Sunday 29 May 2016

Fischerspooner – odyssey (CD)




I don`t follow trends and I don`t believe the hype either. I`m lying here. I followed trends twice in my life. In the early Eighties, I caught up with the blooming UK new music scene. I was into; Echo & The Bunnymen , Icicle Works, Gang Of Four, Siouxie & The Banshees, The Cure, The The and Tears For Fears. Later on, I flipped for The Seattle grunge movement. I was into; Tad, Screaming Trees Mudhoney, Green River, Green Magnet School, Les Thugs, Afghan Wigs, Love Battery, Cosmic Psychos, Dwarves, Poison Idea, Beat Happening Derelicts, and Nirvana. Nowadays, I read a lot about what`s trending but that`s it. So, when the electroclash movement appeared, I read about it. I heard on the internet some songs by the likes of; Add N To (X), Chicks On Speed, Fischerspooner, Freezepop, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, and Princess Superstar. But that was it. It`s a cold Sunday afternoon I`m at Renaissance Montréal, browsing through piles and piles of used CDs. Lo and behold I find this Fischerspooner album named `odyssey ` (their second effort). I buy it, go back home, fix myself a coffee, sit down on my big ass chair and let the games begin. After the first listen, it`s not bad but bit seems a little bland. Sometimes a second, a third, even a fourth listens needed in order to understand / appreciate something.  It worked for me midway through the second listen. The music is a mix of electro, rock, new wave and synth-pop. With such amazing hits like `just let go `, `never win `and `we need a war `. You can`t go wrong here infectious dance floor music. There`s three hidden tracks at the end. Everybody knows I love surprises and especially hidden tracks. Did you know Fischerspooner worked with big names such as Kylie Minogue and David Bowie. Now you know.

Lester jones – Kurbel.COMpilation 2 (CD)



I`m a compulsive person. The amount of music I buy, trade, download is unreal. I listen to a lot of music. It`s the same thing for movies. I`ve rented, bought or traded a lot of animation, documentaries, shorts, horror, science - fiction, and B & Z movies. I do remember most of them too. This CD has been lying in my pile of `to listen` music. That pile keeps getting bigger and bigger every weekend (the time I go CD / DVD hunting). I have no idea what this is, no expectations whatsoever. The CD starts playing. It sounds like a compilation no this is a remix CD. Lester Jones remixed some songs by DJ Hell / Richard Bartz, Savas Pascalidis, Item One, Ghettobladter AKA Richard Bartz and Christian Morgenstern. This is techno music, aimed for the dance floor, it`s minimal at times (when you stop dancing and you just chill-out you know), there`s some groovy parts (my favorite ones) and it makes you wanna move that thang all night long. Good German techno. This came out in 1999 (a little dated but it still sounds good today) on Kurbel. Kurbel was a German techno label (1995-2007) created by Richard Bartz (a German DJ & producer). This one`s a keeper. 

Friday 20 May 2016

IV electroacoustic miniatures international contest (CD)



Whenever I read the following words: electronic, experimental, electroacoustic or musique concrete on a CD, it grabs my attention. I bought this album (13 tracks = 45.24 minutes) at Renaissance Montréal on a cold Sunday afternoon with a small pile of used horror DVD`s. This was a yearly electroacoustic music contest held in Spain. The record label folded, there`s a link to a dead website: www.confluencias.org . there`s not much information. I consider myself lucky to buy this for such a small price (2.00$ Canadian). The tracks submitted for this yearly contest should be no less than 2 minutes and no more than 5 minutes. 211 composers from 35 different countries participated. The 13 tracks you will hear are from the finalists. There`s some amazing sounds from the likes of: Elaine Thomazi (Brazil), Simon Steen-Andersen (Denmark), Michal Rataj (Czech Republic), Antonio Fereira (Angola), Vincenzo Grossi (Italy), Massimo Biasioni (Italy), Jorge Antunes (Brazil), Xyramat (Germany), David De La Haye & Shona Mooney (UK), Martin Bédard (Canada), Aldo Rodriguez (Mexico), Julian De Brahi (Argentina) and Federico Schumacher (Chile). Federico is the winner of the Electroacoustic Miniatures International contest 2006 edition. Impressive music at work here. The only artist I know is Jorge Antunes. His music appears on some electroacoustic music compilations I purchased a long time ago (I bought them on sale, I must be one of the rare freaks out there who enjoys this stuff). Recommended if you can find it. Good luck.

