¡para!helion: Fourth - When Technology Fails

 Haven't really been paying attention, but Dave pointed this out to me last time I saw him...seems we've had almost 15000 downloads of this ¡para!helion record over at the Free Music Archive. I always felt like this was one of the best projects I was ever involved with...it seems others agree.



Recorded summer 1999, improvised live to two track.Players: Dave C- Trumpet, effects, percussion; Jeff K- Electric Balilaika, effects; aboombong - Clay Djemba, acoustic bass; Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion.

Waltz Bop Shop

A bilingual interview with the smart-ass drummer from Waltz Bop Shop over at Daily Music - Cup of Sound. Also includes a video so you can look at a picture while you listen to the album "The Quartet."

¡para!helion - Harper's Bizarre Film Fest

The last of the CDr's that Dave shared with me this winter is up today. This one is ¡para!helion as it existed before I started playing with them. One long track recorded live. Liner notes on the disc are as follows: "Harpers Bizarre Film Fest-O 1/10/97 -> Mono. Produced by Nobody. Special tech supports Radioshack corp of AM; Chinese Slave Labor Kingpins since 1959."Can't really tell you anything beyond that. Dave and Jeff with Chris on hand drums. Enjoy.



Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, (name your own price) or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

once and again - minus four - in stereono

The last blotter related for the time being (until Dave sends me more tunes), Once and Again - Minus Four - in Stereono is an eclectic collection of blotter tracks and improvisations from the original line-up of ¡para!helion. This one has everything from outright noise to mellow prettiness. Up next will be a live album by this original ¡para!helion line-up. Enjoy.



Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, (name your own price) or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

sludge the butcher

Another release from Jeff and Dave recorded in the 1990's, Sludge the Butcher. Some longer trippier tracks alongside some shorter odder ones on this release...in the end it all blurs into one beautifully incoherent whole. This one has a lot more sampling & tape manipulation/outright noise on it than Songs for Mommy but manages some definite ¡para!helion like passages as well. Whereas touchstones for Songs for Mommy might include Half Machine Lip Moves era Chrome, this one is much closer to territory opened up by The Residents or Negativland. Very much a DIY gem for the fan of outsider music. Enjoy.


Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

blotter - songs for mommy (a ¡para!helion side project)

Well folks, if you are reading this, it means that your humble host is now a daddy. In anticipation of the upcoming event, I have prepared a few posts ahead of time so that I can get you that exclusive DIY music you want with a single click. Given that motivation, this one seemed the most obvious place to start.

Songs for Mommy is the brainchild of Jeff from ¡para!helion and features an eclectic set of musical experiments in collaboration with David Chapman and others. Recorded in Albuquerque in the 90's with a few live shows under various names (including Blotter), I was given permission by David to share it with you when I saw him on a brief holiday visit to New Mexico. A couple more CD's worth of these excursions coming in the near future as I focus on feeding, burping, changing, and sleeping. Enjoy.


Last year was, truly, the most productive year of my life. Given the two aboombong albums, an azwarm album, the boomdispenser remixs, and collaboration on the DUSTdevil & crow sophomore album, that would be true if life were just about music. But last year also saw completion of my Ph.D. and, the beginnings of the most important production of my life, my beautiful son. I have been a truly blessed individual of late. Random donations for the little one's music education are gladly accepted via the "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

Boom Dispenser remixs: A Chronic Groove Feeder

Artist: Boom Dispenser
Album:Boom Dispenser remixs: A Chronic Groove Feeder
Style: acid jazz, trip bop, minimalism, noise, drone, dark ambient
Release: May 15th, 2010
Players: Fez Dispenser remixs aboombong; aboombong remixs Fez Dispenser
Available in a variety of formats from http://aboombong.bandcamp.com (set your own price)



A sonic sibling rivalry. Enjoy. Start spreading the word (^_^) !!!

