play. Gordine asked de Moraes and Jobim for a new score for the film Black Orpheus (1959).This collaboration proved successful, and Vinicius went on to pen the lyrics to some of Jobim's most popular songs.

A key event in making Jobim's music known in the English speaking world was his collaboration with the American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, João Gilberto and Gilberto's wife at the time, Astrud Gilberto, which resulted in two albums, Getz/Gilberto (1963) and Getz/Gilberto Vol. 2 (1964). The release of Getz/Gilberto created a bossa nova craze in the United States, and subsequently internationally. Jobim wrote many of the songs on Getz/Gilberto, which became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", into an international sensation. At the Grammy Awards of 1965 Getz/Gilberto won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group and the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

Jobim was married to Thereza Otero Hermanny on October 15, 1949 and had two children with her: Paulo Jobim (born 1950), an architect and musician, married and father of Daniel Jobim (born 1973) and Dora Jobim (born 1976); and Elizabeth "Beth" Jobim (born 1957), a painter. Jobim and Thereza divorced in 1978. On April 30, 1986 he married 29-year-old photographer Ana Beatriz Lontra, with whom he had two more children: João Francisco Jobim (1979–1998) and Maria Luiza Helena Jobim (born 1987). Daniel, Paulo's son, Tom's grandson; followed his grandfather to become a pianist and composer.

In early 1994, after finishing his album Antonio Brasileiro, Jobim complained to his doctor, Roberto Hugo Costa Lima, of urinary problems. A bladder tumor was detected, but Jobim postponed the recommended immediate surgery for several months, while he tried spiritual treatment with a Brazilian medium and started working on his album Tom Jobim. His operation took place at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York, on December 2, 1994. On December 8, while recovering from surgery, he had a cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism and two hours later another cardiac arrest, from which he died. His last album, Antonio Brasileiro, was released posthumously three days after his death.

Jobim is widely regarded as one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century. Many of Jobim's songs are jazz standards. American jazz singers Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra prominently featured Jobim's songs on their albums Jobim was an innovator in the use of sophisticated harmonic structures in popular song. Some of his melodic twists, like the melody insisting on the major seventh of the chord, became common use in jazz after him. The Brazilian collaborators and interpreters of Jobim's music include Vinícius de Moraes, João Gilberto (often credited as a co-creator of bossa nova), Chico Buarque, Gal Costa, Elis Regina, Sérgio Mendes, Astrud Gilberto, and Flora Purim. Eumir Deodato and the conductor/composer Claus Ogerman arranged many recordings of Jobim tunes. He won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012. As a posthumous homage, on January 5, 1999, the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro changed the name of Rio's Galeão International Airport, located on Governador Island, to bear the composer's name. Galeão Airport is explicitly mentioned in his composition "Samba do Avião". In 2014, Jobim was posthumously inducted to the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2015, Billboard named Jobim as one of The 30 Most Influential Latin Artists of All Time.


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Black Orpheus the film by Marcel Camus, and its soundtrack, were the signposts by which the world first learned of samba and bossa nova and fell in love with it. Therefore, it is staggering to consider that it took until 2008 for a definitive edition of the soundtrack to be released, one that assembled all the songs and music heard in the film. After all, this is the score that created the partnership of composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinicius de Moraes, and introduced the brilliant and influential guitarist Luiz Bonfá. Universal France has assembled all the sound recordings into one 17-track volume. These include the two original 45 EPs, and the 10" 33 rpm album, as well as some tracks that have never appeared before now. Given the wild success of the readily recognizable album on both LP and CD over the decades, this amounts to an entirely new hearing of Brazilian music -- bossa was emerging in Rio at the time too, a brand new genre. The sounds of the various samba schools from the carnival parades are accompanied by the gorgeous instrumental interludes by Bonfá (including the now ubiquitous "Manha De Carnaval," written with poet Antonio Mara), and the songs of de Moraes and Jobim (including "A Felicidade," as sung by Elizeth Cardoso). The songs may be well known now; the music of the favelas, as practiced by the escolas de samba with their agogo bells, atabaques drumming, stomping batacuda solos, and duels, folk line chants, and unusual (even now if one thinks about it) blend of African rhythms, dissonance, and extended harmonics, is still revolutionary today. A 13-minute encore medley by Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete that recorded in 1966 at the Monterey Jazz Festival, has been added as a bonus cut, wedding "Manha de Carnaval," to "A Felicidade," and "Samba de Orfeo." The presentation is handsome. There is an exhaustive historical essay by French scholar Anaïs Fléchet, complete discographical information, and photos. The sound quality is only fair, but considering the neglect of the original masters, it's actually remarkable.



Antonio Carlos Jobim - Black Orpheus (flac 275mb)

01 Generique 1:10
02 A Felicidade 2:33
03 Frevo 4:32
04 O Nosso Amor 1:03
05 O Nosso Amor (Tambourine And Accordion) 4:00
06 Manha De Carnaval (Morning Of The Carnival) 3:01
07 Scene Du Lever Du Soleil 0:46
08 Manha De Carnaval (Morning Of The Carnival) 1:30
09 Scenes De La Macumba 3:09
10 O Nosso Amor 5:00
11 Manha De Carnaval (Morning Of The Carnival) 2:55
12 Samba De Orfeu 2:13
13 Batterie De Cappela 4:50
14 Bola Sete Medley 13:35
Manha De Carnaval
A Felicidade
Samba De Orfeo

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Black Orpheus (ogg   116mb)

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The Composer of Desafinado, Plays is the debut album by Antônio Carlos Jobim, released in 1963. In his first American album, Antonio Carlos Jobim presents a dozen of his songs, each one destined to become a standard -- an astounding batting average. Jobim, who claimed to have been out of practice at the time of the session, merely plays single notes on the piano with one hand, punctuated by chords now and then, sticking to his long, undulating melodies with a few passages of jazz improvisation now and then. Yet it is a lovely idea, not a gesture is wasted. Arranger Claus Ogerman unveils many of the trademarks that would define his Creed Taylor-produced albums with Jobim -- the soaring, dying solo flute and spare, brooding unison string lines widening into lush harmony; flutes doubling on top of Jobim's piano chords -- again with an exquisitely spare touch. The songs include "Desafinado," "Corcovado," "Chega de Saudade" (No More Blues), "The Girl From Ipanema," "Meditation," "One Note Samba," and half-a-dozen others (every one of which is included on The Man From Ipanema set). The album was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.



