Album of the Day - Silvester Anfang

I had this one on last night, while working on some other stuff, and it very gradually dawned on me what a strong set of pieces it is. Silvester Anfang just get better and better. Belgian basement-pagan-psych, slow-burn edition, building to an Amon Düül I-like frenzy.

Silvester Anfang - Spontane Opnames I: Anti-Metal Politie-Interventie

For more on the band and their label, Funeral Folk, see this post.

Album of the Day - Lifelover / Pulver

Catchy Swedish rock band, with a Black Metal/80s goth-pop hybrid sound working for them. Shrieking vocals, but with ultra-hooky guitar riffs, brain-worm melodies and touches of sweet synth and piano. Worth posting if only for the reason that it recently went out of print.

Lifelover -Pulver (2006) (87.4 MB)

My more fleshed-out commentary on Lifelover can be found here (with some individual mp3 tracks from this and their 2 other albums.) Download link available for 7 days or the first 100 downloads.

Music Clip of the Day - Necrophagia

Necrophagia attempt to recreate the atmosphere of their favorite no-budget horror features (Last House on Dead End Street, for example) in this excerpt from their DVD Through the Eyes of the Undead. This is an avi rip, much better quality than the version streamable on YouTube, and you get the additional bonus of a 20-second rant from the drummer about what a great movie Amityville II: The Possession is (apparently, someone else agrees, as that link will take you to an entire Web site devoted to the film.)

Necrophagia - Embalmed Yet I Breathe (99.45 MB)

Here, you'll get to see Phil Anselmo (who played guitar and co-wrote the album from which this track comes, Holocausto de la Morte) drink Wild Turkey in a graveyard and smoke a joint with a witchy, paint-huffing maiden, among many other homespun visual delights. Holocausto... and the Black Blood Vomitorium EP are by far the band's finest work, no doubt due to Phil's evolved talents.

Link available for 7 days or the first 100 downloads.

The New iMac...

...seems to be draining my life essence.  Steve Jobs as Elizabeth Bathory, or Freudstein from House By the Cemetery—"He needs human victims to regenerate his cells!"  This must be what owning/firing an automatic pistol for the first time feels like—immense power, just barely controllable.  "Oh, calm down!"

Album of the Day - Cosey

I am deep-fried due to a heavy day setting up the new iMac...a pleasing kind of exhaustion.

Here is Cosey Fanni Tutti's Time to Tell, which now seems to be out of print on CD—dark and haunting, yet soothing in its repetitions. Perfect for a walk through Glen Ridge in Autumn, as I recall.

Download link available for 7 days or 100 downloads only.

G'night.

Feldman Follow-up: "Why Patterns?" 1978

Per my earlier post, here is my preferred version of "Why Patterns?"—infused with human pondering, emotion, forgetfulness...breaths held and breaths released. It makes sense to me, in general, to favor renderings of 20th Century music that actually feature the composer as performer and/or conductor (perhaps because my orientation is so rooted in 60s/70s rock.)

Why Patterns? (1978)

Eberhard Blum, flute
Jan Williams, percussion
Morton Feldman, piano

Recorded 12.17.78. From CRI CD 620 (released in 1992; now out of print.) Click link for info on the recording. This is a dub from cassette. Download available for 7 days only.

Album of the Day - Morton Feldman

I decided recently that in addition to its many tonal charms and innovations, I also love the music of Morton Feldman because it could easily have been the soundtrack to a particularly dark and metaphysical Ben Casey episode. There's a haunting, 50s-melodrama twinge to many of my favorite Feldman compositions.

I was going to post either "Why Patterns?" or the entire Ensemble Recherche CD (the latter is out of print, and fetching high prices used) today, then I found them both on BigFatSatanist. Here is the direct link:

Morton Feldman CDs

I also recommend the book, Morton Feldman Says, a collection of interviews and lectures with the composer. I'm still chipping away at it, reading a chapter at a time, but my spirit is always raised when I put it down.

Postscript – My favorite recording of "Why Patterns?" was performed in 1978 by the trio of Eberhard Blum, Jan Williams, and the composer himself on piano (the one on the CD above is by California Ear Unit.) Maybe I'll dub it from cassette and post it later today....

Haiku (for Dogs)

Old people at the pharmacy
Obliviously wasting everyone's time
"Not on file!"

Yesterday's Album of the Day

Having trouble keeping Blogger fonts consistent, so I'm re-posting this one:

Paysage d'Hiver - Kerker

Nightmares in the venal system. Fighting your way forward in a blizzard, ice shards chipping away at your face.

Good download here.

Purchase here or here.

Paysage d'Hiver means Landscape of Winter, and it's the perfect soundtrack for this decrepit time of year. ... Every Pd'H record (or "Demo" as per their page on Metal Archives) is an epic, and many are packaged as A5 digibooks with grim b&w artwork, sealed in black envelopes with black-on-black Gothic titles printed on the outside—the ultimate Black Metal fetish item.

Album(s) of the Day: Bone Awl & Disorder

Bone Awl—Black Metal that dances with the spectre of early 80s hardcore, in particular British bands like Disorder. Both groups specialize in short, angry bursts of rhythmic viscera.

Bone Awl - Not For Our Feet

Disorder - The Complete Disorder

Bone Awl link from So Long Suckers. In the spirit of fair play, my uploads (like Disorder) will be available for seven days only; no codes to type in, no queue/wait times.

Haiku (for Dogs)

Pot-dealer cologne
Taints the skunky bouquet
"It's cultural"