Harnetty, Brian – The Sociophonic Key (A – Library) 7″ {Scioto Records}

Brian Harnetty took a trip outta his hometown of Ohio in 2011 and put his found sound experimental collage expertise into a Chicago art installation using audio from the Sun Ra / El Saturn Archives. This 500 copy limited run EP showcases three selections that sample Sun Ra speaking and playing with his Arkestra and mixes it with other audio samples & sound sources. The opening intro tells of the power of the “Sociophonic Key” and its magic ability to unlock the power and sound of letters. The second track listens in on two intertwined scenarios where a woman speaks over the phone on to Hamm’s answering machine asking “Hamm, Are You There” while Sun Ra plays piano and young children sing along. “We Want To Invite, We Do Invite You”builds from a soft sermon into an impassioned sing-it-if-you-got-the-Spirit holy revival with Sun Ra’s Arkestra slowly buzzing on fuzzy keys & tambourine. It’s a weirdo romp worth re-listening & revisiting.

~ Curtis Kimby

Communion, The – A Desired Level of Unease (A-Library) 12″ 33RPM {Prison Tatt}

This single sided slab brandishes black metal & thrash, sludge, grindcore and melodic acoustic metal. The Communion has played with bands like Sete Star Sept, Artificial Brain and Transient among others. Excellent dark, dreary & violent subject matter screamed in ferocious anger and bitter isolation. Sometimes two guitars shred over the squalling mayhem. Occasionally you catch the bass ripping through in a disintegrated state of decay & anguish. Emotionally charged & confrontational movie samples are judiciously integrated adding an uneasy anxious tone to the already unsettling chaos. This is a promo copy of a limited 100 run so treat it with respect & play it with some Brainoil, Ildjarn, Graves At Sea, Nadja, Xasthur, Sunn 0))) or Bruxers.~Curtis Kimby

FCC: Side A6 & A7 (FUCK)

The Ex ~ Catch My Shoe A-Library CD {Ex Records}

So the Ex???s original lead singer G. W. Sok has stepped down and we now find Arnold de Boer stepping up on this awesome album recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini and produced by Bob Weston (Big Black & Shellac).?? Arnold???s not so much filling shoes as he is strutting some fresh new kicks with the remaining classic members in this ongoing & ever-evolving Dutch anarcho-art punk collective.?? This album came straight to KFJC from Arnold???s hands following their jaw-dropping St. Patricks Day 2011 show at Bottom of the Hill (S.F.)?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? (continued on back???)
(???continued from cover)
You???ll briefly catch Roy Paci???s blazing trumpet blasts (1 & 3). Arnold???s spastic pseudo 8-bit sounding erratic lead guitar, horn beep sampling and sing & talk delivery get a super-sonic tonal conversation going with Katherina Bornefeld who rocks stunning simmer & boil over avant-tribal percussive power rhythms on drums.?? Andy Moor & Terrie Hessels creatively communicate back & forth alternating elastic explosions, harmonics & feedback, mildly distorted melodies, oddly stressed notes, muted erratic string rubbing and abrasive riffs on baritone guitars.?? Their instruments keep operating on multiple time signatures all working at once on these almost improvised blistering & shifting avant experimental art punk freak-outs.?? It is super upbeat, it throbs, and it keeps you guessing on those edgy unpredictable changes.?? The other shoe has dropped on this fantastic exploration outside punks strict sounding confines.?? Catch My Shoe??? perhaps a euphemism for a shoe-throwing protest against injustice explored here in fine foot wearing fashion.?? ??????????????ALL SONGS CLEAN!?????? ??~Curtis Kimby

Grayceon ~ All We Destroy A-Library CD {Profound Lore}

San Francisco???s Grayceon gave out this album for FREE at their CD release party Feb. 11^th, 2011 at Bottom of the Hill. On it you get massive melodic metal that is mutually muscular, menacing, moving, modern, mindful, methodical & mature.?? All We Destroy straddles heavy & tuneful sounds incorporating orchestral classical styles and prog & post rock influences amidst the crushing riffage.?? Listen in & get an earful as Jackie Perez Gratz (cellist for Amber Asylum, Giant Squid)) shrieks a gritty banshee scream, bowing the bejesus outta her electronic cello that looks like a whale???s hollowed ribcage.?? She???s got the pipes to belt out a breathy beautiful bittersweet melody too.?? Max Doyle (Walken) pulls off some brilliant fretwork without sounding overly technical.?? Harsh metal crunch shifts to flanged & chorus plucked string arrangements.?? Zack Farwell (Walken) can blast the fuck outta his drums but knows when to show restraint and accent & pace the ever shifting energy & mercurial mood. Grayceon continues to impress with a full force album proving metal can be graceful AND destroy! Most songs are around 7 to 9 minutes with an epic 17 minute metal opus.?? For Agalloch & Ludicra fans as much as This Mortal Coil & Amber Asylum enthusiasts. Intensely ruling!???? ALL CLEAN ??????~Curtis KImby