Antonio Carlos Jobim - The Composer of Desafinado Plays  (flac  218mb)

01 The Girl From Ipanema 2:41
02 Amor Em Paz (Once I Loved) 3:35
03 Agua De Beber 2:50
04 Vivo Sonhando (Dreamer) 2:35
05 O Morro Nao Tem Vez (aka "Favela") 3:21
06 Insensatez (How Insensitive) 2:52
07 Corcovado 2:26
08 Samba De Uma Nota So (One Note Samba) 2:14
09 Meditation 3:14
10 So Danco Samba (Jazz Samba) 2:21
11 Chega De Saudade 4:17
12 Desafinado 2:44

Antonio Carlos Jobim - The Composer of Desafinado Plays    (ogg   78mb)

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Unlike his debut, Jobim's second LP for the American market was strictly a pop album, with the composer himself singing, while the arranging/conducting chores were placed in the capable hands of Nelson Riddle. What promises to be an excellent collaboration, however, doesn't quite turn out, and the results are much more bland than could be expected from such distinct talents. To begin with, Riddle's charts are surprisingly safe, quite a disappointment from the man whose work with Frank Sinatra raised the bar for the art of arranging. Jobim's contributions are less than expected also, limited for the most part to his quavering vocals (Warner Bros. seems to have been positioning him as a pop star) and a set of compositions inferior to his first album (only "Agua de Beber" is repeated here). Jobim's is the voice of a composer, though, and what he lacks in tonal quality and strength he does make up for with delivery and subtlety of interpretation, especially on contemplative material like "Dindi" and "A Felicidade." It's not all Brazilian ennui; the instrumental "Surfboard" has a playful edge, with a rush of strings bringing on the collapse of each wave, and "She's a Carioca" (with English lyrics by Ray Gilbert) is a cheerful sequel to "The Girl From Ipanema."



Antonio Carlos Jobim - The Wonderful World Of (flac 152mb)

01 She's A Carioca 2:40
02 Agua De Beber 2:30
03 Surfboard 2:27
04 Useless Landscape 2:20
05 So' Tinha De Ser Com Voce 2:32
06 A Felicidade 2:07
07 Bonita 2:10
08 Favela 2:37
09 Valsa De Porto Das Caixas 3:23
10 Samba De Aviao 2:12
11 Por Toda A Mima Vida 1:54
12 Dindi 3:37

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When Creed Taylor left Verve/MGM for his own label under the auspices of A&M, he quickly signed Antonio Carlos Jobim and they picked up right where they left off with this stunningly seductive record, possibly Jobim's best. Jobim contributes his sparely rhythmic acoustic guitar, simple melodic piano style, a guest turn at the harpsichord, and even a vocal on "Lamento," while Claus Ogerman lends a romantically brooding hand with the charts. A pair of instant standards are introduced ("Wave," "Triste"), but this album is to be cherished for its absolutely first-rate tunes -- actually miniature tone poems -- that escaped overexposure and thus sound fresh today. The most beautiful sleeper is "Batidinha," where the intuitive Jobim/Ogerman collaboration reaches its peak. One only wishes that this album were longer; 31:45 is not enough.



Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave (flac 189mb)

01 Wave 2:51
02 The Red Blouse 5:03
03 Look To The Sky 2:17
04 Batidinha 3:13
05 Triste 2:04
06 Mojave 2:21
07 Dialogo 2:50
08 Lamento 2:42
09 Antigua 3:07
10 Captain Bacardi 4:29

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Feb 22, 2016

RhoDeo 1608 Watchmen 04

Hello,


Watched any great books lately? Now you can. The most celebrated graphic novel of all time that broke the conventional mold continues to break new ground. Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons oversees this digital version of the graphic novel that adds limited motion, voice and sound to the book's strikingly drawn panels. All 12 chapters of the story are here, nearly 5 hours spanning everything from the mysterious demise of the Comedian to the crisscrossed destinies of loosely allied superheroes to their fateful impact on the world. Be in the know. Be watching. With Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic.... N'Joy

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A critical and commercial success, Watchmen is highly regarded in the comics industry and is frequently considered by several critics and reviewers as comics' greatest series and graphic novel. In time, the series has also become one of the best-selling graphic novels ever published. Watchmen was the only graphic novel to appear on Time's 2005 "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels" list, where Time critic Lev Grossman described the story as "a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium." It later appeared on Time's 2009 "Top 10 Graphic Novels" list, where Grossman further praised Watchmen, proclaiming "It’s way beyond cliché at this point to call Watchmen the greatest superhero comic ever written-slash-drawn.


The Watchmen: Motion Comic is a 2008 American animated short film series of motion comics for web and television based on the DC comic book series Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The series consists of twelve abridged 25–30 minute segments, each based on and sharing a name with one of the twelve chapters of the book. Both male and female characters are voiced by actor Tom Stechschulte. It was released on DVD in March 2009 to coincide with the Watchmen movie’s release.

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In October 1985, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and on the eve of nuclear war, a depressed Rorschach, one of several outlawed vigilante superheroes, begins to investigate why all former masked superheroes are either dead or have declined. When another one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion--a disbanded group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers--Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future.



