how odd

so i know this blog is more or less dead, but i've been going back and downloading some of my own stuff because i lost some of the files. has anyone noticed these wacky franz de byl comments at the end of all my posts? they're all about a year after this blog closed apparently. i heard he's been doing this to a lot of other blogs too, some people think it's a really bad joke. any ideas?

New blog.

So I've started a new blog.

It's not a music blog. It has posts about music, but that doesn't comprise its subject matter solely.

I'm not sure how successful its going to be, or if it will even be successful at all. It might be a really stupid idea, in all honesty. I'm afraid it borders on being too ambitious, for one.

It's localesforecstasy.blogspot.com.

The idea behind it is kind of complicated, but it's basically a public version of my private explorations of all the wonderful things that have to do with art, society, and culture (music being one of them). It's a direct application of many of the ideas that the musicians featured on THIS blog espouse.

It might be crazy, it might be idiotic. Like I said, it's a bit more personal, and my persona might be rather distasteful to some. It's a version of my private interests made public so that other people might get something out of them as well. I no longer want to just listen, or read about things. I want to actually apply the philosophy to my life, to make THAT kind of music, to make THAT kind of writing, and so forth. I want to live it, and not just admire.

It's still very infantile, and there probably won't be a lot of posts until after mid-May. I have a lot of important dates coming up, and there's a lot of preparation involved in those dates. My time is being drained.

But if you're interested, read the intro post (and the one after that, if it catches your fancy).

I've also uploaded several albums; a few are NWW List gems I claimed to have a long time ago but could never upload. Well, now they're uploaded: the complete (well, almost) discography of Trans Museq, the Tamia LP, and so forth.

It isn't, however, a music-only blog, and I don't think many more upload posts are going to follow those. It's not another Direct-Waves. It does, however, encompass what Direct-Waves was, and what it stood for.

Happy blogging.

Banten - Banten, 1972, Denmark

Another NWW List item. I have almost NO info about this release at all. I do, however, have a line-up:

Rob Van Der Broeck, Piano
Ernst Reijseger, Cello
Jurre Haanstra, Drums

I know nothing of any of the three members of this album, except that Reijseger and Van Der Broeck both released a few solo albums on their own (Reijseger in particular appears to have been prolific).

Personally, this was never one of my favorites from the List, but it is by no means a bad album. It is very atypical and floats through many different styles and moods, reaching its highlight on track 4. No good comparisons come to mind, but if you like other groups from the list from about the same period and in the same vein then you'd probably like this a lot.

Interestingly, they appear to do a much shorter, piano-only version of Monk's Mood.

Tracks:

Side A:
Music for Nita and Bert
Honna Song
Dig Dick
Side B:
Inconsekwenza
Monk's Mood
Kandring

This link contains more info about Reijseger, the head of the group, but doesn't talk about the Banten project specifically.

Download

So...

I haven't been on in awhile...what with the whole Broken Flag issue and all...anyone have any particular requests?

As far as the whole Broken Flag thing goes...it generated some interesting debate. I'm not going to take sides either way, because to an extent I agree with both Gary Mundy and with the people arguing against him and those who fell inbetween the two extremes as well, nor do I really feel like it's necessary for me to argue about it either way. I respect the man's choice and understand the reasons behind it even though I don't necessarily agree with it.

However, I never thought I'd see Gary Mundy himself posting on my blog :) So personally I think it's pretty cool, even considering what he had to say...

But once again...any requests?

No More Broken Flag Stuff

Apologies but it appears Gary Mundy himself doesn't want me to post any more BF releases...It is his right after all; can't blame the guy. I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to take it all down :( I'll leave the posts up to keep the comments but the links will be all gone. No future BF posts either.

