[coll]: Passionistas / Hard Place {World Famous}

Passionistas sounds like mellow ???77 style punk grafted to jangly indie pop with some peppy power pop melodies.?? These San Franciscans aren???t sappy or even psychos.?? They just play soft, sweet music that???s a little upbeat.

Hard Place is a freaky four piece dramatic pop rock band from Los Angeles.?? Melodic dreamy keys & rocking guitar riffs with 80???s new wave style vocals.?? Not overly spectacular but epic & romantic with a touch of fervent flair & theatrics.?? Features a remix by 8-bit 80???s new wavers Totally Radd!!

Robinson, Eugene S. ??? Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Ass-Kicking But Were Afraid You???d Get Your Ass Kicked For Asking {Hydra Head}

Eugene S. Robinson is a writer, journalist, magazine publisher, interviewer, actor, one time bouncer, mixed martial artist , competitive fighter and front man for art / noise rock band & fight club The Oxbow among other things.?? This ???two fisted audio adventure??? lures you briefly into the world of sport fighting, professional extreme fighting, competitive fighting, prison scraps, bar brawls, street rumbles & other such hand to hand fracas & fisticuffs.?? This is the audio book version of Robinson???s published Fight book.?? In it he outlines his philosophy on fighting, the history of Oxbow as all band & part fight club, training, techniques & styles and interviews with some of the world???s best & deadliest fighters you never knew & would undoubtedly never cross unless you had a death wish or strong desire to visit the infirmary.?? Robinson???s storytelling presentation is engaging & the brutal subject matter vivid & fascinating.?? Some sound effects & Oxbow music add some hue but the real color comes from his articulate musings & blunt ponderings over the art & seemingly animal nature of fighting.?? Knuckle up & come out swinging.??????????????????????????????????????????

FCC:?? CD1 ~ #1, 2, 4, 5, 7???? CD2 ~ #1, 2, 3, 4, 6????

Ferraro, James ??? Chameleon Ballet {Old English Spelling Bee}

James Ferraro is a rather graceful chameleon who creates sounds with The Skaters as well as Way of the Cross.?? Ferraro slithers into synth realms on Chameleon Ballet using cascading keystrokes & strange sustained celestial tones to shift along his colorful sound spectrum.?? He enjoys a combination of avant experimental kraut weirdness, obscure drone ambient, warped Space Age Pop, and a slight touch electronic psychedelic plus peculiar deep percussive bubbles.?? Extremely strange & yet surprisingly enjoyable.?? Perhaps if Kraftwerk, Cluster, Joe Meek, Faust, Frank Comstock & the spacier computer music of Raymond Scott brushed strokes over the same canvas Chameleon Ballet would slink into being.?? Limited to 425 copies.

Triclops! ??? Out Of Africa {Alternative Tentacles}

Cross a Triceratops with a Cyclops, add an exclamation point for emphasis & you get San Francisco???s Triclops! Boasting an astonishing underground amalgam comprised of John Geek (Fleshies) on sci fi tremolo vocals & hi squeaky macaw screams, Christian Beaulieu (Bottles & Skulls) ripping on rhesus macaque prog-punk guitar power, Phil Becker (Lower Forty-Eight) keeping behemoth beats on drums, and Larry Boothroyd (Victim???s Family) locking it up with his bucking bull of a Longhorn bass. Fantastic freak outs fuse punk, psych, prog, post rock & experimental into edgy, intensely complex, forever shifting, fresh & fired up precision playing. Watch out for this odd animal, Triclops!, especially since the druggy sedative you shot in its rump wasn???t enough to keep it from prowling & writhing about. It???s messed up & groggy but that???s not to say it doesn???t have claws and won???t rear up & bite you on this weird sound safari.