Original Tracks from the albums "asynchronic" by aboombong and "high bottom groove feeder" by Fez Dispenser - available at: http://aboombong.bandcamp.com/album/asynchronic & http://fezdispenser.com/

¡para!helion-Fourth: when technology fails

This is the final ¡para!helion release here at Pen & Mallet. Due to human errors and technology failures, these tracks needed some significant work to remove unwanted clipping, digital feedback, and other nastiness. There are still some minor cracks, pops, skips, and screeches on the record. I think the music holds up, however, despite the rawer audio quality. These tracks come from the same sessions as greater than 3, so they include the trio plus some additional players here and there. Available wav, flac, ogg vorbis, mp3. Enjoy.

Album: Fourth: when technology fails
Style: late night dream states
Recorded summer 1999, improvised live to two track.
Players:
Dave C- Trumpet, effects, percussion
Jeff K- Electric Balilaika, effects
me- Clay Djemba, acoustic bass
Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion


Tracklisting:
1) Destroy!
2) From 11 to 6 to 3
3) Ring Modulator (echoplex)
4) String Drum

UPDATE: I have updated a previous post to make it easier to find all of the "lossless" posts now available on Pen & Mallet. You can, of course, search by genre, date, band name, or click on the "FLAC" tag as well.
UPDATE: This record is featured over at undomondo. They've got a lot going on over there. Worth checking out. Drop by and vote for ¡para!helion.

¡para!helion: >3 (never released material)

Album: >3
Style: high altitude meditations
Improvised and recorded live to two track summer of 1999
Players:
Dave- Trumpet, effects, percussion
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
me- African Kettle Drums, Dumbek, Clay Djemba, 1940's wooden field snare, clanks, mic stand gooseneck, booms, crashes, & scrapes.
Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion

Of all the music I have posted here at Pen & Mallet, the two ¡para!helion releases are the ones that I personally listen to the most often. I have always chalked that up to the fact that ¡para!helion's music was all improvised. None of the overlearning under a critical ear that goes into creating and perfecting composed songs goes into the creation of improvised music, so, for me, it feels easier to listen to the songs as music, rather than as a product of my ego. In other words, it's easier to let go and hear the songs as songs without being critical of my own performance or wishing I had one more take to move the song closer to the ideal version that I carry around in my head.

Of course, ¡para!helion has been duking it out with Waltz Bop Shop for the most downloaded music at Pen & Mallet, so maybe I like them 'cuz they're good records. Hard to tell.

Anyway, today we have 6 never released songs taken from the Midaq Alley and 3 Miles from Mecca sessions. At the time we put those two releases together, these didn't make the cut primarily due to non-musical issues like less-than-ideal microphone placement, or minor equipment failures. After 10 years not hearing these, I don't find that those issues hurt these tracks much at all, so I thought I would share them.

Several of these tracks include additional players beyond the trio including ¡para!helion's original drummer, Chris (iirc) and a gang of percussionist he brought over for one or two of our night recording sessions. Track's one and two come from the very last ¡para!helion session, with Ghazna being the last song we ever recorded.

All files are available in lossless Flac, Ogg Vorbis as well as Mp3 from the internet archive.



Tracklist (player plays all six tracks):
1) Chabolo
2) Ghazna
3) Bactra
4) Haraiva
5) Lampaka
6) Nagarahara

Throw it out there, not away - loop fodder for the remixologists among us

Today we have a series of tracks recorded by the follow up to ¡para!helion (see Midaq Alley and 3 Miles from Mecca). In the summer of 2000, after Jeff graduated and moved away from Albuquerque, Dave and I recruited our friend Jeff Gassaway to join us on bass for some late night improv sessions. When I found these recordings, I initially decided not to include them here, not because there isn't a lot I like about them, but because (unlike the para!helion sets) in the end none of the tracks manage to quite gel into cohesive units. Each have moments I like - there are plenty of interesting herky-jerky, odd time-signature grooves and Dave does some of his best trumpet work - but in the end the project really needed an additional player if it was going to work. I have kept these recordings intending to do some radical remixes and to recruit some additional players to lay overdubs on the resulting tracks. But, given that I haven't gotten around to that after almost 9 years, it seems unlikely that will ever happen.