Omar Khorshid and His Guitar - Rhythms From the Orient, 1974 (Lebanon/Egypt)

Just rediscovered this little gem of prog meets Middle Eastern music; thought I'd share. It's no experimental masterpiece but it's a great album nonetheless; it should be enjoyable to some. Some infos:

Omar Khorshid's 1974 release Rhythms from the Orient is the only Lebanese prog-related album that I know of. Omar Khorshid is a famous Egyptian musician who became well-known in his country both as a guitarist and as a film composer. While my CD doesn't contain too much historical information on Omar's history, it appears that at some point in his career he recorded a certain amount of music in Lebanon, and the music here is promoted as Lebanese music, though Omar is Egyptian(Thanks Bahy!). While Rhythms from the Orient might sound like a "solo guitar" album with gimmick percussion, Omar gave generous room for organ, Moog synth, accordion, along with percussion. Basically, the average listener will find an album with great guitar playing, and kick-ass keyboard/percussion interaction. Omar's style of guitar somehow mixes traditional Oud-like melodies with occasional 50s surf guitar(Dick Dale is of Lebanese ancestry, of course) and 60s psychedelia. The music is based entirely on traditional popular Arabic music, yet the influence of psychedelia, virtuoso organ playing, and Moog synth shows a noticeable western influence. The interaction between organ player and percussionists, though, really does it for me, and it will make the even the dullest Anglo-saxon dance to the rhythms. Try to imagine an organist playing bouncy syncopated Middle Eastern scales to percussionists who swing fast Arabic interlocking rhythms. And to top things off, Omar adds spacy Oud-like melodies with a guitar that's either clean sounding or hooked up to a vintage Swirl-producing pedal(and a unique one at that). Rhythms from the Orient is simply perfect music for your hash-filled(woops, I meant to say Narghile-filled) afternoons. Fans of the Turkish compilations Hava Narghile and Turkish Delights will love this stuff!
source

While it seems he is fairly well known by fans of exotica and Middle Eastern pop music (a couple of his lp's have made it to CD), facts about him are scant (in English, anyway) on the net. He apparently acted in and did music for film, yet I've been unable to find any soundtracks credited to him. Also, all discographies I've found seem to be incomplete. He has at least 8 lp's that I know of from the mid to late 70's. Some on the Greek label Voice of Lebanon, and some on EMI.
source

Download

Skullflower - Xaman, 1988

Not a Broken Flag album, but another good 12" from Skullflower nonetheless. Their fourth release. This contains the three bonus tracks from the 1990 CD reissue.

As requested

Broken Flag Cassettes Two

http://direct-waves.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-more-broken-flag-stuff.html

Maschine Nr. 9 - Headmovie

From wfmu:
Headmovie is a Nurse With Wound List item, a German Rock-audio collage of spoken word, electronic pulsations, psychedelic music, and borrowed bits from The Beatles White Album, among other things. The credited trio includes musician Georg Deuter, who at the time had released some great ethnic-flavored solo albums of instrumental music and was already veering towards "New Age." Krautrock luminaries Renate Knaup (Amon Düül II) and Daniel Fichelscher (Popol Vuh) also participated.

Crack in the Cosmic Egg:
Not a group, but a one-off sound-theatre project headed by Wolf Wondratschek, Bernd Brummbär and Georg Deuter. An unusual concoction of texts, sound effects and music, the title HEADMOVIE is quite apt, it is intriguing and bizarre: not least for some original Deuter music, weird singing by Renate Knaup, and fascinating tape-collage work including borrowed material like Roger Waters' "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals..." and John Lennon's immortal "number 9".

Line-up:

Wolf Wondratschek, Bernd Brummbär, Georg Deuter, + Vlado Kristl, Olimpia Hruska, Rolf Zacher, Waki Zoellner, Hans Noever, Temur Samy, Helmut Qualtinger, Peter Schranner, Thomas Schamoni, George Moorse, Alfred Edel, Hans Jürgen Diedrich, Louis Waldon

As interesting as it sounds, I can't help but feel that quite a lot of this album is lost to us non-German speakers, as most of the story is told through German dialogues. Nonetheless it has its moments...

As requested:

Link

Ray Russell & Friederich Gulda

Two more NWWL requests.