Murcof ??? The Versailles Sessions {Leaf}

Murcof is Fernando Corona from Barcelona, Spain via Corona, Mexico.?? Confused??? Relax, he???s a really cool underground electronic artist who constructs devastatingly subtle & dark layered soundscape textured electronica using percussion and samples.?? This is an amazing interim release designed specifically for & played at France???s Chateaux de Versailles for a killer festival in summer 2007 employing water, sound & light as mediums.?? Murcof enlisted Parisian musicians to play 17^th century Baroque instruments as well as a mezzo soprano female vocalist to compliment his cinematically ethereal & spooky experimental environments & occasional percussive moments.?? This is not so drastically different from the nether realms of gorgeous inky black scores he normally devises, however, this a sure step away from his glitchy beats & more rhythm based electronic sounds.?? His methods are mostly organic & acoustically performed over six mesmerizing pieces on this wickedly limited & delicious double vinyl LP.

Connors, Loren ??? The Moon Last Night {Family Vineyard}

Loren Connors has played impressively versatile avant style bottle neck Delta blues improvisations for over 30 years. Of course, Connors??? is not your typical blues. Hell, his avant style electric & acoustic guitar compositions are anything but ordinary. The Moon Last Night is nothing close to blues. Connors uses heavily processed, atmospheric soaked, doom tinged, air hissing, creepy laced chiming guitar which land you onto his deathly white lunar surface. Two tracks on one sided vinyl immerse you fathoms deep inside a craterous sounding ethereal splendor. Connors does some amazingly detached tones with chilling haunted vibes. His improvisation & skill during this process are phenomenal. Pink Floyd???s got nothin??? on this dark side of the moon Limited to 500 copies.

Ulaan Khol ??? II {Soft Abuse}

Ulaan Khol is Steven R. Smith.?? Not sure who that is, huh??? Perhaps his other solo endeavor Hala Strana rings a bell or his bands Mirza or even Thuja might strike a chord??? He???s even part of the Jewled Antler Collective.?? Don???t worry.?? Mr. Smith has numerous names and rarely performs live so it???s kinda hard to keep up.?? Ulaan Khol is a solo effort submerged in psychedelic guitar, beset by floating feedback, ominous, expansive & strangely beautiful atmospheric traits.?? Foggy processed guitars, sustained misty organ tones and peculiar thumping & slapping sample percussion invite a soothing cerebral environment.???? He also slips in hazy grainier textures & distorted sound blots.?? He delights in improvising a full sonic spectrum that is remarkably composed yet intensely tripped out.?? II is the second chapter in a three part music exploration called Ceremony. ????Heroic talent from an elusive individual.????

OvO ??? Croce Via {Load}

OvO???s fifth album Croce Via (Crossroads) is their second full length on the astonishing Load Records.?? This Milan duo has done split releases with K.K. Null, Cock E.S.P. and Rollerball and, wow, wouldn???t you know they???ve played live at KFJC 89.7 FM???s infamous ???The Pit.????? Hell, they even made it onto the Live From The Devils Triangle Comp Vol. #8.?? Croce Via has Stefania Pedretti???s stewing anguished feral screeches & caterwauling roars rising over ripped bass obliterations and Bruno Dorella???s heavy handed drum crushing.?? Strangely, you also get some melodic moments and tuneful singing that is before these two starts plunging deep into doom realms.?? This is messy, wrecked & ruined riffs on the warped ugly side of rock and verging on dark experimental audio aggression.?? AIDS Wolf meets Sunn O))) and Isis halfway??? Gettin??? warm there, pilgrim.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Kiyama, Akiko ??? 7 Years {District of Corruption}

Akiko Kiyama is an exceptionally talented young laptop musician.?? She was born in Tokyo, Japan and discovered her expressive music passion during her early teen years through classical music performance.?? She got hooked on U.K. drum & bass and the electronic club scene and by age 20 started pumping out her own style on select EP???s .?? She now lives in Berlin, Germany expanding upon her impressive skills.?? Richie Hawtin digs her murky minimalist dance flavor so she???s obviously tweaking the right ears.?? Akiko Kiyama???s debut full length album seems like a nice fusion of synthetics, samples, squeaks, scratches, squiggles, and sleek slaps geared & produced for crazy club kids looking for a fun fresh sound.?? Her micro techno is influenced by IDM, Jungle, maybe even some Acid House & possibly Kraftwerk.?? She???s got some nice fluty breezes, impeccably rhythmic sensibilities, trippy other worldly tones, masterful mixing & balance, vivid imagination, and a predisposition towards hip addictive electronic music.????????