Tommy Guerrero ~ Lifeboats and Follies A-Library CD {Galaxia}

San Francisco???s Tommy Guerrero (ex-pro skater, bassist for Free Beer, Jet Black Crayon, etc.) has some serious cojones!?? Try & deny his street cred & someone outta slap you across the chops.?? Lifeboats and Follies is his sixth album. It???s a stylistic amalgam of 70???s lounge, Latin psych funk & jazzy cinematic neo-soul styles with afrobeat, blues & dub seasoning these instrumental servings (ala Soul Food Taqueria).?? This is sensuous, smooth, and seedy at times.?? Its tone is dark, reflective, chilled out & groovy.?? Money Mark makes an appearance on keys and you also get a great sampling of S.F. & L.A. compatriots offering their talents on congas, bongos, drums, flute, melodica, electric guitar, upright bass, muted trumpet, percussive paint cans and hand to mouth pops and occasional cha-cha???s!?? It all has a crisp feel and yet an echoing, funky flowing soundtrack sorta vibe.?? If Poets of Rhythm, Tipsy & Budos Band hooked it up with Barry Adamson, Angelo Badalamenti Antonio Carlos Jobim & Arthur Verocai and you had David Lynch chauffer them down Mulholland Drive in a limo while watching an S.F. shot Hitchcock flick it would sound as cool as this.?????????????????????????? ~Curtis Kimby???? ??????????

Munly and The Lupercalians ~ Petr and The Wulf ~ A-Library CD {Alternative Tentacles}

Part one of an ongoing album series called ???The Kinnery of Lupercalia.????? This is haunted Gothic style Americana, with a hint of bluegrass & indie folk laden over spooky alt-country rhythms & solid song structure.?? This is the ???true story??? of Peter and the Wolf adapted from Sergei Prokofiev???s Russian children???s tale.?? You get impassioned banjo strumming & bittersweet bellowing, magnificent melody, bereaved piano & plodding percussive toms.?? Some songs are ghostly & incensed others grittier, at times lively & rejoicing but typically sorrowful or brooding. Sometimes I get the feeling Munly found Adam Ant???s Place In The Country, shot him in cold blood and had a good ???ol jamboree over his fresh corpse under a blood red harvest moon.?? You may pine for more violins, cello & Spit Bread Girl choir harmonies as heard on Munly???s excellent album with the ???Lee Lewis Harlots??? or his unparalleled ???Jimmy Carter Syndrome.????? This time, Munly pushes into newer frontiers & different is damn good.?? The Denver Sound is alive & well.??????????????????????????????
??ALL CLEAN (5 & 6 track together)???????? ??~Curtis Kimby
Standout???s: #2, #4, #5, #6, #8????????

[coll]: Groove Club Vol. 2: Cambodia Rock Spectacular! International 12 inch LP (33RPM) {Lion Productions}