Watchmen The Motion Comic 04 Watchmaker... (avi  233mb)

04 Watchmaker... 25:31

On Mars, Doctor Manhattan contemplates his history, which is revealed through a series of flashbacks.

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previously

Watchmen The Motion Comic 01 At Midnight, All the Agents... (avi  233mb)
Watchmen The Motion Comic 02 Absent Friends... (avi  233mb)
Watchmen The Motion Comic 03 The Judge of All the Earth... (avi  233mb)


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Feb 21, 2016

Sundaze 1608

Hello,

Much to its credit, electronic dance music has always played fast and loose with its own history. A hugely sprawling form hyped on progress, it seems to announce a new aesthetic revolution every few weeks. Movements divide into micromovements, which then splinter into even smaller subsets, which in turn fan out into different camps, and so on. Each gets its own name, its own historical precursors, its own migration lines, its own self-aware philosophy. And even if, like the high sciences, these variations get parsed out in a language largely impenetrable to those not obsessed with obscure nuance, at the very least they stand in for electronica’s heartening faith in meaningful change. Underlying that spirit, though, is a conflict over the importance of the music’s dance roots. Fans of the unfortunately named IDM (Intelligent Dance Music; ugh) consider danceability a sort of blight on their new language, while dance-floor populists dismiss the former as obnoxiously cerebral and pretentious.

Glitch is a genre of electronic music that emerged in the late 1990s. It has been described as a genre that adheres to an "aesthetic of failure," where the deliberate use of glitch-based audio media, and other sonic artifacts, is a central concern. Sources of glitch sound material are usually malfunctioning or abused audio recording devices or digital electronics, such as CD skipping, electric hum, digital or analog distortion, bit rate reduction, hardware noise, software bugs, crashes, vinyl record hiss or scratches and system errors. In a Computer Music Journal article published in 2000, composer and writer Kim Cascone classifies glitch as a subgenre of electronica, and used the term post-digital to describe the glitch aesthetic.

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Mille Plateaux (the name was taken from Mille Plateaux, a philosophy book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, published in 1980).is an influential electronica record label founded 1993 by Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2000, to take advantage of the popularity of glitch music in the electronic music scene, Mille Plateaux released their Clicks & Cuts Series, which showed both Mille Plateaux and non-Mille Plateaux glitch music luminaries exploring the genre.

In early 2004, Mille Plateaux parent company Force Inc. Music Works went bankrupt due to the collapse of Germany's main independent music distributor, EFA-Medien. Mille Plateaux and other Force Inc. Music Works owned labels were folded at that time. The label was revived briefly in late 2004 under the name MillePlateauxMedia, with 4 releases. In 2005, two releases were made by RAI STREUBEL MUSIC S.L. on the label Supralinear with the note "by Mille Plateaux".

In 2006, Mille Plateaux (along with the other former Force Inc. Music Works labels Force Inc. and Force Tracks) was taken over by the Berlin-based company Disco Inc. Ltd., who only released two CD albums. In March 2008, Mille Plateaux was acquired by TOTAL RECALL, an online store and distributor for used and new music. With new owner Marcus Gabler, known as singer of the band Okay as the A&R manager, they aim to close the gap existing since 2003 and continue the original work. Mille Plateaux relaunched its activities on 7 May 2010, with three new albums.

Sublabels
Ritornell Started 1999. Even more abstract and experimental than the parent.
Cluster Started 2010. Releases experimental ambient music.
Force Intel (sister label) Started 2010. Releases less experimental electronic music, typically IDM.


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“Clicks + Cuts,” a two-disc compilation on the German Mille Plateaux label, documents a style shift that comes daringly close to reconciling these terms. Choosing subtlety as their subject, the mostly German artists chip away at the dividing line by softening hard-line abstraction with a sense of confounded humanity. The result is as scratchy and warm as a wool blanket.

When Miles Davis released his landmark album “Kind of Blue” in 1959, he spurred on a quiet revolution in jazz. His sneaky salvo came by way of a radical shift toward “modal” jazz, an advance that found his group dwelling in spaces within scales rather than riffing on chord changes. In purely formal terms, it was a major break from an implicit faith in long-standing musical constructs. The end result, though, couldn’t have come out sounding any more smooth and inevitable.

A similar, if less subliminal, thing started happening in rock ‘n’ roll a few years later. Increasingly hip to Eastern sounds, a lot of rock bands began looking to the avant-garde. The Velvet Underground, for example, juiced up their amphetamine blues with John Cale’s otherworldly viola drones. As with some of the contemporary electronic composers on “Clicks + Cuts,” there was a direct link between Cale and progressive music theory; in his case, a school of New York musicians hell-bent on breaking the stifling code of Western music. Their mission was effectively summed up by a record title later used by Cale-cohort Tony Conrad: “Slapping Pythagoras.”

The artists on “Clicks + Cuts,” like the ’60s experimentalists before them, are in essence playing the sounds of the missing keys. Within the strictures of dance-born electronica — with its innate consciousness of rhythm and shared vocabulary of sounds — they probe gray areas often misrepresented as either black or white. But then, like Miles Davis’ similarly exploratory modal jazz, their ponderous tactics have kicked up an almost imperceptible, bloodless revolution.

The most telling introduction to the musicians here comes by way of Pole, a one-man outfit that takes its name from a broken sound filter. The fractured technology gives Pole’s music the bristling quality of an old dusty record, wheezing and stuttering like a throat dried by polyester fuzz. The surface noise slowly creates surface tension, advancing the conversation with “ums” and “ahs” that lurk above the grammar-conscious language laid out by techno music’s forebears.

