Whisplash 2007

I am now done with posting Overkill videos. The last one made a point: you can still play good thrash metal from the 1980s in 2007. Here's another proof: Metallica's “Whisplash” at Werchter. The audio-only version has really good sound.



“Sick of the Studio” was good news for the people who lived close to the tour locations, and good news for people who have seen and joyed Metallica live. Their Reading concert a few years ago was good, even though they were touring “St Anger”. Metallica are rightfully sick of the studio: their recent studio stuff is interesting, but it is not good (“Vulturous” has potential, which lasts 15 seconds and then dies in useless vocalisations and a monotonous arrangement). But their tours are still good! And I think that “S & M” carried the insight that their old stuff is good enough to enjoy several cycles of innovative recycling. Thrash has many lives.

On a different topic, the cable that goes from my computer to the hi-fi is badly damaged and I get sound through only one speaker (left). The funny thing is that it gives me the opportunity to listen to records in a different way. Caravan's “Golf Girl” in mono is funny, because the horn at the beginning is completely killed, it's only guitars, drums and vocals!

Overkill frenzy, last episode

Watching Overkill at Wacken 2007 perfected my knowledge of the band, which is impressively good on stage. Their new drummer is absolutely fantastic. Here's “Wrecking Crew” with muffled yet enjoyable sound:



And the unforgettable “Rotten to the Core” live, again!

Post-rock by friends

I had never thought that one day I would come to lik bands of which I know members personally. Because I am picky and because local bands do not get much support, I thought this would never happen. Of course, my reasoning is flawed by the fact that every band was once a local band; my dichotomy is inconsistent.

My hometown is Grenoble, France. The two 'proximal' bands I listen to on a regular basis are:

- High Tone, a dub band from Lyon (good website by the way). I have seen them play at the Eurockéennes festival a long time ago. Their work is just excellent. I even came to work briefly with people who themselves work with their label, Jarring Effects.

- RIEN, a very good post-rock band from Grenoble of which I happen to know a member; we spent time in the same class in high school. The label is the Amicale Undergound, and the two albums happen to be… free. Isn't that perfect? Go and listen to it.

Overkill

You learnt about Overkill yesterday. I have done my video-homework and can now testify: Overkill is one of those rare bands which managed to preserve their 1980s identity through the 1990s, despite the deadly nature of this decade for high-pitched voices and clear snare drums. Here they are, playing 'Rotten to the Core' in 2004 as if it were 1985:



The guy who uploaded the first piece puts it this way: 'fuckers are still killing it.' Enough said.

Also enjoy 'Coma' live (n.d.):

Two Doors to Thrash Metal

Here are two interesting entry points to the thrash galaxy.

1.

“Coma” by Overkill. The video is in fact the studio version collated to a variety of concert extracts:



2.

“Burnt Offerings” by Testament. I cannot seem to find a decent live version. This will have to do:



… but please go and find the album version.

Where was this music born? Check this foggy picture of the San Franscisco bay.

These songs are interesting entry points to thrash metal because they tell you what to expect (catchy guitar riffs, terrific drums) and what not to expect (interesting lyrics, innovative song structures). For some reason the album versions of the songs seem more interesting to me.

My own introduction to thrash metal was unconventional, since I first heard of it through Metallica's S & M -- not exactly a traditional thrash record.

So What?

Led Zep

You can't really miss the bootlegs and video material. Two stills can help me make my point, however. Here's the Zeppelin in 1969 for a live in Paris:



And here's the Zeppelin in London, 2007:



Let's agree that the visual performance is probably less fun. But the sound, the sound, is still great from what I can hear!

Notes from the week

• Blackfield, “II” is not bad. Now I can see where Opeth is coming from (some tracks are very similar as far as the general harmonics are concerned, especially if you listen to Opeth's acoustic masterpiece).


• Faith No More, “The Real Thing” is quickly importing from the CD. Let's see. Isn't “War Pigs” a song by Black Sabbath? HA–I knew it!


• My longlasting love story with French hard rock from the eighties continues: I just bought H-Homb, “Attaque” on iTunes (the funniest band ever), and Trust, “Répression” is now the most listened album in my library, right after…


• … The Chemical Brothers, “Dig your Own Hole” -- because this album is simply one of the best electronic music albums I have ever heard.