                                                    

From parts unknown

I got these two strange, insane mail art. Someone left those in my mailbox. It was inside a sealed envelope, no contact address, no letter, no information whatsoever. The ' item ' of the day. Enjoy! 




    

Thursday 19 May 2016

art is everywhere part 55

Malok madness!







Malok 
P.O.BOX 41
Waukau
WI
54980
USA

Homemade postcard of the day




Various – ifach vol.1 (CD)



This compilation came out in 1994, on Ifach, a UK based minimal / deep techno record label. They seemed to have folded circa 2001. There`s 11 tracks in there (75.07 minutes). The music is sometimes minimal techno, sometimes dance floor / party mode oriented some other times it`s more like deep (reverberating perhaps) techno. You will hear sounds from the likes of
A – Baby Ford (Peter Frank Adshead) = 3 tracks.
B – Sympletic (Mark Broom & Dave Hill) = 2 tracks.
C – Voyectra (Mark Broom & Dave Hill) = 2 tracks.
D – Eco Tourist (a project with a floating membership. Key players are Mark Broom & Dave Hill) = 2 tracks.
E – Solcyc (Mark Broom & Peter Frank Adshead) = 2 tracks. Upon the first listen you`re surprised this sounds quite interesting I doesn`t pass the test of repeated listening. The music is good. It`s well produced but most of the tracks sound similar i.e. the same. One song is a standout track, no, it the standout track.
7 – Eco Tourist – penguins (7.02 minutes) = dance floor oriented kinda groovy little number. Good one.

Moby – songs 1993 – 1998 (CD)



When I`m at Renaissance Montréal, if I see a Moby CD I don`t have, I buy it right away. I`m a little bit compulsive, I`m Moby curious and at 2.00 $ a CD I`m willing to try new things. Before I would buy albums for something like 16.00 to 25.00 (imports anyone). I didn`t have much information about the band / artist but I was curious. I`ve discovered some amazing music and some really awful crap. These days I don`t have the budget to purchase music at that price. Unless I buy one or maybe two CDs. But I can purchase a good bunch for 2.00 $ each. Anyways back to our story so far. That Sunday afternoon I bought 10 CDs and 5 DVDs. I go back home, grab and ice cold beer, sit down, make myself comfortable, and push the play button on me CD player. This sounds like something I hear before. You know this potent mix of electronic, house, techno, ambient, downtempo, with some nice old funk & jazz samples / vocals thrown in. The second song `go` starts. It`s the same version as the one on the `I like to score` CD. I`m reading the information then I realize this is not a new album. It`s a compilation of tracks recorded between 1993 - 1998. The material`s taken from the following albums: Move, the EP (1993), Everything is wrong (1995), animal rights (1996) and I like to score (1997). Recommended if you never heard Moby`s music before.

Lab Findings # 6 (zine)


I discovered this zine while watching one of Todd Z Glitter`s video on www.youtube.com. He was reviewing Lab Findings zine and the Mastock newsletter. I send Dr. Bill some copies of my newsletter, hoping he would send me something in return. He sent me his latest issue. Lab Finding`s a 8.5 by 11, cut & paste, black & white, irregularly published zine. The doctor loves horror, science - fiction, documentaries and B movies. There`s 58 movie reviews. Upon reading this zine it brought me back in time like 20 years ago. Every weekend I used to go at the video-club and rent VHS tapes. During that period, I`ve seen tons of science – fiction, animation, horror and B & Z movies. I remember renting some awful, crappy movies like: Curse 2 - the bite (1989), Ghoulies 2 (1988), Sleepaway camp 2: unhappy campers (1988) and X-Ray (1982). Well the good doctor has seen the same bad ones. He writes some short book reviews, an article about doing a thirty-one day horror movie marathon on Halloween month (and / or the Holiday period) and a description of The Avengers banned episode (season 4, episode 21). An interesting read. I like his numerous reviews. Highly recommended. Contact:
Kobb Lab
P.O.BOX 30231
Pensacola
Florida
32503
USA

art is everywhere part 54

The Haddock of the day!