You???ve heard people say they would die for their art, right?
These beautiful & super multi-talented Cambodian people literally DIED for their art in the infamous ???Killing Fields??? between 1975 ??? 1979 at the hands of Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge???s politically extreme, grossly inhuman and sickeningly genocidal ideology run amok. ????(continued???)
These are NOT studio recordings.?? No money for that at the time.?? These awesome songs were all recorded LIVE in Cambodia???s capital city, Phnom Penh.?? They survived via bootleg tapes and stored caches of rare original vinyl which was a written death ticket to the owner under the Khmer Rouge regime???s reign of terror.?? These talented folks played upbeat music & sang songs of sadness, lost or unrequited love, and, ironically, death.?? Spanning multiple music styles and defying genre specific categorization this is superb Khmer Music & Cambodian Rock!???? You get astounding artists like The Thra Ka Band doing super stoney Sabbath riffing drum pounding psychedelic rock.?? Dig some seriously punchy garage psych rock from Tet Somnang and Meas Samon. Marvel at the melodious voice of Sinn Sisamouth (a.k.a. the Emperor of Khmer Music and the Elvis of Cambodia) and Ros Sereysothea (the greatest Cambodian female singer and the only one to be honored & named by King Norodom Sihanouk as ???The Golden Voice of the Royal Capital???). ????(continued???)
Influenced by 1960???s ??? 1970???s era Western Rock N Roll, Pop rock, Rhythm & blues, Latin American music, classic R&B, surf, garage rock, eastern music, Bollywood, Motown soul.?? The fusion of these styles created the ultra-rare sounds heard on this amazing comp, digitally transferred from the aforementioned vinyl and tapes.?? The songs cover many styles yet share a groovy, distorted guitar drive with xylophones, horns, pump organ tones, shakers, flutes, mandolins, thick killer bass riffs and percussive rhythms.?? Sisamouth & Sereysothea sing individually and as a duo on these recordings and are the undisputed king and queen of Cambodian pop & Khmer Music.?? Pan Ron is the second most popular Cambodian female vocalist with a more playful style. Pan Ron combined old Khmer Rock music styles of Sisamouth and Sereysothea with Western rock, R&B & Rhythm & Blues to create a fresh & new style called Cambodian Rock which is a bit more rambunctious.?? Truly spectacular Cambodian Rock!
Khmer Rock NOT Khmer Rouge! ????????????????????~ Curtis Kimby
***NOTE:?? DENGUE FEVER has covered several of Ros Sereysothea???s songs!?? Plus, Pan Ron & In Yeng???s ???I Love Mean Girls??? gets my vote as the quintessential Cambodian Rock classic cut!?? It was sampled by Narnack Records band ???Lil??? Pocket Knife??? (featuring members of KIT) on their song ???East Coast West Coast.??? ????????????????????????????

Alvaro ~ The Tongue A-Library 12″ LP (33RPM) {Bimbo Tower}

Alvaro Pena-Rojas is The Chilean with the Singing Nose.?? I know.?? It does seem pretty senseless.?? Consider the fact that his best known album was released 31 years prior to ???The Tongue??? and he called it, ???Drinking My Own Sperm.????? That???s a pretty adventurous title for 1977??? hell, even now.?? Well, you???re probably thinking after Drinking My Own Sperm what exactly do The Tongue???s taste buds tell us??? Alvaro messes around and makes mistakes on his Casio mini-organ before singing about birds, young water never wrinkling and a painful rape at 12 years old.??
Playful bright bass licks & snare drum percussion make you think he???s gonna bust out a Violent Femmes cover song, until they move into more experimental vocal territory, chanting in unison drone and nonsensical tongue & lip noises.?? Suddenly you catch the low end fuzz buzzing and the Casio key riff pushing a lethargic edgy sorta post punk angle.?? Traditional Chilean lyrics and song structure affect this weirdo trip interspersing mid tempo hand clapping & semi-spooky organ over minimal bass thumps.?? This music is slightly bizarre, pleasantly intriguing, albeit subtle, and stripped down to the essentials with most tracks between four to six minutes long.?? Alvaro seems to caterwaul in a lamenting tame tone as though he???s trapped inside Edward Ka-Spel???s body delivering almost deadpan repetitious vocals.?? While you could mistake this for a cheesy El Organo Loco Chilean Legendary Pink Dots with Senor Coconut???s single conga & rhythm section subdued by downers its minimal approach is surprisingly captivating.
ALL CLEAN?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ~Curtis Kimby?? ????????????????
This is new music recorded in Konstanz, Germany, released in 2008 and limited to 300 copies.??

Torske, Bjorn ~ Kokning A-Library 12 inch LP (33RPM) {Smalltown Supersound}

OK, so a few years ago you might???ve got Norwegian wood from Bjorn Torske???s last album called ???Feilknapp.????? Now, this not-so-kraut kraut rocker delves into all instrumental dub rhythms, minimal electronic tones & yearning playful melodies which seem somewhat psychedelic.?? It???s pleasantly meditative and simultaneously introduces 4/4 beats that thump & pulse in a half pounding wallop which gives the heavenly chimerical sounds an edgier sorta grit.?? Repeating reverb riffs & treated string strums soothe & intrigue.?? Torske is also a techno trickster.?? This dynamite DJ & producer dishes up slightly deranged dance cuts rolling along a mid tempo run.?? Echoing phaser bubbles billow out & about to the funky and staggering semi-skipping dub groove.?? Layering quirky melody with rubbery bass bump, synth strings, infectious rhythms and metronome snap beats is a delectably scrumptious treat.?? Occasionally the dub goes darker & deeper sporadically injecting growling creatures, explosions & chainsaw buzz. Ascending vibraphone tones, lively conga percussion & warped washboard scrubs await you!???? Peel this strange fruit!?????????? ~Curtis Kimby????????????????????
ALL CLEAN INSTRUMENTALS???????????? (Limited to 500 copies)