Rather than squeeze dance-inducing Kool-Aid from the fruit tree of technology, the cast of “Clicks + Cuts” — which includes SND, Pansonic, Ester Brinkmann, Dettinger, Kit Clayton and Panacea, among others — invests all of its dramatic capital in process. Though the results are often isolated, inward responses to techno’s tendency toward fashioned, outward overindulgence, they share a similar elated sense of purpose. The set’s opener, Frank Bretschneider, cares just as deeply for beats as the most room-workingest of his peers, but he professes his muddled love through the tones of hand-shielded whispers rather than face-melting screams.

Not all of the artists here are so reticent. Tracks like Vladislav Delay’s “Synkopoint,” with its slyly speaker-bending beat, are studied assaults on expectation — all germ warfare bluffing as heavy artillery. But for the most part, even the most dance-savvy among them are primarily concerned with the thinly articulated clicks and cuts coughed up by machines stammering to make a point.



Clicks & Cuts 1-1 (flac 319mb)

01 Frank Bretschneider - Kern 5:02
02 snd - Circa 1509 5:06
03 Farben - Raute 7:34
04 Vladislav Delay - Synkopoint 10:41
05 Pole - Spa 6:29
06 Pansonic - Koilinen 4:34
07 Alva Noto - Prototype N 5:45
08 Skist - Shift 5:49
09 Stilluppsteypa - Confused Bear Thrown into the Sea 2:04
10 Neina - Clairvoyance 6:20
12 Sutekh - Unstabile 7:14
13 Curd Duca - Pop 1:18

Clicks & Cuts 1-1 (ogg   170mb)

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Clicks & Cuts 1-2  (flac  322mb)

Ester Brinkmann - Maschine 8:04
All - Überall 4:59
Dettinger - Strange Fruit 5:22
Autopoiesis - These Few Minutes 4:25
Jake Mandell - I Won't Lie 2:33
Kit Clayton - Loads Early Like Normal 3:52
Ultra Red - (Esta Gran Humanidad Ha Dicho) ¡Ya Basta 5:03
Reinhard Voigt - Matrix 3:18
Thomas Meinecke, Framus Waikiki - Rechannelled from Stereo 3:52
Panacea - Sinecore 4:51
Ihan - Sans Titre No. 2 3:56
Kid 606 - Sonqizzmaster 6:10
Goem - Comp Vier 6:29

 Clicks & Cuts 1-2   (ogg   164mb)

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For the third year in a row, Mille Plateaux rounded up the best artists from its international stable of affiliate producers and delivered another expansive volume in its cutting-edge Clicks & Cuts series. As with years past, the emphasis here on the third volume is glitch -- or, more broadly, laptop techno. Even so, the Clicks & Cuts series, or perhaps the glitch style itself, does seem to be shifting slowly away from its largely experimental genesis toward accessibility. The first two volumes were quite ideological, packaged luxuriously and laden with forward-looking liner notes; furthermore, the multi-disc collections emphasized the possibilities for glitch, showcasing everything from the ambient bleeps of Alva.Noto and the microsounds of Richard Chartier to the controlled chaos of Kid 606 and the glacial dub-techno of Andreas Tilliander. In relation to those first two volumes, Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 3 seems less monumental. The packaging still features dazzling design, but there aren't any liner notes this time and the musical selection seems narrower. However, though you're not going to find a lot of the ambient/noise/experimental selections that populated the earlier volumes, you're going to find a lot of beautifully crafted, albeit relatively straightforward, laptop techno. The 23 featured artists read like a who's who of the international laptop scene (without exception, every artist here is noteworthy) and the highlights are numerous (obvious standouts are MRI's "Painkiller" and Luomo's "Melt"). Whether or not you like the more accessible direction Mille Plateaux chose to move the Clicks & Cuts series slowly toward, the result is clearly as remarkable as before -- even more so if you prefer melody and rhythm to ambience and experimentation.



Clicks & Cuts 3-1 (flac 325mb)

01 snd - Palo Alto 6:28
02 Frank Bretschneider - Risk 4:29
03 Mri3 - Nerdy South 5:21
04 Mri3 - Painkiller 5:21
05 Bizz.circuits - Grace Under Fire 6:31
06 Geeez 'N' Gosh - Kleine Hausmusik No. 16 6:53
07 Alva Noto - Transrapid 4:40
08 Rob Acid - Loving 'Ya 5:35
09 Claudia Bonarellia - Disarm the Police 4:57
10 Boris Polonski - Difusse Daten in 5 Min 3:41
11 DAT Politics - Bubble Queen 5:13
12 Deru - Migrade 3:41

Clicks & Cuts 3-1  (ogg   162mb)

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Clicks & Cuts 3-2 (flac 295mb)

01 Luomo - Melt 4:55
02 Antonelli Electr. - Lovers Inn 9:21
03 Mikael Stavöstrand - Onside 5:54
04.Swayzak - Don't Quit Please 6:49
05 Donnacha Costello, David Donohoe - Nine Blind Men (Poison of Ignorance and Vice) 5:50
06 Rechenzentrum - Box 3:55
07 Robin Judge - Rhizome 5:34
08 AGF - Pianos 5:49
09 Tim Hecker - Brownwedding 4:51
10 Ekkehard Ehlers - The Bakes in the Woods 6:06
11 Pomassl - Holcimm Mmic 5:09

Clicks & Cuts 3-2  (ogg   144mb)

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Feb 20, 2016

RhoDeo 1607 Grooves

Hello,

Today's artists are an American funk/soul band, which was at its peak in the late 1970s through the mid 1980s. The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for The Jackson 5 while on tour. Renowned for the R&B hits "Just to Be Close to You," "Easy," and "Brickhouse," to name but a few, Commodores were one of the top bands during their long tenure at Motown. The group is credited with seven number one songs and a host of other Top Ten hits on the Billboard charts, and their vast catalog includes more than 50 albums. .  ... N'joy

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The members of Commodores, all of whom attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, came together as a result of two groups disbanding: the Mystics and the Jays. Initially formed to simply play music as a pastime and to meet girls, the lineup consisted of William King (trumpet), Thomas McClary (guitar), Ronald LaPread (bass), Walter "Clyde" Orange (drums), Lionel Richie (saxophone), and Milan Williams (keyboards). The members nearly went stir-crazy trying to pick a name for the group, but with no success. As a last resort, Orange gave King a dictionary and told him to pick a name -- that name was the Commodores. With Clyde Orange the only learned musician in the group, Commodores began spreading their music throughout their base, which included Tuskegee, Montgomery, and Birmingham, AL.