Friederich Gulda & Ursula Anders - Gegenwart, 1976, Germany



One often hears that a piece of music is "ahead of its time"; however, the claim is difficult to prove until a certain amount of time has passed. In January of 1976, the great Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda recorded the album Gegenwart (meaning presence or present time), which can now truly claim, with its 1993 reissue, to have been ahead of its time. The album was a collaboration with percussionist Ursula Anders and producer Eckart Rahn; it was and still is a challenging, dramatic collection of improvisations.
Actually, past, present, and future, all come together in Gegenwart. Gulda's worldwide reputation as an interpreter of classic Mozart and Beethoven pieces certainly did nothing to prepare listeners for the music on this recording. From its recognizably pianistic sounds to the guitar like strumming produced on (or more accurately, in) the electric clavichord, Gegenwart is a musical snapshot of a musician looking toward the future. It contains no solo piano works and the conventional sounds of the piano are simply one of a number of textures that Gulda uses.

At times, dramatic and abstract, sometimes spare and lyrical, Gegenwart is full of surprises. For instance, the strings inside the piano imitate an electric-bass and the high swoop of a synthesizer at the end of Duo 1 and Duos 2 and 3 include an assortment of percussion instruments, recorders, and even some whistling. Although all of the pieces are completely improvised, this is not an album of conventional jazz. Gegenwart is about sound, not form; as its German title indicates, it's about playing in the moment - about the act of making music. Even now, the album contains some of the most unusual sounds ever coaxed out of a piano or clavichord. More important, the pieces sound like they could have been recorded last month; the music is as daring and imaginative now as it was in 1976.

Not personally one of my favorite list items, but should greatly please many.

Link

Ray Russell - Secret Asylum, 1973



Secret Asylum was Russell's most experimental solo effort, however it's one of the few that haven't been reissued. Very little info exists (not even on his own website!). Too bad, because it's a very interesting album full of jazz and heavy rock improvisations where all kinds of styles come together, meet and clash in their own very distinct ways. Line-up and tracklisting:

Ray Russell (g/b) - Gary Windo (ts) - Harry Beckett (tpt/flghn) - Daryl Runswick (b) - Alan Rushton (d)

1. Stained Angel Morning - 2. Spinetree - 3. Sweet Cauldron - 4. All Through Over You - 5. Nearer - 6. These That I Am - 7. To See Through The Sky - 8. There The Dance Is - 9. Children Of The Hollow Dawn

Anyone got a better pic?

Link

Broken Flag Pt. 3: Cassettes 1 (BF 01-10)

http://direct-waves.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-more-broken-flag-stuff.html

Broken Flag Part 2: Flexi

http://direct-waves.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-more-broken-flag-stuff.html

Cupol (Dome/Wire) & Anthony Moore

As requested...

Cupol - Like This For Ages/Kluba Cupol EP, 1980



Another NWW List Wire/Dome offshoot. Consists of one shorter track (about four minutes) and a 20 minute instrumental, stretched out reworking of the previous track. This is great stuff; if you like Dome/Wire or just experimental post-punk in general you should like it. The tracks carry a sense of hopeless dread with them and much of the instrumentation sounds very ritual and repetitive (in a good way). This goes beyond Wire's post-punk...

Download

Anthony Moore - Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom, 1971



"Moore is best known as a founder of the progressive rock band Slapp Happy but has also written lyrics for Pink Floyd. These albums are part of a theoretical trilogy written in Germany in the early 1970's (the third part, Reeds, Whistle And Sticks was unissued until a 1998 CD release on Blueprint). Although Anthony is of British origin, these can be viewed as essential Krautrock peripherals and are Historically Significant no matter how you look at it. Pieces features: Anthony Moore (comp/cond), with: Ulf Kenklies (vocals), Glyn Davenport (vocals), Gieske Hof-Helmers (vocals) & Werner 'Zappa' Diermeier (hi-hat). From Alan Licht's "Minimalism: The Next Ten", originally published in Halana #3: "Two great missing links in the incredible history of Uwe Nettlebeck's productions at Wümme, Germany. Slapp Happy founder Moore recorded Pieces From The Cloudland Ballroom a month after Faust cut their debut LP (fall 1971) and Secrets Of The Blue Bag a month before their second (with Slapp Happy's debut Sort Of following in May '72 and Tony Conrad/Faust's Outside The Dream Syndicate in October). Indeed, Faust's Werner 'Zappa' Diermaier and Gunther Wusthoff both contribute to Pieces, which is not a Krautrock or artrock LP but a bona fide minimal classic. Side one is 'Jam Jern Jim Jom Jum,' which has three singers chanting that mantra while Moore plays these odd, luminous repeating chords underneath. The first piece on side 2, 'mu na h-vile ni a shaoileas iad,' sounds uncannily like Richard Youngs' Advent with its quiet piano and piercing bowed sounds, while 'A.B.C.D. Gol'flsh' could almost pass for the trance rock classic that Moondog never got around to recording."
-forcedexposure

Download

Slight update

Everything in the previous post is fixed, all the links are available and should work now. Also the artwork for "Statement" is now up thanks to zubzub.

