Burden of Friendship - (I Am) Zuzu's Petals

Label : Panic Records & Tapes

Year : 1986

Country : US

Format : C60

 

Noise collage as you would come to expect from Scott Marshall (Martian?) and co.

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The Dave - Lois / Poof!

 

Label : Self-Released

Year : 1984/85

Country : US

Format : C45

Here are two tape rips sent to me by the great Tony Coulter. A long time coming, these. I have posted this group on here in the past, probably half a decade ago on one of the Outward Inward comps, but here they are in full swing. Bizarro indie with improvisational folk inclinations. A good comparison would be the vastly underrated Flying Nun outfit Marie & the Atom, of which I'm hoping to see a reissue campaign come to light sometime soon.

These two rips were split by myself, going by whatever the submitter at Discogs thought the track listings were. It's all so weirdly structured that you cannot be too sure of where one song ends and another interlude begins and vice versa. In any case, these are buried gems in the junkyard (in a good way!) of the 80s cassette underground.

Here

Gary Panter - Pray For Smurph

Label : Overheat Records - OVE-0102

Year : 1983 (RE 2008)

Country : Japan

Format : CD

Here's something I didn't know existed 'til a few months ago. The CD issue of this, that is. I had once heard an old vinyl rip of this album, weirdowave avant-country by the comic artist Panter. An apocryphal Ralph Records curiosity if you will.

Now a local comic book store came upon a batch of these, cutting the price down by magnitudes going by Discogs. It was really serendipitous, I opened a social media app one night (turning morning) and came upon it and gave it an order. The rest is history. 

Now given that this is by an artist of Panter's cache you would expect to find some sweet prints in the booklet. If you have been paying attention to the scans, you would know yourself to be correct. It also came with this sick flag, which I have hanging proudly in my closet at the minute.

This is a definitive "zolo" release, although I see that more as a pure aesthetic than an actual musical genre. If you haven't heard it before and my aforementioned description of the music doesn't register, think of it like the music he designed covers for in the past: Snakefinger, Residents (and Renaldo/the Loaf), Oingo Boingo, the good doctor Eugene Chadbourne, etc.... The herk and the jerk of a twang in a mode of new wave.

Don't be afraid to click the CD!

Iceplants - Done By The Iceplants

Label : Small Tools Tradition - B Town 01

Year : 1986

Country : US

Format : LP

I have unearthed a holy grail. Well, bought one at least. This group has been on my mind for quite a while after hearing their Happytime At The Wow Club shortplayer first posted on the legendary Mutant Sounds blog. On my mind, but out of reach (financially). Specifically this "long"player. I was just about ready to take a road trip down to DC to have a listen to the Library of Congress' copy before deciding to just bite the bullet and let the collectors win just this once.

Taking a chance with it, I'd say it was worth it. The seller was a treat to deal with, too! Anyway, to the music. Its sound is caught between the drunken piano cabarets of the aforementioned Wow Club and the industrial postpunk of their other rarity which I posted some time ago. The bite is certainly there, lyrics wise. Anti-Soviet ballads are not something often to be found in the exp. underground of the time, sort of continuing on the theme of atypical political lieds after "Hanoi Jane"... Among other topics, like nuclear destruction and short ditties about roadkill.

Read em or weep, maybe both at the same time.

Aside from all that "musical" stuff, there's a letter left from the band leader (I assume) to the former owner of the record. 

Always seems kind of weird, I won't say voyeuristic, to have these in your collection. Maybe it's just me. It's still cool though, in terms of extra goodies that you may find in a random given record. It could be worse, could be whatever came with the first edition of TG's D.o.A.

 

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Harpy - Hot Drive

Label : Self-Released - HP-006

Country : Japan

Year : 1998

Format : CD

Before I start, let me recommend this live performance being offered on Bandcamp by the great itoken. With that giving me a good conscious to share this to you for free, here is a set of tracks recorded in the late 90s by one of my favorite toy/avant/prog groups, a mix of live and studio tracks. 

A zip of this has been floating about the internet for a long while, but only in measly 192 kbps mp3. Today I give to you, in fresh 4K quality, a 96 kbps opus rip!!!!

(FLAC version can be found on slsk if need be)

Here

The Bunk! - Scenes From Dreamland

Label : Cobbs Music

Year : 1999

Country : US

Format : C90

An eBay shot in the dark that hit the target. Based only on the faith given by the two Sun City Girls' covers featured as well as the homage in the title proper, I gave it a whirl. Not like I had to pay too much for it anyhow. What's contained in the oxide today is mostly cosmic psyche improvisations, like the Girls' jams at their most melodic and (somewhat) coherent.

Given their location, I wonder if they were buddies with Gravelvoice honcho Scott Colburn. He of Bishop and Gocher production infamy, but I didn't need to tell you that.

Here

Reportaż - Reportaż / Muzika

Label : Tonpress - SX-T 129

Year : 1988

Country : Poland

Format : LP

Back from the dead, to give you some stuff to listen to. 

Maybe, if you want.

Two to make up for my absence with excellent, excellent RIO from Poland. An avant-bordello soundtrack, even. You might have heard these releases somewhere else on the internet but you might just like my rips better.