 After success securing dates in their own backyard, the band ventured to New York City for a gig at Smalls Paradise. Told, in so many words by the club owner, that their sound was not happening, the self-contained band was nevertheless called back to the club to fill in for a last-minute cancellation. That night the Tuskegee alumni performed before a standing-room-only crowd -- most of which were friends and family of the band. Unaware of the planned crowd, the owner booked the band for two more weeks.

Commodores' long association with Motown began as a result of a tour opening for the Jackson 5. That opportunity occurred in 1971, when the group auditioned in New York City for an unknown yet high-profile gig. Two weeks later, they made their first appearance in the prized support slot, and didn't give it up for more than two years. Their excellent shows naturally led to a deal with Motown, and they debuted with the up-tempo instrumental dance cut "Machine Gun." Written by Milan Williams, its Top Ten outing gave the group immediate attention. It was followed by the Top 20 single "I Feel Sanctified," which led to their third single -- and first number one record -- in "Slippery When Wet." Inside of 17 weeks, the septet was rocking the airwaves with their brand of Southern funk, spiced with an animated vocal delivery courtesy of Lionel Richie and Clyde Orange.

 In September of 1976, they released "Just to Be Close to You," their second number one single and a number seven pop hit. The Top Ten hit "Fancy Dancer" followed, and then came "Easy." Different from their other tunes, "Easy" was very serene and not nearly as soulful or funky as the band's other tunes. Nonetheless, it claimed the number one spot on the charts, and it paved the way for the style of ballads the group became known for. One exception to the ballad-heavy approach was "Brickhouse," the song that soon became the group's anthem. The arrangement and candid vocal lead by Clyde Orange was complemented by the evenly saturated percussive and rhythmic attack, and it cracked the Top Ten at number four. Two consecutive number one singles would follow: the dance cut "Too Hot ta Trot" and the placid number "Three Times a Lady." And then there was "Still," the last number one for the group with Richie as a member. In 1981, Richie recorded "Endless Love" with Diana Ross. The song peaked at number one for seven and nine weeks, respectively, on the Billboard R&B and pop charts. Its success was a prelude to what Richie enjoyed upon his 1982 exit from the group.

 In the absence of Richie, the group promptly courted tenor J.D. Nicholas (formerly of Heatwave) and ended up recording their biggest hit. Penned by Clyde Orange, "Nightshift" paid tribute to the late soul singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. For four consecutive weeks it topped the charts, and it also won the group their only Grammy.

Commodores finally left Motown in 1985. Consequently, the group signed with Polydor the same year and had another swing at the Top Ten with "Goin' to the Bank." During the '90s, the band was reduced to a core of three: Orange, King, and Nicholas. The threesome were nearly as active as they'd ever been, performing around the world and managing their own label, Commodore Records.

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Hot on the heels of their 1977 self-titled LP -- which included studio versions of the classics "Brick House" and "Easy" -- Commodores Live! was issued as a seasonal offering the same year. The band wisely included extended readings of not only its most recent hits, but also a healthy sampling from its previous four studio albums, as well as the track "Too Hot ta Trot," which had been featured in the motion picture Thank God It's Friday. The six-man original Commodores were a powerful and self-contained unit that could effortlessly alternate between turning over mean and serious funk jams or a slow, sexy power ballad. Heralded as the Black Beatles, the Commodores were able to fuse a more traditional pop music headlong into the funk stylings of their contemporaries: Parliament, the Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind & Fire. However, instead of being propelled by seemingly endless -- and often aimless -- jams, William King (trumpet), Thomas McClary (guitar), Ronald LaPread (bass), Walter "Clyde" Orange (drums), Lionel Richie (alto saxophone), and Milan Williams (keyboards) were able to tighten up their arrangements and make them more potent in the process. From right out of the gate, the opening trio of "Won't You Come Dance With Me," "Slippery When Wet," and "Come Inside" pounce and bounce around with undeniably hardcore funk grooves -- replete with distorted and screaming electric lead guitar lines, emphatic accents from the horns, and an authoritative rhythm section that James Brown would have been proud of. The mellower side of the band is equally represented by several key Lionel Richie ballads. "Just to Be Close to You" shimmers and is notable for Richie's extended vocal interlude. "Easy" -- an audible audience favorite -- swings with an urgency and passion conspicuously lacking in the more familiar studio version. Milan Williams' tasty keyboards are also a highlight as they lightly soar above the rest of the band. Without a doubt it is the ten-plus-minute version of "Brick House" that allows the band to reach a funkified critical mass. Ronald LaPread's rubbery basslines adhere themselves around "Clyde" Orange's Latin-tinged percussion inflections. The searing Richie and William King sound more akin to a full-fledged horn section than the hard-workin' duo behind their wall of solid brass. Commodores Live! is overall one of the finest R&B concert albums of the '70s -- of which there are far too few.