Minimal techno heaven

Kinosport has the best minimal techno available for free. Check their posts about my hometown, Grenoble! And the music is excellent, that is, if you are into very minimal techno (Stephan Bodzin, for instance).

Favorite minimal techno artists so far: Plastikman/Richie Hawtin (Closer), Stewart Walker (esp. Live Extracts), Joris Voorn (Fuse).

From a friend

Roland Kirk Lover Man
Uploaded by boberwig

To be listened together

• “Moonchild” (King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King, 1969)
• “Dissolving Clouds” (Biosphere, Dropsonde, 2006)

As soon as you will have been through the instrumental part in the former, you will not be able to miss the link with the latter.

A fantastic link over 37 years of music.

Cross-fertilising

I am posting something on my LiveJournal blog that may interest those of you invisible/non-existent readers who listen to Bad Religion or politically engaged music in general.

Wyatt in Paris

You will have to read French. The videos, however, feature Wyatt answering the audience in English. The website posting the links is the best resource I know about Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine and progressive rock in general.

His theory of art and his views on the current crisis within the music industry are just right on spot. His explanation of jazz-rock (in his case bebop and rock) and is also a fantastic reading of his work. Finally, his character is refreshingly humble, good-tempered and glowingly happy.

Watch it just to feel better about ageing, humanity, life, politics, music and the rest.

Harold Budd

According to his Wikipedia page, I have missed a few releases by Harold Budd, most notably two connected albums with Robin Guthrie (with whom he composed the excellent Mysterious Skin soundtrack) and an exclusively digital album recorded in memory of one of his former teachers. The page indicates:

# 2007 Perhaps (Samadhisound)
# 2007 After The Night Falls (with Robin Guthrie) Darla Records
# 2007 Before The Day Breaks (with Robin Guthrie) Darla Records

Harold Budd is one of my favourite ambient artists, along with Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Biosphere, and some work by David Sylvian on Gone to Earth (I already wrote about this album here). Tortoise probably fits in this list too.

If you would like to discover Harold Budd in a single album (his career spans over decades), his Music for 3 Pianos with Ruben Garcia and Daniel Lentz is exceptional—with rather sad overtones, don't expect Cuban rumba.

Ministry - No W

BBC Reviews

BBC Experimental now has a syndication feed, featuring:

• The last Fripp & Eno. In line with The Equatorial Stars.
• The last Robert Wyatt. In line with Cuckooland.

Dailymotion Jazz Group

This made my day. Some of the videos are exceptionally good, just like Miles Davis.

Are you still here?

Listening to Kraftwerk

My three-part guide.

• Part 1: 1974-1975. Albums: Autobahn, Radio-Activity. The best way to discover what they were trying to do is to listen to their live is Köln from 1975, which was recorded and released by some Italian bootleg radio.
• Part 2: 1977-1978. Building the crib for industrial music. Trans-Europe Express is the cold hand, Die Mensch-Machine is the warm hand.
• Part 3: 1981-onwards. The stuff that inspired electronic dance music. Album: Computer World. Their last versions (Tour de France, Minimum Maximum) are funny tribute: “look guys, we're also doing techno now—But you invented it in the first place!”

Radiohead, “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”

To my own amazement, there is something in the last Radiohead (free) album that is actually interesting. “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” is their first song with more to it than some kind of weak lament covered by what I consider to be poor arrangements.

Funnily enough, the last track on the last Chemical Brothers, “The Pills won't Help you Now,” comes with an identical development in its rhythmics (well, at least in my twisted vision of the matter).

Precisions:

1. Yes, “paying what you like” means “free” to me, they still owe me for their previous overpriced records.
2. Yes, I do consider the full Radiohead career to have been less inventive than the first fourteen notes from King Crimson's “Starless.”
3. Wow, that's my first “plain rock” post!
   

Zeppelin fuel

Led Zeppelin is fuel you pick up on the road to keep going forward. Here's a very decent live recorded in Paris in 1971. Seven songs, two from I, one from II, two from III, two from IV.

Slayer - Raining Blood

The best version (followed by Black Magic):



All drenched in blood:



With better audio/video:



Get a glimpse at the audience:



Top 10 of all-time best hard rock.