Brunnen ??? Swoon {Beta-Lactam Ring}

Brunnen???s (a.k.a. Freek Kinkelarr) Swoon now sees a limited edition CD release (300 copies) on Beta-Lactum Ring for what was once an even rarer limited vinyl release on Seven On A Broom In The Sky back in 1993.?? Apparently, there were only 215 vinyl copies but Brunnen himself purports 263 copies were made.?? Nonetheless, this is brilliant nocturnal ambient soundscape electronic music recorded in the Netherlands.?? I sort of thought this was Edward Ka-spel on vocals and the subtle music compositions something like a cross between Legendary Pink Dots, Current 93 and Cluster.?? Turns out Edward Ka-spel does play keyboards on ???Scars On A Windowpane.????? Besides that glowing gem, Swoon manifests charming, serenely spooky songs, pleasantly sung in a low range harmony amongst the drifting ambient drizzle.?? Brunnen???s gorgeous yet tragically bereaved fluid melodies were created using an outdated Ensonic ESQ 1 synthesizer which thrills me like the first time I???d heard Gary Numan.?? Whatever drum machine or sequenced beat was used is delicate, stripped down to a primitive yet graceful throb or tap.?? Towards albums end, guitar strums emerge accenting the dream cloud enchantment.?? Quite beautiful.?? Swoon is very appropriate.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Alva Noto ??? Unitxt {Raster-Noton}

Alva Noto (a.k.a. Carsten Nicolai of Signal as well as Cyclo) is one of those Germans germinating circuit surging snafus & microscopic digital sound bugs.?? Systematic pronounced pulsing, semi-busy buzzing, staggered static processing & upbeat glitch sequences without sequencer aid serve up these sonic texts.?? Alva Noto uses his noggin & the universal language of mathematics to measure out his music???s meter.?? Anne-James Chaton provides verbal text spoken in French on a few clicking cuts.?? It???s pretty clever how Alva Noto devises his sound base.?? One (track 7) uses copyread credit card information & other odds & ends sources from inside Alva Noto???s own wallet.?? After the first ten compositions, you can play around with 14 source codes sound files created from digital data & programs.?? I guess you could burn a cd-r copy and play & mix them to your taste over the main text.?? Pretty cool concept, not to mention an enjoyably warm spunky album.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Neptune ??? Gong Lake {Table of Elements}

This Boston based trio has been cranking out serious metal music for quite some time.?? No not that chugga chugga thrash demon possessed death obsessed black metal although that certainly is good.?? No this is jagged industrial art punk played upon self-made scrap metal instruments fashioned from spare bicycle parts, oil drum cans, hand designed wiring & electronics, circular saw blades and odds & ends welded into ultra heavy instruments.?? The music??? If Portland Bike Ensemble, the Vanishing, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Sightings, Les Georges Leningrad, Einsturzende Neubauten bludgeoned & bleed together this metallic macabre vibe would emerge.?? It???s stressed, panicky, percussive, kooky, off-kilter, dark, deranged & pretty catchy in a strange sort of way.?? Instrumental interludes plus some carefully deployed deranged lyrics.?? Their strangeness and rockin??? rhythms & tones carry the full weight and kick it into overdrive without the overload.?? ????Their mood has definitely a sinister edge & they change slightly on each new recording. Neptune definitely plumbs the depths of cryptic, creative & crushing deep six sounds.?? Awesome!