Commodores - Commodores Live !  (flac 472mb)

01 Won't You Come Dance With Me 03:42
02 Slippery When Wet 03:02
03 Come Inside 03:26
04 Just To Be Close To You 07:15
05 Funny Feelings 05:19
06 Fancy Dancer 04:59
07 Sweet Love 08:41
08 Zoom 10:19
09 Easy 07:29
10 I Feel Sanctified 02:56
11 Brick House 10:20
12 Too Hot Ta Trot (Studio Version) 05:38

Commodores - Commodores Live !    (ogg 172mb)

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The Commodores' sixth studio album, Natural High, is best known for the ballad "Three Times a Lady," which became a staple of adult contemporary radio and reached number one on both the pop and R&B charts. "Three Times a Lady" was their first number one pop hit, and Lionel Richie was being recognized as a major crossover star. Not everyone liked "Three Times a Lady" -- some people found the song to be much too sappy, and R&B purists argued that the Commodores were watering their music down. But even if "Three Times a Lady" isn't your cup of tea, Natural High still has a lot to offer R&B fans. "X-Rated Movie," "Such a Woman," and "I Like What You Do" are exhilarating examples of hardcore funk, and those who appreciate artists like Heatwave and the Brothers Johnson will find a lot to admire about "Fire Girl" and "Flying High" (both of which are sleek examples of the sophisticated funk style). Meanwhile, "Say Yeah" (featuring Richie) is a first-rate R&B slow jam. Whatever your opinion of "Three Times a Lady" -- whether you love it or hate it -- the fact is that Natural High has more plusses than minuses and was a generally respectable, if imperfect, addition to the Commodores' catalog.



Commodores - Natural High  (flac  252mb)

01 Fire Girl 4:19
02 X-rated Movie 4:48
03 Flying High 5:16
04 Three Times A Lady 6:49
05 Such A Woman 4:41
06 Say Yeah 5:43
07 I Like What You Do 4:50
08 Visions 5:45

Commodores - Natural High   (ogg 98mb)

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When the Commodores' seventh studio album, Midnight Magic, came out in 1979, one could safely assume that the LP would contain at least one adult contemporary ballad. And sure enough, Midnight Magic contains the ballad "Still," which was a number one pop hit (as well as a number one R&B hit) and became a staple on adult contemporary radio. The sappy ballad (which features Lionel Richie) wasn't without its detractors, who felt that the Commodores had become too much of a slick crossover act. But even if "Still" doesn't excite you, the rest of the album isn't bad. "Wonderland" (a number 21 R&B hit) is an enjoyable R&B slow jam, and fans of sophisticated funk (as opposed to hardcore funk) should appreciate "You're Special," "Gettin' It," and the disco-minded title song. "Sexy Lady" is the only thing on the LP that can honestly be described as hardcore funk; most of the up-tempo tunes favor the type of sophisticated funk that the Brothers Johnson, Rufus/Chaka Khan, and Heatwave were known for in the late '70s. Next to "Still," the album's best-known track is "Sail On," which reached number eight on Billboard's R&B singles chart (and number four on its pop single chart) despite the fact that it is essentially a pop-country song. Some R&B purists saw "Sail On" as a blatant example of how watered down the Commodores had become, but it's still a charming and likable tune -- one that wouldn't have been out of place on a Dolly Parton or Glen Campbell LP. Midnight Magic isn't one of the Commodores' essential releases, and R&B purists are advised to stick to the band's pre-1977 albums. Nonetheless, this is a generally decent, if uneven, record that has more strengths than weaknesses.



Commodores - Midnight Magic  (flac 237mb)

01 Gettin' It 4:18
02 Midnight Magic 5:42
03 You're Special 5:10
04 Still 5:51
05 Wonderland 5:28
06 Sexy Lady 3:30
07 Lovin' You 4:36
08 Sail On 5:43
09 12:01 A.M. (Reprise) 0:59

Commodores - Midnight Magic (ogg  97mb)

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Nightshift is the eleventh studio album by the Commodores, released by Motown Records in January 1985. It was the group's last album on the Motown label before switching to Polydor. Nightshift is the Commodores' second album without Lionel Richie, who left the band in 1982, and their last album with their original bass guitarist Ronald LaPread. Their previous album Commodores 13 (1983) had featured interim lead vocalist Harold Hudson of Mean Machine. For Nightshift the Commodores permanently replaced Richie with British-born J.D. Nicholas, formerly of Heatwave. Dennis Lambert was chosen as producer, the Commodores hoping to find the same magic created by producer–arranger James Anthony Carmichael, with whom they had worked since 1974 and who was a major impetus in their earlier success.

Despite the album's middling reviews, it remained in the top of the R&B charts in the US for a month, and it peaked at #3 on the pop chart. By and large, the album's popularity was due to its hit title track, "Nightshift". Written by Walter Orange, Dennis Lambert and Franne Golde, "Nightshift" was the band's biggest post-Lionel Richie hit, reaching #3 on The Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on Billboard's chart for top R&B/hip-hop singles. Paying tribute to the late soul singers Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, who both died in 1984, "Nightshift" also earned the group its only Grammy.



Commodores - Nightshift  (flac 263mb)

01 Squeeze The Fruit 3:00
02 Funny Feelings 4:51
03 Heaven Knows 4:41
04 Zoom 6:43
05 Won't You Come Dance With Me 3:47
06 Brick House 3:27
07 Funky Situation 3:39
08 Patch It Up 3:58
09 Easy 4:16

Commodores - Nightshift (ogg  91mb)

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Feb 19, 2016

RhoDeo 1607 Goldy Rhox 249

Hello, today the 249th post of GoldyRhox, classic pop rock in the darklight our mystery artist (born 5 September 1945) is a Glasgow-born singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history.

Our mystery artist is best known for his 1976 hit single "mysteryalbum title", the title song from the platinum album of the same name. Though this album and its 1978 platinum follow-up Time Passages brought Stewart his biggest worldwide commercial successes, earlier albums such as Past, Present and Future from 1973 are often seen as better examples of his intimate brand of historical folk-rock – a style to which he has returned in recent albums.