Five favourite albums (Part 1: Soft Machine and David Sylvian)

I should not play this game (especially at 3am), but I am starting to identify my favourite albums with greater precision.

The first one is clearly Soft Machine, Third. Every note on this album has left a mark in my mind. “Facelift” and “Slightly All the Time” are my ideal representations of, respectively, tortured and groovy electrified jazz music. “Moon in June” is the prelude to Robert Wyatt's foundational album, “Rock Bottom.” (produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason). “Out-Bloody Rageous” shows how to compose and play in the idiom of Steve Reich, with added jazz-rock style. The remastered 2007 edition of Third has extra live tracks (Facelift was already live on the 1970 Columbia recording). I listen to it almost every night.

The second one is David Sylvian, Gone to Earth. If memory serves, I discovered it after drifting from Brian Eno to Brian Eno & Robert Fripp, then to Robert Fripp & David Sylvian, and finally to David Sylvian. The album shocked me as the best ambient album I had ever listened to, even if Brian Eno's experimental work had been my first introduction to the genre. I remember listening to it looped when reading my courses for the preparation of my brevet des collèges (the BEPC, a French equivalent to the GCSE which we take when sixteen).

The third album will be a King Crimson album from their first period, which started with In the Court of the Crimson King and ended with Red. I yet have to pick my favourite Crimson album. I have only little clue about the fourth and fifth ones, but they will probably feature Brian Eno and perhaps Harold Budd at his side, King Crimson's Robert Fripp, Robert Wyatt (solo) and David Sylvian.

Followers include Pink Floyd from their first psychedelic period (Animals is so amazingly brilliant), new ambient composer Biosphere for his 2004 album Autour de La Lune based on the French radio archives of Jules Vernes, post-rock band Tortoise for understanding Brian Eno so carefully, and Frank Zappa, for being Frank Zappa, the Boris Vian from the eighties.

Alphabet City

What came before Hardtechno vol.3, the excellent mix by Kvitta? Discogs tells me here and there. From what I can tell from the tracklist, it's the same kind of hard techno, I cannot wait to find them!

Apocalyptica

... has a new album with Till Lindermann singing on the most interesting tune – “Helden,” a German version of David Bowie's “Heroes.”

Find it as soon as you can!

Crash the Zeppelin

I was part of the crowd of 20 million people who crashed the registration system for their once-19-years concert.

Communication Breakdown/It's always the same/...!

Music for Airports

The original Brian Eno record was a small revolution in ambient, but the Bang on a Can adaptation is even better! It feels like walking under water. Or maybe that's because it's 3.30am.

Cash, “Cocaine Blues”

Just to add a second country song to balance the first one:

“Union Maid”, by Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie

I once had a History & Geography teacher who shared some resemblance with the guy on the left:



And they sung the same type of songs too!

Via.

Rachid : “Je la désire”

Probably the funniest song on the planet (yes, it beats the Lumberjack song). I try to watch it every day to keep faith in humanity.

Nouvelle Star - Rachid
Uploaded by lyline19

The lyrics go like this:

Je vais à sa chambre, je vais à sa chambre
Je la vois, elle s'habille, elle se déshabille comme une abeille
Je fais demi-tour, je fais demi-tour
Je commence à ouvrir son frigo
Oh yeah, Oh yeah
Je vois la mayonnaise, je suis amoureux
I love you, oh yeah
Elle le croit
Elle me dit "S'il te plaît Rachid, s'il te plaît Rachid"
"Chope-moi un Kiri"
Je lui dit (…)
Elle m'a dit une voix douce
Elle m'a dit une voix douce
Je lui ai dit
I believe I can fly
(…)
Oh yeah
C'est ma chérie

Jazz tracks

Two tracks from my secret list of favourite jazz tracks ever:

• Herbie Hancock, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” on his amazing live with Chick Corea (An Evening With…, 1978)
  
  
• Mike Ratledge, “Slightly All the Time,” on Soft Machine's Third album (1970)
  
  

The video supply for these tracks is not that bad, thanks in particular to the jazzheads who are spending their days downloading from the French National Audiovisual Archives (INA) and uploading them on Youtube instead.