So, what changed my mind? Why post these? Well, I recently ran across this great little project by Kutiman where he remixes clips from youtube into some fantastic numbers. Seeing and hearing his work made me realize that there might be someone out there who could recognize the potential in these tracks and turn them into something. In that spirit, I am posting the raw tracks, flaws and all, as loop fodder for the remixologists out there that may find them useful. For listeners, I would advise dropping these into a random mix rather than treating them as an album. They work better that way.

Album: Throw it out there, not away
Style: Free improvisation - jazz meets math rock
Recorded live to 2 track DAT summer 2000.

Trumpet, effects - Dave
Bass - Jeff
Drum Kit - me


Player plays all seven tracks.

If you turn these into something, shoot me a copy and I'll post it here.

Waltz Bop Shop: Live on KUNM, the quartet, Grant's Marshall

Today we have music from phases 2 and 3 of Waltz Bop Shop.

Grant's Marshall:
Throughout my musical career I have had a lot of collaborators. Interestingly, the collaborator that has been involved in the most music was not a person, but a piece of equipment: Grant Garner's 2x12 50 watt Marshall guitar amp. Our first encounter was in Las Cruces New Mexico in the hardcore band Cattle Mutilators (with Dave Lamb from AOS) back in 1984-5. Next came Seizure Disorder and a series of guerrilla punk performances by the Archbishops Talent Exposure Collective (ATEC). These ATEC performances were a series of one-off groups with the mission statement "We never rehearse, we only perform." ATEC productions included a couple of infamous feedback drenched gigs in El Paso, Texas: The Exploding Archbishops opening for Tex and The Horseheads, and Fucked Up Nancy opening for Agent Orange and Blood on the Saddle. (Quote from a Horsehead. "We just did a gig with Jesus and Mary Chain. You guys are way better, and you're not assholes." That made me laugh). ATEC also produced The Asphalt Hamsters, Wargasm, Live Rat Pasties, The Cabbage Farmers, Harriet and The Matches (recording to follow), Legends in Our Own House, and others that I am sure I am forgetting and Grant's Marshall was there for them all. When I moved back to Albuquerque and Choke formed, Grant's Marshall was there again. Choke shared a rehearsal space with The Jonny Cats, Pueblo Dogs, a couple of reggae bands, and Waltz Bop Shop (and its predecessor Scat: A Logical Dog with Jon Jarden on vocals) and Grant's Marshall became the house guitar amp and got dragged to gigs by all the bands - playing for thousands of Albuquerque music fans. The fact that a large portion of these gigs did not involve Grant in any way is a testament to his generosity. Thanks Grant.

But, now to the music.

Waltz Bop Shop Phase 2:
Phase 2 of Waltz Bop Shop begins when Grant's Marshall leaves the picture and Keif buys a Fender Super Twin Reverb from my brother. With the cleaner sound of the Fender, the jazz elements that were always present in Waltz Bop Shop's work came to the forefront. From phase 2 we have two albums of live material that were both recorded on KUNM's Ear to the Ground. The first primarily features songs from All My Idears are Flawed in Sum Way, and the second includes songs from across the Waltz Bop Shop catalog.

Get All my idears are played live today

Tracklist:
1) Dress Code at Tito's
2) Kenneth! What's the Frequency
3) Self-congratulatory Non-conformist
4) Liquid Gang
5) Evening News
6) Feeble (Live)
7) Please yourself
8) One and three quarters
9) Tell ANYONE else

Get A whisper in the airwaves

Tracklist:
1) untitled
2) Tax Shelter
3) Tapeleader
4) Samba Groovie
5) small talk
6) Tower Jazz Song
7) Vegetarianism
8) We'll be leaving soon
9) Michael Dummett
10) Forgotten title

Waltz Bop Shop Phase 3:
Phase 3 of Waltz Bop Shop starts when we talked our good friend Jenette Isaacson into joining the group as a vocalist. Jenette was and is an actress active in local theatre (you may have seen her in a couple of movies too: Suspect Zero and Made in USA), and she brought a much needed dose of flair to our live show with her commanding stage presence. We only recorded 5 songs with Jenette. Which is too bad, because by the time Waltz Bop Shop final broke up in the late 90's, the stuff we were doing with Jenette was some of the best stuff the band had ever done. The recordings below (which I like a lot) give a glimmer of that later greater work.