Here

Label : ADN - 25

Country : Italy

Year : 1987

Format : C60

Here

Defuser - World Suicide And Freeze Please

Label : Landslide Records - LSD-502

Year : 1982

Country : US

Format : 7 inch

Here's a real classic, straight from the underground bunkers.

Chiefly the B-side, which is atypically featured in prominence compared to the headliner Freeze Please. You might have heard it before on various platforms and differing qualities, but I figured I would throw my hat in the ring and post my own personal rip. Fresh! 

Defuser were a very intriguing project in the new wave oeuvre: frenetic synths match up to the frenetic vocalisms, a combo which really works as expected. Though that's a little vague, I'd let this speak for itself at 45 revolutions per minute.

 Here

While Defuser hasn't gotten the VoD treatment or a sniff of a CD retrospective, you can make do while someone picks up the pieces by going to their website that's packed with info and good old MP3s.

Cool And The Clones - Wrong Time Of Month

Label : Ejaz - 2001

Year : 1985

Country : US

Format : LP

Here

Freed from the clutches of whoever, and free they are. Improvisational jazz interpolated with electronic treatments and experiments. Everything laid bare on the taped on insert. Live shenanigans. what more does an obscuro-avant fan need? Succinctness is key, the music itself paints an expressionist picture that I could only complete with filler text. Enjoy! 

Max Goldt - Ende Juli, Anfang August

Label : Hidden Records - Bulb No. 7

Year : 1994

Country : Germany

Format : LP

I was going to try and fit this in the month of October before it dozed off into that annual frenzy of orange and black, but working this platform on mobile is a bigger nightmare than any decoration one could place in their lawn. So, I'll compose this in the month of pent up sexual aggression. At least, that's what the internet has christened the month as.

I do believe this is my first time giving this artist a spotlight outside of the stray mention in a blurb concerning someone else. Though I may not always understand it, there is an enthralling nature to Goldt's music. The way the spoken and half-sung passages interact with the dissonant synth backing makes for a strangely intimate affair, like a hologram coming up from the grooves. Like the cover might suggest, an uneasy sort of chill relaxation.

Here

Shrinkwrap - Fear, Loathing & Admiration

Label : Shrinkwrap Propaganda

Year : 1991

Country : US

Format : C90

 The sequel no-one would have expected. Yes, five years after the original post comes a compendium of that very same band. One of those wishlist items I knew I had to buy when it popped up, it's now here for the enjoyment of a relative few. The title track of the tape I posted all those brief few years back is featured here, with the b-side absent. Still, a ton to chew into here. That very same collage heavy industrio-noise rock (not quite Godflesh) is there, with some surprising experimental passages here and there.

Here

Die Welttraumforscher - Werkstatt Wasserstadt

Label : Das Moniflabel - PP040 / Ebus Music - EM056

Country : Switzerland

Year : 1999

Format : LP

To preface this I would like to make a few announcements: Die Welttraumforscher has a new album out on the very intriguing label New York Haunted, it's very nice and I recommend the purchase for all who may have been exposed to him from my blog. Still some copies left of the tape, of which I ordered, so try and go for that if you're into the physical paraphernalia. Cheap, too

The other announcement (...before I once again repeat myself about this wonderful artist for nth time) is that I have been in the process of re-ripping a bunch of records and cassettes previously found on here. I have (marginally) better equipment and instead of doing it from the jack of an old stereo I have come to my senses and started ripping directly from the output. Armed with a Scarlett 2i2 and iZotope, better days are sure to come. If you have slsk, you should have direct access to the FLAC rips (sometimes in 24 bit). I say this because I'm undecided if I should reupload all these one-by-one given the space constraints on Drive and Mega, even considering the efficiency of the opus file format. We will see, new rips will of course still be featured here.

This particular LP is a bit different than the previous ones found here. From my observation, this one is less "song" orientated and more ambient, like the Loon side-project. The singing is there, but the vox feel as if they will melt and meld into the surrealist backing track any second, and they will. Another peculiarity among his peculiar discography is the B-side, a side-long suite. I was tempted to try and split the tracks as they may but without notation I couldn't possibly bother. And why should I? It works perfect as a singular organism of a track.

Here

The above image is my best attempt at manually stitching together the scan of one side of the record sleeve. For understandable reasons, the program was unable to finish the job. This is because each "slice" was simply a mirror image. Although it's not a perfect match, I tried my best.

The Plagiarist Trio - Appearance

Label : Wafer Face - WAFER 4

Year : 1992

Country : US

Format : LP

Here's a strange whiplash of a record, from the fine friends of Wafer Face. As expected from the small press, this is a surreal and dadaistic piece of work. Also expected is the reliance of collages from different mediums from tape to vinyl record.

That's not all to it, really. It's hard to get into as every track in this wreckord sorta fades into the next yet clashes all the same. While it is mostly comprised of scattershot samples over a textural electro-acoustic kinda underbelly, some parts are more song-based than what one could anticipate. I haven't heard the groups other project under the alias Absinthe Radio Trio, but I have to imagine it's in the same ballpark in terms of musical surrealism.

[sic]

here