It is obvious that you should not trust live recordings to reflect album performace, but I think they will give you a pretty good idea. Third has been remastered in 2007, while the Hancock/Corea live was already perfect on first take: you can hear some slight humming over the piano at some point, but nothing critical like in Gould's Variations for instance.

Frank Kvitta

My baptism to the Church of Hard Techno Wisdom was performed by Technasia back in the days of “Hydra” (see my first post on this blog), but the archbishop of the discipline is definitely DJ Rush. And like the Pope, DJ Rush is always right. Which is why you have to listen to Frank Kvitta.

Kvitta gave one of his tapes to DJ Rush in a night club, and Rush liked it enough to invite him to release an EP on his label Kne' Deep. This should be enough to throw any hard techno amateur to his local music dispatch with the right spelling of ‘kvitta’ written on the back of his hand with a thick black pen.

As expected, his stuff (not everything though) is amazingly good hard techno. The first video was apparently made by one of Frank Kvitta's friends, Mario Ranieri.



The second video features Pet Duo, another rising star in hard techno.



Another video by Marco Ranieri, taken in a Hungarian club in Budapest. What is simply über-cool about this video is that it opens with the best track from the Donnie Darko soundtrack by Michael Andrews, one of my favourite ambient works.



Update: so Kvitta is my best pick for this summer. Hardtechno vol. 3 is wonderful: it wakes me up. It's how spending most of my time looking for contemporary classic musicians has sent me straight back to 130 BPM hard techno, the closest to hardcore I have ever been since an old apocryphal mix by Jeff Mills. The tracklist is going to provide me with new material for months.

Eminem

As a supplement to the previous Mos Def posting, here's one of the acceptably good clips by Eminem, who wrote some great pages in the book of American white trash hip hop despite the cohorts of WASP zombies who followed his lead.



Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is also very much fun to watch, use your online video-fetching skills.

Mos Def

To my own surprise, I am enjoying Mos Def a lot. It all started with this track “Respiration” from the Backstar duo he is part of. Here's my discovery thread, from Steve Reich to Mos Def. “Respiration” appears on Howie B's Another Late Night. Howie B participated to the Reich:Remixed album with DJ Spooky, Ken Ishii, Andrea Parker and more geniuses.

But back to Blackstar:



After that, I decided Mos Def deserved another serious try. So I rushed to his Most Definite best-of album, and there it is: “Ms Fat Booty”. Funny as hell, tends to remind me of Cypress Hill's “Freak Bitch.”



Maybe Mos Def's appearance in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes played a role in my recent interest for the American rapper.

A look back at Laurent Garnier

Laurent Garnier released an appropriately titled Retrospective album in 2006. This is far more interesting than a best of, insofar as the selection rests, in theory, on the artist's personal favourites instead of the top sales argument.

The album has my favourite Laurent Garnier track, and definitely one that I would include on my imaginary introduction to techno: “Raw Cut”, originally from the album Shot in the Dark. I remember loving this track so much that I could play it backwards (using SoundEdit 16 on my Performa 5400) and still enjoy it. I still play it two or three times in a row when I listen to it.

The live recording on “Man With The Red Face” reminds me the St Germain concert we attended with Am. a few years ago. French techno/house has a lot to offer.

Max Richter

I just (re)discovered Max Richter. Discovered it on this video (the music comes from his 2006 album). Rediscovered it because I am a huge fan of the Future Sound of London (FSOL), and Max Richter is actually everywhere in their music, producing, playing. He's the piano on FSOL's “Max” from Dead Cities. He also plays the mellotron for Vashti Bunyan; I cannot wait to listen to some of it.

Sometimes I spend months without finding any music that really catches my attention. I am almost sure that I am back on track! The last musician to have this impact on me was Nik Turner (see this post), and this seems to have been ages ago.

Front Line Assembly's “Millenium”

Millenium (1994) by Front Line Assembly (FLA) is one of my favourite industrial rock albums.
Too bad there is no music video for its first track, “Vigilante”, which starts with these unforgettable lines:

We are not the same. I'm an American, you're a sick asshole.
Feels good to exercise your rights, doesn't it? (sound of shootings)

I wondered where the samples come from. They are from Falling Down (1993), by Joel Schumacher and starring Michael Douglas.