Our mystery artist was a key figure in British music and he appears throughout the musical folklore of the revivalist era. He played at the first-ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, knew Yoko Ono before she met John Lennon, shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon, and hosted at the Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s. Our man has released sixteen studio and three live albums since his debut album Bedsitter Images in 1967, and continues to tour extensively in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. His latest release is Uncorked, which was released on his independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings..

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Most of the albums i 'll post made many millions for the music industry and a lot of what i intend to post still gets repackaged and remastered decades later, squeezing the last drop of profit out of bands that for the most part have ceased to exist long ago, although sometimes they get lured out of the mothballs to do a big bucks gig or tour. Now i'm not as naive to post this kinda music for all to see and have deleted, these will be a black box posts, i'm sorry for those on limited bandwidth but for most of you a gamble will get you a quality rip don't like it, deleting is just 2 clicks...That said i will try to accommodate somewhat and produce some cryptic info on the artist and or album.

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Today's mystery album is the seventh studio album by our mystery man, released in 1976 and was produced and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece, its sales helped by the hit single "title track", "one of those 'mysterious woman' songs," co-written by Peter Wood. The other single from the album was "On the Border". There is no overarching theme here, as there was on its two immediate predecessors, but the impossible lushness of Alan Parsons' production and his evocative Continental narratives give the record a welcome feeling of cohesion that keeps the record enchanting as it moves from "Lord Grenville" to "Midas Shadow" to "Broadway Hotel," before it ends with the haunting title track. Along the way, our mystery artist  doesn't dwell too deeply in any area, preferring to trace out mysteries with his evocative lyrical imagery and a spinning array of self-consciously sophisticated music, songs that evoke American and European folk and pop with a deliberate grace. This could be unbearably precious if it didn't work so well. Our man is detached from his music, but only in the sense that he gives this album a stylish elegance, and Parsons is his perfect foil, giving the music a rich, panoramic sweep that mimics his globe-trotting songs. The result is a tremendous example of how good self-conscious progressive pop can be, given the right producer and songwriter -- and if you're a fan of either prog or pop and haven't given our mystery artist much thought, prepare to be enchanted. ...N'Joy



Goldy Rhox 249   (flac 263mb)

Goldy Rhox 249   (ogg 97mb)



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Feb 17, 2016

RhoDeo 1607 Aetix

Hello,


Today's artists were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by the use of "found" material, re-constructed to better serve their purpose, of making "more" with "less"......N'Joy

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More expressly political than their German counterparts Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Department followed the same tack: A creative use of the ethos in which diverse objects (including large amounts of scrap metal and power tools) can be used as instruments. The group formed in the London suburb of New Cross in 1981. The core members of the group were Graham Cunnington, Paul Jamrozy, Jonathan Toby Burdon, Paul Hines and Angus Farquhar. Other members who played with the group at various times included Alistair Adams, Neil Starr, John Eacott, Andy Cowton, Tony Cudlip, David Coulter, Gus Ferguson and Martin King. Comedian Vic Reeves played bass in an early incarnation of the band. The band signed to Some Bizzare Records, a label connected acts like Depeche Mode Soft Cell, PTV, Foetus, Swans. The slides and film for Test Dept multi-media events were made by visual director Brett Turnbull.

Their discography spans a wide variety of influences and styles, including a collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir in support of the miners' strike of 1984. They were particularly notable for complex and powerful percussion, as well as high-energy live performances. Like the German band Einstürzende Neubauten, another Some Bizzare Label signing with whom they are often compared, Test Dept used unconventional instruments such as scrap metal and industrial machinery as sound sources; however, Test Dept's use of these objects was far more rhythmic than was Neubauten's, and was often accompanied by film and slide shows. The group were noted for large-scale events in unusual site-specific locations, such as Waterloo station, Cannon Street station, Stirling Castle and the disused St Rollox Railway Works in Glasgow.

The band's album The Unacceptable Face of Freedom was praised by a music reviewer for The New York Times, claiming the album was notable for a "sophisticated use of sound-collage techniques and the helter-skelter momentum of its cyclical rhythms
In later years the band's music became less industrial and took on many of the properties of techno. The band's political stance was energised by the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

The band split up in 1997, but its former members have continued to work in the fields of art and culture. Angus Farquhar re-established the ancient Gaelic Beltane Fire Festival, held yearly on the night before/morning of the first of May on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. Farquhar also formed NVA, an innovative theatre company specialising in large-scale site-specific events. Cunnington, who suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, produced a one-man show in 1996 called Pain, recounting his experiences as a sufferer from this condition. Jamrozy works as an artist under the name of Satellitic. Gus Ferguson teaches music to orphans in Kathmandu, and young buddhist monks in Northern India..

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Originally released as a cassette in 1983, TD's second release after their original cassette (History - Strength Of Metal In Motion) and including some of the tracks from that release. It was a collection of live material and a few tentative studio dabblings. Capturing the raw energy of the groups early performances it features recordings of some of the groups first underground events. The legendary Arch 69 show under Waterloo station on a saturday afternoon was followed up by the nearby Titan Arch show a few months later. This time the Metropolitan Police raided the venue and arrested the entire audience and the group for organising an illegal event. TD's reputation for the risky and unpredictable was forged and they continued to utilise industrial sites and found locations whenever and wherever possible.

Their use of primitive drumming and monotonous waves of metallic noise meant that the group was unappreciated when the songs that comprise this compilation were originally recorded (1982-1983). The music is rabidly primal and earthy, which is quite an accomplishment since that's not what one usually associates with today's industrial rock. Since all of the songs are similar in approach and sound, it's impossible to pick out particular highlights; it sounds as if it's one long song broken up by flashes of silence. Still, fans of today's industrial sounds should really check out where it all originated.