Broken Flag Pt. 1: LP's

http://direct-waves.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-more-broken-flag-stuff.html

So...

To get the ball rolling...I thought I would start off again by uploading material from the old Broken Flag label (Ramleh, Skullflower, Controlled Bleeding...etc.) because I've grown quite fond of the label as of late and I've also come to acquire the majority of its output, some of which is not only highly essential but also incredibly rare and should be of interest, if nothing else for its historical value (for lack of a better term). However, I'll try to put up other stuff too...but I thought I'd ask first what people would be interested in - in other words, I'm looking for requests. You guys point me in the right direction! NWW List stuff? NWW? Fluxus/Dada recordings? Kraut? French stuff? At any rate, new uploads should be on this site within a few days or less (I'm taking time to upload stuff now).

Secondly, whether this site's run is temporary or more permanent, things are probably gonna be a little different. For example, posts will probably be a bit less frequent and more sporadic, but a bit more freeform and based on user's suggestions. There won't be too much of a change though, I don't think.

Lastly, I apologize for leaving so abruptly. I probably should have at least left a notice saying that I wasn't going to be on for awhile, especially since I probably had the opportunity to. Anyway, the reasons for my abscence are complex and mostly point towards my time being consumed entirely with lots of crap and bullshit (it's been hectic the past few monthsin a lot of ways), not to mention my computer hasn't been the most stable recently either. Honestly, part of the reason was also because I just didn't have much left to upload from my collection (at least that which I had computer access to - if you'll remember me saying, I haven't had a vinyl ripper for months, for example...). Anyway, I'm excited to be back, even if it's with less frequency or only for a short period of time, and I think we can make things work again.

And also: I appreciate all the comments. I really do. I was surprised how many people still come to this site and how much some people liked it. Makes me happy, to say the least.

So...

Any requests? Comments? Suggestions? :)

Let's get this started...

The Return

Well, maybe. I'm planning on reviving this blog at least temporarily again to upload a few things I never got the chance to share. I'll try to explain why the blog went down for awhile, too.

tpm

Nurse With Wound Ensemble - Live in Portland

Recorded December 11th, 2004. As the NWW site says on this show: Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter appear on stage during the 4th Irr. App. (Ext.) performance for a rendition of "Cooloorta Moon". Colin Potter did a solo performance, whilst Steven Stapleton performed a unique DJ set. As it says, there's an Irr. App. (Ext.), Colin Potter, Nurse With Wound and Steve Stapleton solo set. Each is about 30-45 minutes. Again, there's no cover as it's a bootleg.

Part One, Part Two

Nurse With Wound - Live in Vienna, 2005 (Bootleg)

I didn't record this one myself; I'm just passing it along. This was recorded May 7 2005 at the Anatomical Museum in Vienna. There's only one track, a live rendition of Salt Marie Celeste. No cover as it is a bootleg recording.

Download

Un Departement - Je Serai... + La Cassette, 1981 & 1984, France

This is a great French band I got interested in over at mutant-sounds, who uploaded their S/T LP ("La Album") and a later CD called Au Menu that I highly recommend checking out. There's really no way to describe the sound of these guys, it's just sort of all over the place electronic percussive weirdness, but I really think they're once of the best French bands of the early 80's. La Cassette in particular is really great.

Je Serai Clement en Tent Que Dictateur 7" (1981)

La Cassette (1984)


I hadn't put up much in the past few days because I got really ill (twice...go figure) so I'm putting up a few things now to make up for it. This is going to be my last post for awhile though, I'm not going to be home for a few days because I have time off; I'll probably be back Saturday or so. Hope you guys understand.