The Haddock
2760 Willamette street # 205
Eugene 
Oregon
87405
USA

Saturday 14 May 2016

Air – Moon safari (CD)




I know this is electronic music so for 2.00 $ I had to buy it. I found this at Renaissance Montréal next to some Willie Nelson CDs. Air (amour / imagination / rêve) is a French electronic / rock duo of Nicolas Godin   and Jean-Benoit Dunckel. Moon safari, which came out in 1997, is their first complete album (10 songs = 43.33 minutes). The music here is a potent mix of downtempo, electronic, trip hop, future jazz and synth-pop. They use some nice, old school synthesizers: Moog, Korg MS-20 and the Wurlitzer (they use and some would say abuse the Vocoder). This is actually better than I expected. An old friend of mine told me this was commercial garbage. I heard lots of commercial and / or underground, hyped, overhyped shit to last me a lifetime. I like slightly melancholic oriented music, bands like Joy Division, old The Cure, etc. A couple of tracks really caught my attention:
1 – La femme d`argent (7.08 minutes) = instrumental, introspective melancholic electronica. The perfect soundtrack for a rainy day.
2- Sexy boy (4.57 minutes) = synth-pop with vocoder = da hit!
8 – Ce matin la (3.38 minutes) = relaxing, dare I say chill-out, minimal instrumental electronica. Good music for good times folks. Get the  details here:

Thursday 12 May 2016

Poetry of the day

The meaning of life
(François Marceau 12-05-2016)
 
As I get older
Time seems to move faster
I wake up, it`s Monday
And now, we`re Friday
The weekend is near
And my only fear
Is to run out of beer…
 
 

Not a team player
(François Marceau 12-05-2016)
 
There`s this guy, he`d give you the jitters
His name was Smithers
He would give old Hoss
That`s the name of his boss
His daily blowjob
Old Hoss couldn`t keep an erection
He was impotent
As a bonafide rodent
Smithers never got that promotion
And he lost his job
Now he`s homeless and sucking cock
Just to make a daily buck
You know this ain`t funny
But there`s a lesson to be learned from that story
You`ll never get ahead
By giving head…

Homemade postcard of the day



Tuesday 10 May 2016

Skinny Puppy – spasmolytic (CD single)



I found this at Renaissance Montréal for 2.00$. I thought it was a full album. Turns out it`s a CD single (4 songs = 31.22 minutes). One might ask what does it sounds like:
1 – Spasmolytic remix (7.18 minutes) = post-industrial pop perhaps.
2 – Shore lined poison remix (4.26 minutes) = post-industrial + some synthpop = nice.
3 – Harsh stone white live in Denver (4.53 minutes) = weird live version.
4 – Walking on ice live excerpts (11.58 minutes) = a strange, spacy, out there live version. My favorite track.                                           

Friday 6 May 2016

Short story of the day

As I lay dying                                          
François Marceau (05-05-2016)


John was lying in a back alley there was blood coming out of his mouth and his stomach. It was raining outside. A soothing summer rain. Raindrops were falling slowly, subtly. The rain was refreshing. Blood kept continuously pouring out of his organs, a scarlet river running red. The karma, his karma came back to haunt him.        
John was a gambler. He sold his soul to gambling a long time ago. He lost so many things. At the end, he was living in a one-bedroom apartment, in a seedy neighborhood. The kind of place you end up, when you`re at the end of the rope. A one-way ticket.    
 A couple of weeks ago he won three hundred dollars from the slot machine. The next day he felt that luck was on his side again. He decided to borrow money to gamble some more, and make it big. He borrowed a lot of money from the wrong folks, the Chinese triad. He lost everything the same night. He couldn`t repay them. They were on to him.  
In life, you meet two kinds of folks. People you can mess and get away with, and people you should never ever get involved with.              
John knew he was living on borrowed time. Payback is a bitch. Early Monday morning, they gave him a week to repay them or else. He never though karma would hit him back so fast. They shot him twice the next day.                                                                                                                                   He was lying on his back his time had come. He saw his whole existence flashing slowly in front of him like an old VHS tape from the eighties.  
his happy childhood
primary school
his first kiss
making out with his girlfriend
losing his virginity at sixteen
college
entering university to become a doctor
irst visit at the Luxor in Las Vegas
winning a jackpot on the wheel of fortune
gambling
getting married
gambling some more
losing his house
wife leaving him
more gambling
stealing at work
losing his job
more gambling
family disowning him
moving in a crappy one-bedroom apartment
borrowing money from the triads
losing everything
getting shot
and lying in a back alley.
It was getting harder to breathe, more blood was coming out his heart was beating slower and slower and slower. End. Blank. Be kind please rewind.