No embarrassing Fa-la-la???s, tried & true Jingle Bells, devout decrees of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.?? This is the irreverent Billy Childish spreading cheer with a greenish black smear & a sneer all over the once pure white snow.?? These are the corrosive John Waters-style Christmas carols you wish you grew up singing during the Holidays.?? This second album features all new material from Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire (a.k.a Nurse Julie on bass & vox plus Wolf Howard on drums) and it rocks a seedier, snottier side of Father Christmas & those ridiculous Yule tide festivities.?? This is classic stuff with rippin??? bass, revved up guitar riffs & ass shakin??? drum beats & hand claps.?? It???s a steamin??? garage rockin??? late 70???a punk soundin??? feel good LP that celebrates X-mas by just trashin??? the hell out of it.?? Merry Fuckin??? Christmas To You ALL!!!

FCC: B6 = FUCK

Treetops ??? Permission / When I Was Younger {Arbor}

Treetops (a.k.a. Mike Pollard) creates semi disturbed droning ambient space with minimalist sounds & processed vocals.?? Enveloping delayed reverb saturated unnerving drift spaces and tones that lumber, Jack.?? Hear almost tinny psychedelic tones & resonances shifting about, glistening & whistling.?? Subtle muted moans dampened in the murky mossy tree trunk hollows.?? Pulpy tape loops & other strange sapling samples seem to slowly swirl deep inside a seldom traversed woodland realm where some dimensional rift was pried open by ancient roots deep beneath the forest floor.?? Or perhaps this prevailing sinister mist does indeed enshroud the treetops themselves permeating the night air, alerting nocturnal creatures to the splendid magic arboreal terror approaching swiftly across the gnarled boughs and crooked branches stretched outwardly towards a pale fog obscured moon.?? Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans mastered the recording itself but the actual tree doctor who nurtured this timbered sound structure knows this forest like the back of his calloused hands.?? Don???t be a sap, make like a tree & cradle in the Treetops before the bough breaks.?? Leaf the puns alone, huh? Limited to 300 copies.

Off Minor ??? Some Blood {Paramnesia}

This is intelligent straight edge post hardcore punk with jazzy progressive elements and math rock angular irregularities & melodies with a touch of noise akin to a combination of Fugazi, Battles, Artimus Pyle, Big Black, The Rum Diary, Unsane and Don Caballero.?? This New York trio radiates youthful exuberance and Some Blood marks their third album.?? Their songs plunge into explosive thrash punk energy as quickly as it tapers into serene arrangements.?? It is intensely moody & anguished yet can also be quite gorgeous and forlorn.?? Pretty powerful punk.???? Limited to 700 black LP copies.

Screamers, The ??? Punish Or Be Damned {live recording}

Technically, the Screamers began in 1975 in Seattle, Washington as the Tupperwares.?? After threat of lawsuit & a subsequent relocation to Los Angeles, Tomata du Plenty (a.k.a. David Xavier Harrigan) and Tommy Gear (a.k.a. Melba Toast) changed their name to The Screamers, later enlisting David Brown on synths & K.K. Barrett on drums.?? They foresaw the endless slough of guitar driven punk rock and originated a droning dual keyboard style originally called ???Techno-punk??? and later called ???Synth-punk.??? ????They were part of punk rock???s first wave & played regularly at central Hollywood???s short lived punk club the Masque.?? Sadly, The Screamers never got a record deal and were ever properly recorded in the studio.?? Rough demos & hissing live recordings such as this one taped at The Masque on December 1978 are the only place their music still exists.?? You???ll get to hear favorites like Peer Pressure, Vertigo, Magazine Love, and Punish Or Be Damned.?? Plus you get to hear Tomata scream at the crowd between songs, dedicating Peer Pressure as the song that Christmas is all about while The Masque denizens applaud & squeal with ecstasy.?? This is raw, unleashed & a thrilling example of what punk rock was all about before it degenerated to into homophobic violent macho bullshit.