Waltz Bop Shop (Phase Three):
Jenette Isaacson- vocals
Keif Henley - Guitar
Rodney Cupp - Bass
me - drum kit

Get The Quartet

Tracklist:
1) Name Dropping At Angela's
2) Midnight Drive
3) Insatiable
4) Sand Walker
5) We've Got A Problem
6) 3 by 5 stutter (bonus track)

Whew...

covers: Waltz Bop Shop & Jonny Cats

Playing covers of other people's songs has never been a big part of any of the bands I have been in over the years. Today's post contains a couple of exceptions to that rule.

Up first is a cover of the T-Rex classic Liquid Gang performed by Waltz Bop Shop and recorded at KUNM. Waltz Bop Shop was a trio (and later a quartet) and was the longest lived project I have been involved in. Spanning most of the 90's Waltz Bop Shop played proto-math-rock and fractured jazz with a decidedly quirky mix of pop and experimental sensibilities.

Track: Liquid Gang
(from the cassette: All my idears are flawed in sum way)
Players:
Keif Henley - guitar
Rodney Cupp, ph.d. - bass, vocals, piano intro
me- drum kit

Get it here (@192)

Up next is a cover of Gun Club's Sex Beat by the infamous Jonny Cats. The Jonny Cats tore through the Albuquerque scene alongside bands like The Drags in the mid-90's playing surf-beat-cow-punk-mutherfucker. The Jonny Cats would have been household names if it weren't for a focused dedication to all of the most self-destructive aspects of the rock-n-roll life style. This track was recorded for a compilation cd that never happened.

Track: Sex Beat (unreleased)
The Jonny Cats were:
Kenta Henmi - lead guitar (now in The Violenta)
Dave Chavez - bass
Jonny Jarden - vocals, nudity
Jonny Reed - guitar
Johnny T- drum kit

Get it here (@ 192)

More tunes from both bands will follow.

¡para!helion - 3 Miles from Mecca

Album: 3 Miles from Mecca
Style: Opium Den Ambiance
Released in very limited quantities in 1999

Players:
Dave- Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
me- African Kettle Drums, Dumbek, Clay Djemba

This is the first ¡para!helion release that I played on (Dave & Jeff had released some earlier work with a different drummer). The bulk of these were recorded live at Mecca coffeehouse in Albuquerque to entertain the troops as Basement Films projected and archived a massive donation of educational films. We played with films projecting on every available piece of wall space. The first and last track were recorded in Dave's living room.

Get "3 Miles from Mecca" (@ 320)
Update: available at the internet archive (Flac,Ogg Vorbis,mp3 or stream or original posting).

Note: player plays the whole album.
Enjoy.

¡para!helion- Midaq Alley

Album: Midaq Alley.
Style: Dirges from the desert.
Released in very limited quantities in 1999.
Featuring:
Dave-Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
Me - percussion, loops, and acoustic bass.
Improvised and recorded live to two track.

Get part one and part two (@320)
Update: available from the internet archive: on one page (here includes FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, mp3) or on two (part one & part two)

Track List:

1) Allal
2) The fqih
3) Istikhara
4) The Waters of Izli
5) Mejdoub
6) The Wind at Beni Midar
7) The Story of Lahcen and Idir
8) 1000 days of Mokhtar
9) Abhilash Talkies (Thanks to Ernie for the mumbling.)
10) Ayemenem
11) Naxos
12) The Fqih (Slight Return)

Read a review of Midaq Alley here