Shy Rights Movement – complaint rock (CD)




SRM is the solo music project of Mark Ritchie. The man behind Hiroshima Yeah! Zine. Complaint rock is his latest offering (11 tracks = 42.12 minutes). This is stripped-down instrumentations electric guitar + voice. You`ll hear songs about lost loves, angst / depression, mourning, utter despair, drunken abandon, alienation and killing hipsters. I don`t know about hipsters, it`s just the tip of the iceberg. The variety of different morons out there is mighty impressive. I could write a list. Then I`d be considered a misanthrope and I would thank you for the compliment. There`s a various influences at work here: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, a dash of Jesus and Mary Chain  / Sonic Youth perhaps (for the slightly distorted guitar), Cauliflower Ass & Bob, Robert Nighthawk, Leadbelly and Blind Willie McTell. This music makes me thirsty. It`s a Friday night. I`m alone. I have a fridge full of various beers. I`ve got myself a plan. Contact:
Mark Ritchie
94 Main Street
Forth
Lanark
ML11 8AB

UK.

Various – 1654 the cave II (CD)



I got this as part of a trade. This CD came out in 1998 on Hands Production. They explore various music styles: subtle rhythmic noise / industrial, heavy electronics with pounding beats, lo-fi rhythmic noise, abstract noise, experimental, minimal electronica, dark ritual music, old school industrialism, ambient darkwave, techno and drum & bass as well. There`s 14 bands / artists (total running time = 73.15 minutes) from all over this small little planet we like to call Earth. There`s music / sounds / noise from: Canada (Orphx), Germany  (Winterkalte , Ravenloft, P-A-L and Needle Sharing), France (IMM), Netherlands (De Fabrik), Italy (Sigillum S), Belgium (Hybrids, Ah Cama-Sotz and  Vidna Obmana), USA (Woe Is Me and Blink Twice) and Brazil (Explotando O Som). My standout tracks are:
1 – Orphx – teletai (6.11 minutes) = nice & sweet piece of evolving ambient, rhythmic noise and industrial. Perfect, as usual.
6 – Sigillum S – missing sonar 249 in B.A (6.42 minutes) = strange, out there experimentations with meditative values.
9 – Ah Cama-Sotz – scalae cryptae (5.32 minutes) = dark, evil, dare I say bleak ritual music.                                                               11 – Blink Twice – neutral moment (6.29 minutes) = cinematic, dark electronic music soundtrack. Excellent. Highly recommended if you can find it. More info here: http://www.handsproductions.com/

Various - 1 Minute Autohypnosis Sex War Noise Faith White Truth Light Europe Death Seed Red (mini CD)




The idea is simple you send Pedro Bericat (Mute Sound) a music piece which is a minute and less. He accepts any music style. When he has enough material, he releases it on a mini CD. Every participant gets his / her own copy. You can then download if you want every compilation released. If you`re curious about Minimal Frank / Flesh For Franks material, I`m on a couple of those mini CDs. There`s sixteen tracks exploring various music styles: experimental noise (Evgenij V. Kharitonov, Combat 23, Geronimo Ararat, Mannequin Holocaust and Wayne Mason), angry lo-fi punk (Fernando Rodriguez), strange experimental sounds (Juan Italiano, Kerry Pullo, David Prescott Steed, Andres Ostberg, and Jay Reeve), weird space ambience (The Noisettes) ambient noise (Christopher Delaurenti and Jan-M Iversen), and harsh noise (Daniel Steefy). This is an amazing promotional tool for the independent, fringe, weird, outsider musician / noiser out there. Are you man / woman enough to send Pedro your own contribution? Just do it snail mail style: 
Pedro Bericat
P.O.BOX 4033
50080
Spain
Or just virtually here; mutesoundrecords@gmail.com

Hirshima Yeah! # 134 April 2016 (zine)