“Surface Patterns” is one of the best tracks of the album. The vocal “Victim of a Criminal” is probably its weakest.

Herzeleid and Band Updates

Herzeleid is a really good resource on all things Rammstein-esque. Its feed sends me the essential news about the band: tours, singles, albums, and important updates on side projects in which Rammstein members take part.

I wish there was a kind of portal somewhere to play the role of Herzeleid for virtually any band, providing a feed with tours and releases. I thought Last.fm was going to provide something close to that, but it did not. Discogs is far from anything that interactive (it is an excellent catalog nonetheless).

Weekend bootlegs: Soft Machine and Metallica

Two excellent live bootlegs for this weekend:

• The “Hazard Profile” live by Soft Machine, recorded at two different places in the UK. I am listening to this live jointly with the remastered versions of Six and Seven, which do not have Robert Wyatt's imagination, voice and creativity as Soft Machine's first three albums, but which stay very good progressive rock albums.
• The “Sick of Werchter” live by Metallica, recorded in Germany this year. A lot of old classics from Kill'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All. They even played Orion! I need to say that this live is by far the best live bootleg I have heard from Metallica, and the second best live after the S & M album.

No Sleep 'til Motörhead

Mötörhead's No Sleep 'til Hammersmith is definitely the best live album I have ever listened to. I feel I am somewhere in the middle of the room during songs like 'Bomber' or 'Mötörhead' -- and right at the front during 'Ace of Spades' and a bunch of others!

Jazz “experts”

Over coffee with a friend-of-a-friend:

”Do you like jazz?”
“– Oh yes, but I'm nothing like a jazz expert”

But there is nothing like a jazz expert. I thought I knew something about jazz, and then I read a bit of Boris Vian's columns for Jazz Hot, and I knew nothing again. I thought I knew a bit of Jimmy Smith, and then I read Robert Wyatt's comment on Mike Ratledge (French interview, Rock & Folk, 1967), saying his work was probably the most innovative since Smith, and I realised that I had missed what now seems so obvious to me.

I do not believe in jazz experts and I am not even sure jazz allows the concept of a jazz expert. In Howard Becker's Outsiders (1963), there are only two types of audience people: those with jazz, and those without (“squares”). And the fact that a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant society allowed for the growth of jazz music must be a proof that no one is condemned to squareness.

Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution by Cleopatra Records (1993) is the best industrial rock selection I have ever listened to. I discovered it by pure chance about ten years ago, as far as I can remember, at my local library.

The trackslisting includes a few jewels that set the path for the rest of industrial music: Einstürzende Neubauten's "Feurio!", Spahn Ranch's "Mind Riot", Throbbing Gristle's "Hot On The Heels Of Love" (I just wish they could include "Zyklon B Zombie" for the sake of contrast), and other classics by Klute and Revolting Cocks. I was pleasantly surprised to find the avant-garde punk track "Third Uncle" by Brian Eno had been included -- in fact, this may have played an important role in me picking up the disc in the first place, along with the weird cover. Sister Machine Gun's "Addiction" is a personal favourite.

The following video for Spahn Ranch's "Locusts" (1995) sets the scene for those of you who do not have a single clue of what industrial music sounds like:



The second CD features some of the most influential tracks I know in industrial rock: Front Line Assembly's "Mindphaser", Kraftwerk's "Metal on Metal" (which describes its epoch better than anything else), Nik Turner's "Thoth" (another personal favourite), and Sleep Chamber's "Beside Dance". Tracks by KMFDM, Ministry and Pressurehed are also there.

The double CD is definitely worth it. It does not seem to be very well known, at least not on the Internet surface. Its underground after-taste probably makes it even more enjoyable.

Takkyu Ishino, “Polynasia” (Edit)

A Japanese take on techno

Here's an interesting take on techno by a Japanese guy.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

The tracklisting is very interesting. I realise that I know more about underground techno than expected! I particularly recommend the following: classics from Jeff Mills and Underground Resistance; Joris Voorn; and of course the remarkable Takkyu Ishino that opens Part 2. Ken Ishii also has an interesting record.

Introducing Hydragroon

“Hydra” was released in 1999 by Technasia; “Groon” was released in 1972 by King Crimson. These two tracks have influenced my life more than expected. This blog will contain a few postings on music.