Test Dept. - Ecstacy Under Duress (flac  398mb)

01 Hunger 3:59
02 Compulsion 5:12
03 In Uniform 6:15
04 Slow Hunger 4:01
05 Spring Into Action 2:31
06 Gdansk 7:50
07 Shockwork 2:57
08 Efficiency 12:13
09 On Pain 4:44
10 Beating Retreat 9:07
11 Untitled 1:28

Test Dept. - Ecstacy Under Duress  (ogg   143mb)

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Beating a Retreat was TD's debut LP after signing to the Some Bizzare stable, originally released as a double vinyl box set through Phonogram. The record company could not handle the politics of the group and it proved to be their last release for a major label. It was also the name of TD's first illegal performance at Arch 69 which although sparsely attended on a Saturday lunchtime was to send shockwaves through the underground scene, TD had most definately arrived.

This Test Dept thing knows the power of doubt and the paralysis born of fear, gestures in awe of it, works in wonder of it, can't get to grips with it but, crucially won't succumb to it. Unique in todays pop depression, it confronts the cynicism adopted against the innefectiveness of our individual wills. That TD exist at all, after Thatcher's Falklands death-blow to our belief that public desire dictates anything, is a miracle indeed. The British collective's first album shows them with a better range of industrial percussion and more of a sense of rhythm than their only true contemporary, Einsturzende Neubaten.



Test Dept. - Beating a Retreat (flac  193mb)

01 Fall From Light 4:33
02 Kick To Kill 6:13
03 Sweet Sedation 4:12
04 Spring Into Action 4:15
05 Plastic 4:55
06 Inheritance 3:42
07 Cold Witness 7:11

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These recordings were made at the Berlin  'Atonal' Festival and the Kampnagel, Hamburg in 1985, and are a powerful document of the flowering of TD into a potent force. The 'Atonal' Festival was a showcase for the most radical and uncompromising acts in Europe & was recorded at the old SS HQ the Tiergarten in the centre of old West Berlin.



Test Dept. - Atonal & Hamburg “Live” (flac 294mb)

Atonal
01 The Fall From Light 4:09
02 Total State Machine 8:25
03 Shockwork 4:00
04 Gdansk 5:57
Hamburg
05 Kick To Kill 6:01
06 Fist 3:53
07 51st State Of America 7:33

Test Dept. - Atonal & Hamburg “Live”   (ogg  97mb)

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Though they've jettisoned much of the pounding steel percussion of their early material in favor of martial drums, a few synthesizers and some tape music, The Unacceptable Face of Freedom remains more focused on social critique of the British government and unfair union practice in keeping with their previous album. Released on Some Bizzare in 1986 it was the second 'Ministry of Power' collaboration. It involved the artist Malcolm Poynter whose sculptures formed the basis for the award winning album cover. His work used toy soldiers and guns to sculpt large scale figures such as his awesome 'Horsemen of the Apocalypse'.

It was also the name of a massive event held at BR's Bishobsbridge Maintenance Depot at Paddington to commemorate the demise of the Greater London Council (undemocratically abolished by Margaret Thatchers Tory Government because of its radical programme), it was the beginning of a flowering relationship between the 'Railway Children' and the National Railways. Decorated with Sculpture from Malcom Poynter, dance from legendary choreographer Jacob Marley and the Company of Cracks, poetry from the radical miner Alan Sutcliffe, script by playwright Jonathan Moore, directed by Teddy Kiendl, set designed by Tom Dixon (now head designer at Habitat), banners by 53rd State Banner Co, brass played and conducted by John Eacott of Big Band Loose tubes and 360 degrees audio and visuals from infamous soundman 'Mad' Jack Balchin and acclaimed directors Brett Turnbull and Martine Thoquenne, gymnastics and pyrotechnics from Ra Ra Zoo. It was a truly awsome underground event featuring the cream of talent of a generation. The Ministry of Power was born. It was the first ever 'rave' in the UK and is still the benchmark for large scale site specific work in Britain.



Test Dept. - The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom (flac 329mb)

01 Fuckhead 5:37
02 51st State Of America 4:04
03 Comrade Enver Hoxha 5:00
04 Fist 3:35
05 Statement 4:24
06 The Crusher 4:04
07 Victory 4:09
08 Corridor Of Cells 7:58
09 The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom - Face 1 4:22
10 The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom - Face 2 5:30
11 The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom - Face 3 6:40

Test Dept. - The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom   (ogg  125mb)

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12" dancefloor single Faces Of Freedom 1,2 & 3. released under the pseudonym TDA (Taking and Driving Away). Featuring Neutrament (Face 1); Rico (Face 2). Test Dept's formation in 1981 in the decaying docklands of South London, was an urgent reaction to the materialistic drift and reactionary conservatism of the prevailing musical and political culture. TD rejected the conventional and developed a style that reflected the decay of their surroundings scavenging the unregenerated wastelands for raw materials, and transforming found industrial items into designed, sculptural instruments. Suitably armed they forged a hard rhythmic sonic battery, fusing found sound samples and cutting edge electronics in the construction of a dynamic physical totality. Their infamous sonic assaults were challenging and demanding for audience and performers alike, a test of physical endurance that journeyed through the sonic pain threshold and into a cathartic energy release. The 'Stakhanovite Sound' was a furnace that forged an attitude of total collective commitment, embracing the spirit of punk with an avant revolutionary sensibility that sought to challenge the status quo. It was the antithesis of commercial record industry values. Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses.



Test Dept. - The Faces Of Freedom EP (flac 101mb)

01 The Faces Of Freedom 1 4:22
02 The Faces Of Freedom 2 5:30
03 The Faces Of Freedom 3 6:39

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