FCC:?? SIDE B2 = FUCK @ end of Peer Pressure 20 seconds after Tomata screams ???See you tomorrow night!???

De Kleer, Martijn ??? The Stranger It Gets, Part 1 {self-released}

Here???s some soft acoustic folk & indie rock from Martijn De Kleer???s solo efforts & lost tapes circa 1991 ??? 1995.?? De Kleer currently plays with Edward Ka-Spel in the Legendary Pink Dots as well as The Tear Garden.?? The Stranger It Gets is not too far off from a Bonnie Prince Billy venture.?? De Kleer???s halcyon guitar strums & plucks show his tactile versatility & ear for pleasant melody.?? He also knows how to throw in a Dirty Three style rock ditty & close things out with a weird found sound collage trip.?? His lead vocals are well sung & reflective and he seems to be right at home (literally) recording his various instrumentations onto a teensy 4 track cassette recorder.?? Very nice stuff

Mind of Asian ??? A Small Elephant In A Large Forest {Sound Pollution}

OK, so Japanese hardcore has pretty much been kickin??? our heads & asses in lately and these lovely clench fisted ladies pack some mean wallops.?? Don???t be fooled.?? These aren???t sweet flirtatious geishas trying to show you a good time.?? What the fuck are YOU thinking??? These stealthy thrash punk assassins are onna-bugeishas (woman warriors) and will fuck you up nanchaku style.?? Tokyo???s Mind of Asian play super fast aggressive hardcore & shriek like incensed Oni committing hara-kiri.?? Yasu screams raving mercenary battle cries while Mie slashes & shreds some splintering riffs. Tomo???s bass shells out Gamera-style devastation alongside Miho???s earth shattering atomic drum blasts.?? Every so often Mind of Asian busts out a groovin??? chiming & percussive traditional Japanese number before smashing you over the skull… never let your guard down with these deadly vicious vixens in your midst!?? Totally rawkin???!

Evans, Peter and Walter, Weasel Group ??? Oculus Ex Abyssus {ugEXPLODE}

This record???s name should translate to Eye Out Of Hell or The Eyes of Hell??? then again my Latin is atrocious.?? Nevertheless, devilicious drummer Weasel Walter (Lake of Dracula, To Live and Shave in L.A., XBXRX, Curse of the Birthmark, Flying Luttenbachers, etc.) joins super tweaky avant trumpet blaster Peter Evans, supercharged sneaky saxophonist Paul Hartsaw and crushing contrabass conspirator Damon Smith to comprise an insane instrumental avant jazz explosion.?? Two tracks per side on this lush green limited to 300 copies vinyl flaunt their precision, creativity and insanity.?? The Evil Eye is wide open when they let it really rip.?? Walter???s drumming is tight & spastic but can be tempered to fit the ensembles shifting moods.?? All four really know how to improvise & play off each other it seems.?? It can hover eerily in spots and then burst into a cataclysmic opus.?? Side B gets into some heavy horn breathing too & some other weird sounds showcasing Peter Evans prowess.?? Pretty strange & interesting since the odd sounds you hear are all produced acoustically.

Up-tight ??? Early Years A-Library CD {Archive CD}

Impeccably improvised Japanese psychedelic rock from four dudes who know how to get heavy & also explore hypnotic sonic spaces.?? This album compiles the Early Years of this renowned Shizuoka, Japan psych stoner band featuring their first album from 1999 plus previously unreleased live & studio cuts from 1994.?? These guys really phase in & out of some superbly amazing & scorching psych jams.?? It???s funny they can totally get away with some softer melodic moments before crushing down hard like a LSD tidal wave.?? Some of the cuts need some patience to appreciate since they can be long & not always pick up like you???d expect them to.?? Up-tight??? Baby ev???rything is alright & out of sight. ??Did I mention they played live & appeared on KFJC???s Live From The Japanese Music Underground comp for 2008??? They do???