I don`t want to sound redundant but I love this cut & paste, black & white, photocopied, monthly zine (five pages this time around). Let`s start with the `cynical and drunk` poetry department.  Favorite pieces this time around are
Old guard
Most of the old faces
Have gone;
Payment for the way
We have chosen to live.
Ahead of me,
I see a long and lonely road.
Then,
As the new regulars arrive,
I laugh,
Realizing that I am
One of the old guard now;
A relic,
Hanging on by
The skin of my teeth.
And for what?
And
The digital revolution
Living in the age
Of the digital revolution
Is crazy.
I write this poem on a smartphone
As people around me stare at laptops
And e-readers.
It all still seems like sci-fi to me,
But everything around it is the same;
The same old weezing public transport,
The same old prejudices,
The same old dull and dying world.
We are dinosaurs with shiny toys,
Blindly pawing our way
Towards extinction,
And finally
Absence
As you sip a beer
Somewhere else in the world,
I mourn your absence;
Although the last few
Times I saw you,
You were even then
A thousand miles away.
Simply beautiful. There`s our regular articles, like`13.82 billion years of hell ` (this time around Gary Simmons some music reviews), and `doctor Thornaby` (easier to understand after my eight beer). Nice short story (tourist) from our editor, Mark Ritchie. There is a nice selection of music and book reviews as well. Contact:
Mark Ritchie
94 Main Street
Forth
Lanark
ML11 8AB
UK.

Hirshima Yeah! # 133 March 2016 (zine)



A photocopied, cut & paste, black & white Monthly six pager. We open things up with poetry and `the spinning particles of need`. Standout poems this time around are:
The place I left
Even though I know the area
And have been coming here for years,
It still feels like I`m on holiday.
The people, the streets, the pubs
All seem new and exciting,
Minus the drudgery
Of the place I left.
But I know it`s an illusion.
And I know it won`t last.
Because, honestly, what does?
And
All the words
All the words I write
Seem pointless.
Morrissey summed it up
With `I want the one
I can`t have
And it`s driving me mad`.
That says it all.
Finally
Rave
If you need to take drugs
To appreciate a particular
Type of music
Then maybe the music
Wasn`t all the good
In the first place.
Poetry to my ears. Amazing stuff to say the least. There`s some music, concert (Bob Mould, The liquid Room, Edinburgh, 08-02-2016), DVD and book reviews. Next in line, there`s our regular contributors; `13.82 billion years in hell ` (Gary Simmons strange musings / ramblings), `Cukewelde! Cukeweld! Cukeweld!` (Gary Simons / Jim MacDougall / Mark Ritchie three-way texting affair) and `Doctor Thornaby `(it makes sense not to make sense). We end things up with a shorty from Mark Ritchie `after the party ` and a `Cthulhu`s midlife crisis `single panel comic from one François Marceau. Contact:
Mark Ritchie
94 Main Street
Forth
Lanark
ML11 8AB
UK.
 
 

John Hudak – miss dove, Mr. dove (CD)




First John Hudak listening experience. The album is comprised of one long single non music piece (59.19 minutes) aptly titled `miss dove, Mr. dove `. Dove sound recordings made in Pelhrimov, Czech Republic, august 2007. Using this field recording as his basic sound source he started to sample, edit, resample, loop and process everything ad infinitum. The final results a slow, subtle, moving evolving, mutating piece of sonic abstraction. This is not music per se. It`s not noise or harsh noise either. It sounds like a mix between musique concrete, processed field recordings, minimalism, ambient noise, electronic and weird experimental non musique. There`s a subtle rhythm hidden in there. The music is calm, relaxing (doesn`t feel like chill out material). It sounds more like minimal ambience. Cinema for the ears on a rainy summer day. The perfect soundtrack for the `Forbidden planet `movie. Information here: http://www.aferecords.com/

homemade postcards of the day






Cyclotimia – music for stockmarkets (CD)



The fifth album from this Russian electronic music duo of Max Khachmanukyan (music sampling, keyboards, market rituals), and Leonid Makarov (sound engineering, drums programming, and electronic manipulation). This is a concept album regarding the tyranny of stock markets. The CD`s divided in three parts:
A – Walstreet requiem = tracks 1 to 10 (39 %).
B – Trivial pleasures = tracks 11 to 21 (41%).

C – Financial glossary = tracks 22 to 32 (20%). I have to admit this is not an easy listen. The music is electronically oriented. It goes into different styles: chill-out electronica (beats included), ambient techno, minimal ambience, space muzak, ambient noise, various experimentations, ambient and weird alien videogame music (the last breath of a dying videogame machine someone`s playing on Pluton). It took me a couple of listen to understand and fully appreciate this. Good stuff. Limited edition of 500 copies (mine`s # 135). This baby came out on Zhelezobeton in 2008. Contact for availability: http://zhb.radionoise.ru/eng/news.html